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BBC Proms, V&A Museum, London
6 September 2004
Britten Sinfonia
Rolf Hind, piano
Nicholas Daniel, oboe
[A] murder in the V&A.
At lunchtime! This was the last Proms Chamber Music recital at the museum,
played by members of the fine Britten Sinfonia under Nicholas Daniel's
direction. And the murder? Well, the grisly discovery in 1943 of a woman's
corpse, stuffed in a tree, was the starting point for Simon Holt's new
instrumenatl piece, The Coroner's Report.
Is Holt obsessed? Last year
he made this same murder the basis for an odd little opera called Who
put Bella in the Witch Elm? The Coroner's Report is rather more compelling.
It turns each of the eight exhibits mentioned by the coroner - severed
hand, gold ring, and so on - into furious outbursts showcasing each instrument
in turn. In fact one player, the heroic Rolf Hind, was required to play
the piano frenetically with hs left hand while dazzling on the celesta
with his right. (What a pity the severed hand wasn't available to help
out.) The piece isn't easy listening, yet I found its dark, almost sadistic
mood gripping. Perhaps, though, it is time for Holt to move on - if not
to a different subjecy, then at least to a fresh corpse.
The Times
[The] Britten Sinfonia's lunchtime
chamber music Prom given at the Victoria and Albert Museum under Nicholas
Daniel's direction and with the help of pianist Rolf Hind, began with
Janacek's charmingly zoological Concertino, ended with Martinu's la Revue
de Cuisine (an improbable mini-ballet about pots, lids, dishcloths and
spoons and their eternal love triangles) and included Dallapiccola's brief,
evocative Piccola musica noturna.
There was also a new Proms
commission from Simon Holt. The Coroner's Report is a spin-off from his
short 2002 opera Who put Bella in the Wich Elm?, about the still unexplained
finding in 1943 of a woman's body in a tree. Its short numbers, sparely
scored, are each devoted to an exhibit: a shoe, a ring, a hand, a knife...it's
pithy, atmospheric, idiomatic - the perfect alliance of dark, innermost
imagination and outward voice.
Evening Standard
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