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Royal Festival Hall, London
17 November 2004
Britten Sinfonia
Nitin Sawhney
Putting on this spectacular
multi-media show as a high-risk enterprise for Britten Sinfonia, in
more ways than one. There was the sheer logistical complications of
the exercise, with the two video screens, the light show, the complicated
sound set-up, and the constant comings and goings of guest soloists.
And there was the bold mingling
of musical cultures, with flamenco, North Indian, Brazilian and classical
elements all rubbing shoulders. It could have fallen between half a
dozen stools, and played to a half-empty hall.
And Britten Sinfonia could
have found itself side-lined at its own show, fixed both culturally
and metaphorically (ie seated behind their music stands), while all
round the soloists - above all the multi-talented and culturally omnivorous
Nitin Sawhney - were in constant eye-catching motion.
But it all paid off. The
Festival Hall was packed with an audience that whistled and cheered
its approval. One felt there was a genuine meeting of minds betwen the
orchestra and the musicians around it - above all with Nitin Sawhney,
who'd arranged three tracks from his albums specially for the occasion,
and who also composed a new, three-movement suite.
Around this core were a clutch
of short pieces, some rapt and atill (Arvo Part's Fratres, played by
the Sinfonia), some exuberantly rhythmic (Sawhney's own Prophesy, which
summoned the adrenal excitement of a fast raga through three virtuoso
soloists: Sawhney himself on guitar, Aref Durvesh on tabla and the singer
Davinder Singh).
As for the new orchestral
piece, it showed Sawhney has come a long way since his first orchestral
piece for Britten Sinfonia, Neural Circuits. Those rhythms reappeared
in the new piece, The Classroom, but this time they sounded joyous -
partly because the orchestral players are now getting used to these
rhythms and can enjoy playing them.
Sawhney tells us this piece
was inspired by a childhood memory of being entranced by the sight of
falling snow, and the first movement did indeed have wistful grace,
with lilting string phrases separated by silvery triangle strokes. For
me, Sawhney's lyricism was stronger when tempered by the rigours of
Indian rhythms - as in the last piece, Pieces of ten, which rounded
off the evening in a mood of radiant innocence.
The Telegraph
It was jazz, but not as we
know it. It was also classical and folk, drum'n'bass and blues. Oh, and
Indian, Brazilian, Qawwali and flamenco. Definitions, however, didn't
matter. Nitin Sawhney, a sort of musical superman, has made an art form
out of leaping categories. Last night he cleared them in a single bound.
Surrounded by hos closest musical
collaborators - tabla maestro Aref Durvesh, violinist Chandru, vocalists
Tina Grace and Davinder Singh - Sawhney (and conductor Stephen Hussey)
led Britten Sinfonia through a complex programme filled with purity, emotion
and beauty. It was fitting, perhaps, that this multi-award winner had
come dressed in an ascetic's grey robe. An enabler rather than a performer,
Sawhney let the music and the evocative visuals (by video remixers Yeast)
take the attention.
There was no disguising Sawhney's
dexterity: after beating out Steve Reich's Clapping Music with his palms,
he gave us The Conference, an exploration of Indian classical time cycles
using, simply, voice. Then it was Britten Sinfonia's turn. Violinist Jacqueline
Shave led a delicate interpretation of Reich's Duet, Arvo part's Fratres
was similarly precise. Two epic pieces by Bollywood composer AR Rahman
saw the orchestra swell with requisite melodrama, the Indian rhythms apparent
in Chandru's long violin solo.
Post-interval, new orchestral
arrangements of Sawhney's best-known works - Prophesy, Riverpulse, Homelands
- retained their lush, sweeping lyricism and, aided by images of passports
and spinning globes, defiant one-world message. After a quietly virtuosic
display on guitar and keyboards, Sawhney left the stage for the UK premiere
of his Britten-commissioned work The Classroom, a meditation on childhood
that captured both its tumult (gongs, oboes, drum'n'bass beats) and sense
of possibility (xylophones, flute, those trademark strings). Thrilled,
we appluaded Britten Sinfonia, who appluaded Nitin Sawhney, who - delighted
- applauded them, and us, right back.
Evening Standard
It was hard to pin down what
happened on stage at the Royal Festival Hall last night, but so is the
man who inspired it. As a British Asian born in Rochester, Nitin Sawhney
eludes categorisation.
He studied classical piano with
precocious success at primary school, added flamenco guitar and tabla
and by the age of 15 was playing jazz in clubs. As a student he co-wrote
and starred in Britain's first Asian sketch show, Goodness Gracious
Me , and he now pursues additional parallel careers as a club DJ
and film composer. So for the Britten Sinfonia to commission a work from
him is merely par for the course.
Indeed, this whole concert was
of his devising, and it opened in the most felicitous way, by reciprocating
our welcoming applause with a performance - together with a percussionist
- of Steve Reich's "Clapping Music". Just that: two pairs of hands clapping,
in what seemed initially a simple rhythm, then built into wondrous complexities,
then closed in perfect sync. This segued into Sawhney's "The Conference",
which used vocal patterns to prove how close Reich's ideas are to those
which inform Indian classicism: like those geometric designs on pots found
in widely dispersed prehistoric cultures, these intricate cross-rhythms
are a universal game.
Those images worked beautifully
with the pieces the Britten Sinfonia came on stage to play. Reich's 1994
"Duet" felt a bit too obsessive in the Philip Glass manner, but Arvo Part's
"Fratres" - backed by the hologram of a turning globe - came over as a
glorious exploration, infinitely comforting in its serene predictability.
This was Sawhney's homage, and the Sinfonia delivered it immaculately.
Then came homages of a different sort, in the form of two pieces of film
music by A R Rahman.
The rest was unadulterated Sawhney:
little "tracks" (his word) demonstrating his graceful knack with textures
and timbres, and his ability to meld Eastern and Western styles.
The Independent
Nitin Sawhney has developed
a close relationship with the Britten Sinfonia. Late in 2001, he wrote
Neural Circuits for the players, composed in reaction to September 11,
and now he is touring with the orchestra. This programme juxtaposed performances
of Sawhney's own tracks with AR Rahman's film music, as well as compositions
by Steve Reich and Arvo Part.
The highlight of the evening
was The Classroom, Sawhney's new piece for the Britten Sinfonia. The three-movement
work was inspired by his memories of childhood, and the first movement
began with a simple motif, a lilting waltz figure, that was repeated with
hypnotic intensity. Combined with the warped nostalgia of the visuals,
produced by Yeast, the music had an eerie atmosphere, heightened by the
procession of chords in the second movement. The third movement made the
most powerful impression, an explosion of energy that climaxed in frenetic
runs for the whole ensemble, conducted with mechanical precision by Stephen
Hussey.
The Guardian
Given under the banner of the
London Jazz Festival, this encounter between the Britten Sinfonia and
Nitin Sawhney covered nearly every musical style except jazz. But no one
seemed to mind.
Best of all was Homelands,
a world-music fusion that is both haunting and hypnotic and featured fine
performances from the vocalist Tina Grace, singing Portuguese lyrics,
and the violinist Chandru. Breathing Light, in which a whole line-up of
players was joined by Sawhney on keyboard, was inspired by children in
Soweto and has an exciting kinetic energy; as with everything else here,
visuals by Yeast added stimulating counterpoint. In more intimate mode,
Sawhney showed himself a fluid guitarist in Prophesy, where he was joined
by Davinder Singh on vocals and Aref Durvesh on tabla for a piece that
moved from meditation to a frenetic climax.
In a programme that also included
Fratres, a short lament that represents the best of Arvo Pärt...
the roots of music were not ignored, and it was good to hear both a Steve
Reich classic, Clapping Music, in which Sawhney was joined by Joby Burgess,
and Sawhney’s own exploration of spitfire verbal and drummed rhythm
in The Conference.
The Times
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