Aaron Copland was an unlikely musical portraitist of the American plains and prairies. Son of Jewish immigrants from Brooklyn and student of modernism with Nadia Boulanger in Paris, he nonetheless created the quintessential American orchestral sound with a series of popular (“vernacular” was his phrase) works in 1930s and 1940s. Last night three of his most popular pieces were paired with two new pieces inspired by jazz, that other great American twentieth-century music. While the first half of last night’s concert, three Copland pieces, was charismatic if a little scrappy, the second, the UK premiere of Chris Brubeck’s Travels in Time for Three, was simply a revelation.
BBC Concert Orchestra conductor Keith Lockhart has a vivacious podium style, demonstrative yet dapper, with the definite beat of a big-band conductor needing to keep the brass in line. He approached the three Copland pieces energetically, seeking to draw out their dynamic contrasts by massaging the phrasing into sometimes slightly exaggerated dramatic shape, and maximising the tempi. There was much vivid instrumental colour, especially in the brass and percussion, which is essential for these pieces’ evocative power. The violins struggled for perfect ensemble in a couple of the busier passages of Appalachian Spring, though their legato tone projected pastoral serenity more successfully. Quiet City, often described as an urban pastoral, balanced the outdoor worlds of Appalachian Spring and Rodeo - Four Dance Episodes effectively, though from where I was sitting (at RAH it’s often the acoustics) neither trumpet nor cor anglais soloist had the penetration required to create the piece’s dramatic dialogue.
Moments that seemed to come from Charlie Parker, Percy Grainger, Bach and Stravinsky danced exhilaratingly
The Copland won’t, however, be what this Prom is remembered for. The second half, featuring new work by Chris Brubeck, son of jazz giant Dave, provoked the kind of spontaneous rapture musicians dream about. Brubeck’s arrangement of his father’s piece Blue Rondo à la Turk began the second half in style. Orchestral arrangements of jazz pieces often blunt the definition and cause the rhythm to sag, but this spat and crackled as brilliantly as the original, with the orchestra’s wider palette adding colour.
Brubeck’s own composition, Travels in Time for Three, is a concerto for string trio and orchestra, in which the trio (plus drummer) plays within itself, and with the orchestra, in an ambitious and complex partnership that could, in the wrong hands, have become turgid, but in fact was triumphantly and dazzlingly successful. The title seems to refer both to experimentation with the time signature, a compositional interest shared with Dave Brubeck, and with the historical style of the writing. There were phrases which seemed to emerge from baroque and twentieth-century chamber music, from folk fiddling, and from jazz. If you closed your eyes and listened, moments that seemed to come from Charlie Parker, Percy Grainger, Bach and Stravinsky danced exhilaratingly around one another, within the trio, and between trio and orchestra.
It only worked because Time for Three (pictured right), all classically trained but pursuing what one has, regretfully, to call a crossover career, performed with breathtaking virtuosity. The two violinists, Zachary de Pue and Nicolas Kendall, stood facing one another, legs apart, as if preparing to scrum down. Visually, their performance had more folk jam than concert hall about it, but musically, they switched styles with ease, and double bass player Ranaan Meyer comfortably matched the violinists with some astonishingly fast bowed runs. The trio have a touch of Nigel Kennedy about them in their blending of classical and popular technique and source material, albeit without the mockney, drugs and Aston Villa; you can imagine taking them for tea with a maiden aunt. They may not quite be his equal as classical soloists, but I know who my money’s on for Classic FM’s Christmas chart.
The audience’s response to Brubeck’s piece was overwhelming. The man in front of me, capaciously built and well into his sixties, shot to his feet and bellowed “Encore!” with a ravenous spiritual hunger. (The encore he got, the trio’s arrangement of The Beatles’ “Norwegian Wood”, from their new debut album, was beguilingly lyrical but considerably less challenging than Brubeck’s piece.) On the way out of the hall, Brubeck was thronged by well-wishers, in such a manner as I have never seen with a contemporary composer.
Brubeck’s piece will surely become a staple of the popular classical repertoire (though I’d suggest it deserves to be taken seriously too). Expect Time for Three to be wallpapering the airwaves as Christmas approaches. I just hope they can retain their hunger to innovate. Alongside the extraordinary composition and performances, however, the striking feature of this Prom was to show just how deep and unfulfilled the popular desire for new melodic music is. Where one goes from there, who knows?
