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Boston Globe
21-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
Roger Norrington, iconoclastic British conductor, dies at 91
He led both period-instrument and modern orchestras, using the same interpretive principles, and though some of his performances drew criticism for their brash iconoclasm, many listeners regarded them as insightful and refreshingly original. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up 'As ever, with his highly idiosyncratic conducting style, one gets, in addition to a Haydn symphony, the Roger Norrington show,' Boston Globe critic Jeremy Eichler wrote in a review of a Handel and Haydn Society's performance of Haydn's Symphony No. 44 in 2008. 'He seems to delight in exuding his own personality at the orchestra through the medium of the music.' Advertisement Mr. Norrington served as an artistic director of the Handel and Hayden Society from 2006 to 2009. 'The organization feels more interesting when he's around,' Eichler wrote. Lanky, bespectacled, bearded and balding, Mr. Norrington projected both affability and authority, and he loved making the case for his ideas -- not only in interviews but also in seemingly off-the-cuff comments at his concerts. He often cited centuries-old treatises as well as his delight in the 'pure' sound, as he put it, of strings playing without vibrato. He once famously referred to vibrato as 'a modern drug.' Advertisement 'It's not about consecrating a sacred object,' Mr. Norrington said about conducting. 'It's about exploring and being curious and having fun.' Rachel Papo/The New York Times Stu Rosner Stu Rosner Toward the end of his career, he preferred to conduct while seated, usually on a high swivel chair that allowed him to turn to the audience to smile conspiratorially at a light moment within the music, and even to encourage applause. He was known to tell audiences that they could applaud between the movements of a symphony or a concerto, a common practice in the 18th and 19th centuries that is frowned on today. He reveled in being provocative. In a 2021 interview with The Telegraph, he referred to his 2007 recording of Mahler's Second Symphony as his 'last hand grenade.' International fame came late to Mr. Norrington. He had built a solid reputation as a choral conductor in the 1970s, when he made a series of well-received recordings with the Heinrich Schütz Choir, an amateur group he formed in 1962 and named after the German baroque composer. He was also the founding music director of the Kent Opera, England's first regional opera company, established by singer Norman Platt in 1969. Yet he was scarcely known outside Britain until 1987, when he released revelatory recordings of the Beethoven Second and Eighth symphonies. They were the first installments of a complete cycle with the London Classical Players, a period-instrument ensemble that Mr. Norrington founded in 1978 and led until 1997. 'I was happy to take things slowly,' he told The Telegraph in 2021. 'I didn't conduct a Beethoven symphony until I was 50. So when I finally stood up in front of the great orchestras of America and Europe as a guest conductor, I actually knew what I wanted. And this meant I could relax and treat music-making as something that is full of love and laughter. Advertisement 'It's not about consecrating a sacred object,' he continued. 'It's about exploring and being curious and having fun.' Mr. Norrington's first Beethoven recordings were striking in their adherence to the composer's metronome markings, which most conductors have considered impossibly fast or, in a few cases, impractically slow. The recordings immediately found a large audience, and by the time the cycle was complete, in 1989, Mr. Norrington's career was white hot. Roger Arthur Carver Norrington was born in Oxford, England, on March 16, 1934. His father, Arthur Norrington, worked for Oxford University Press and later became president of Trinity College, Oxford, and the vice chancellor of the University of Oxford. Roger's mother, Edith Joyce (Carver) Norrington, was a gifted amateur pianist. Roger studied the violin as a child and sang in choirs as a boy soprano. When he auditioned for a performance of Gilbert and Sullivan's 'Iolanthe,' he won the lead role. 'I realized I had some sort of gift,' he told The Guardian in 2007. But, he added, 'I thought I would be like my parents and spend my life doing music in my spare time.' When he entered Clare College, Cambridge, after completing his national service in the Royal Air Force, it was to study English literature. Nevertheless, he performed with -- and, in his final year, conducted -- student ensembles. Advertisement After graduating, Mr. Norrington became an editor at Oxford University Press. But he continued to sing in choirs and to play violin in orchestras and chamber groups. When a new edition of choral works by Heinrich Schütz was published in 1962, he became so eager to conduct the music that he formed the Heinrich Schütz Choir. Despite the choir's name, its repertoire extended from the Renaissance through the 20th century, and it quickly won enthusiastic reviews and a following. It was not until Oxford sent him on a six-month posting to Nairobi, Kenya, late in 1962 that he resolved to devote himself fully to music. When he returned to Britain, he left his job and enrolled at the Royal College of Music in London, where he studied composition, music history and conducting (with Adrian Boult) and played percussion in the orchestra. Recordings by Austrian period-instrument specialist Nikolaus Harnoncourt led Mr. Norrington to reconsider his ideas about conducting and orchestral sound. They also inspired him to read treatises by 17th- and 18th-century musicians and to seek out musicologists such as Thurston Dart, who shaped his ideas about the performance of early music. Norrington's success with the Schütz Choir led to his appointment as music director of the Kent Opera in 1969. In 1986, he established the Early Opera Group with choreographer Kay Lawrence. He and Lawrence married that year. A previous marriage, to Susan McLean May, ended in divorce in 1982. After his Beethoven recordings won him a large international audience, Mr. Norrington began performing regularly in the United States. He made his New York debut in 1989 at Carnegie Hall, leading the Orchestra of St. Luke's, a modern-instruments orchestra. Writing in The New York Times, Will Crutchfield described his performance of Beethoven's Eighth Symphony as 'exhilarating, witty, precise, full of verve and subtlety, fully convincing as to tempo (using Beethoven's markings with some modification for practicality's sake, rather than throwing them out as most conductors do) and wonderfully played.' Advertisement In addition to novel tempos and the absence of vibrato, Mr. Norrington considered a balance of intuition and scholarship essential to his interpretations. He rebelled against the notion that one could re-create historical performance styles by merely playing what was written on the page. And he inveighed against those who treated performances as museum pieces. 'A performance is for now, and one instinctively tailors it for today,' he said in 1989, adding, 'To say that you don't put your personality into it is rubbish.' In November 2021, after Mr. Norrington conducted his farewell concert -- leading the Royal Northern Sinfonia, in northern England, in an all-Haydn concert -- The Guardian called him 'arguably the most important British conductor of the last half century.' Kay Lawrence died in November. Mr. Norrington leaves his son, Thomas; two children from his marriage to May, Ben and Amy Norrington; three grandchildren; a sister, Pippa Sandford; and a brother, Humphrey. 'My story, from 1962, has been one of knocking down wall after wall and seeing what happened,' Mr. Norrington told The Guardian in 2007. 'So to discover right at the end that these great traditional European and American orchestras can be part of it as well has been wonderful. Now even they are beginning to realize you don't need to put vibrato on everything, like sugar.' He added: 'So if, on the day I die, the world is playing without vibrato, of course I will be delighted. But even if they aren't, I'll still be delighted because at least I did.' Advertisement This article originally appeared in
San Francisco Chronicle
13-06-2025
- Entertainment
- San Francisco Chronicle
Esa-Pekka Salonen's final concerts show what San Francisco Symphony stands to lose
Mahler's Second Symphony, the 'Resurrection,' is a piece with a clear and consistent story to tell. Things fall apart, and then they're reborn in a new and different guise. Could there be a more appropriate work — or at any rate a more sweepingly optimistic one — to mark the end of Esa-Pekka Salonen's brief tenure as music director of the San Francisco Symphony? A huge and appreciative audience filled Davies Symphony Hall on Thursday, June 12, to hear an incendiary performance of Mahler's Second, and they got what they came for. Under Salonen's baton, the orchestra sounded superb — bristling with demonic energy one minute, subsiding into tender reverie the next. There were glorious vocal contributions as well from soprano Heidi Stober and mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke, and from the San Francisco Symphony Chorus under the invigorating leadership of Jenny Wong. But the evening's agenda obviously extended far beyond the specifics of Mahler or this particular symphony. Patrons were also there to offer a loving, bittersweet farewell to the musician whose presence has made Davies an artistic destination for the past five years and helped hone this orchestra to its current state of excellence. Salonen announced his departure in March 2024, citing differences with Symphony final Mahler concert on Saturday, June 14, will mark his last day as music director. Emotions were apparent from the moment Salonen walked onstage to tumultuous applause. They were all the more evident afterward, as conductor and soloists were called back for bow after bow, in a torrent of appreciation that didn't seem to want to end. Salonen, a man not given to displays of feeling, was visibly moved. And why not? The Symphony's board and management may not have fully understood what it means for an orchestra to have a music director of Salonen's caliber. But its patrons and musicians have never been in doubt on this point. In particular, the close-knit relationship between Salonen and the members of the orchestra continues to pay dividends. Speaking to the attendees of Thursday morning's open rehearsal, Salonen paid tribute to the orchestral musicians, calling the ensemble one of the best in the world and urging patrons, after he's gone, to 'protect this orchestra.' Thursday's concert, the first of three, would have been an emotional affair even if the music had been something as dry-eyed and stoic as something by, let's say, Stravinsky. But the 'Resurrection' Symphony grabs you by the throat from the opening measures, and doesn't let go until the final moments of celestial transfiguration some 80 minutes later. The huge opening movement is a funeral march, more or less, but it's one attended by sudden thunderclaps, glowering skies and an almost apocalyptic sense of doom. What we're hearing, in other words, is not simply the death of an individual but the wholesale destruction of a world order. The music's ferocity and sense of knife-edge danger came through in every moment of the performance. Salonen would give a downbeat, and the strings would explode in savage fury. Timpanist Edward Stephan beat his instrument with no hint of mercy. The brass leaned into their roles as the bullies of the orchestra, launching sonic grenades into the hall. And yet all of it was executed with utmost precision, like a terrifying attack dog kept safely on the leash. After that monstrous salvo, it can take the remainder of the symphony for audience members to feel fully comfortable again in their own skin. The delicate little serenade that follows, one of Mahler's many tributes to his great forebear Schubert, offered a welcome respite. Salonen took the scherzo at a winningly quick tempo, even if he missed a bit of the music's sardonic bite. But those two movements were simply a prelude to the radiant apotheosis that followed. In 'Urlicht,' the short and exquisite song that constitutes the symphony's fourth movement, Cooke gave one of the most richly luminous performances I've ever heard from her, cloaking the melodic line in a vocal sonority of dark velvet. And finally, in the choral movement that gives the piece its subtitle, we got the transformation we'd been waiting for since the symphony's opening jolt. 'Arise!' the chorus sang, in hushed harmonies that landed like balm. 'Yes, you will arise, my dust, after a brief rest … You are sown to bloom again!' The music illustrated this homily, slowly gathering force to arrive at the piece's thunderous conclusion. It was hard to avoid feeling this as a metaphor for the sorrow and turmoil that have engulfed this organization over the past year, since it became clear that the San Francisco Symphony could not make itself a congenial home for an artist of Salonen's extraordinary caliber. Joshua Kosman is the Chronicle's former classical music critic.
The National
09-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The National
John Purser: Well-orchestrated lessons
At the same time, a touch of something approaching arrogance is helpful. My fellow composition student at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music was John Geddes. I remember once we were in the back row of the Royal Scottish Academy of Music choir in the alas no more St Andrew's Hall. Ranked below us were the rest of the choir, the full body of the Scottish National Orchestra, and a team of solo singers of major repute. As the conductor, Alex Gibson, came on to the usual applause, John turned to me and, with an expansive gesture spreading his arms to indicate the vast forces ranged below, announced: 'These are the rocks that I chisel!' John chiselled some magnificent rocks, especially in his Second Symphony. Books on orchestration are all very well and some remarkably insightful – notably Ebeneezer Prout's two-volume work The Orchestra. Poor man, with a name like that his credibility is shot to hell before you even read a word or hear a note. His Clarinet Concerto and Organ Concerto No 1 are on YouTube. They sound a lot better than his name. The best lessons come from following orchestral scores, attending orchestral rehearsals, asking your fellow students to try things out, and listening to professional musicians. Orchestral musicians are a tough bunch and not all of them will smooth your path if difficulties arise. The one utterly unforgivable thing is mistakes in the parts. They waste time and annoy the hell out of everybody, not least the conductor whose business it is to fight your corner. Even with modern part extraction from computer typeset scores, mistakes can occur. Computer typesetting is a wonderful thing, but it does deprive the musicians of that sense of direct contact with the composer which you can get from her or his hand-written parts. It's the difference between a handwritten and a typed letter. This particularly applies to the full score which is used by the conductor. Each composer has to work out his own style of orchestration, her own palette. The composer picks the instrumental forces and lays them out in a conventional order, so readers of the score know what is where. For full symphony orchestra with choir and soloists, woodwind instruments are at the top, brass section next, then percussion and keyboard instruments, soloists and vocal lines: finally the string section. These, if you like, are the tubes of paint. My first lessons were from Frank Spedding but mostly he left me to my own devices, following the Gordon Jacob and Walter Piston books on orchestration. These provided the basics – the ranges of the various instruments and their fundamental characteristics. There were little extra snippets of information. If you have only two trumpets and want the effect of four, you can slip in a couple of low flutes if the music is quiet. The audience won't be any the wiser so long as you dove-tail them. The same trick can work blending horns and bassoons. It wasn't all technical. Gordon Jacob, I was told, once criticised a student of orchestration for overuse of the snare drum, declaring that it would 'sound like somebody pissing into a biscuit tin'. Two of my composition teachers had diametrically opposed approaches to orchestration. Tippett was all for 'gestures', featuring the different tonal qualities of the instruments. Hans Gál was more for blending the sounds. A master at both was Tchaikovsky and on one occasion he set up a deliberate surprise. The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, in The Nutcracker features the celesta. In Tchaikovsky's day the instrument (invented around 1886) was a newcomer and very few had heard its fairy-like silvery tones. So keen was Tchaikovsky to spring this sound as a surprise on his audiences that he had the instrument secretly imported by his publisher and kept well out of hearing until the premiere. He wrote: 'Have it sent direct to Petersburg; but no-one there must know about it especially not Rimsky-Korsakov and Glazounov who might make use of the new effect before I could. I expect the instrument will make a tremendous sensation.' It did. Its predecessor had been invented in Glasgow by Thomas Machell – the dulcitone, first made in 1860 and used by the French composer Vincent d'Indy in Le Son de la Cloche in the 1880s. In the celesta, the hammers hit metal plates: in the dulcitone they hit metal tuning forks. These days, however, composers often introduce instruments from indigenous cultures and even archaeological reconstructions such as Bronze Age horns. As for the Highland bagpipes, they were first used with orchestra by Aloys Fleischmann in Cork, then Ian Whyte in his ballet Donald of the Burthens, then by Edward MacGuire in Calgacus and then in a kitsch colonialist scenario by Peter Maxwell Davies in Orkney Wedding with Sunrise. It used to be the best known, being in the 'Donald, where's your troosers?' class of artistry, but Bear McCreary's Outlander has overtaken it by an American mile. Anyway, there's no manual for combining bagpipes and symphony orchestra, not even Norman del Mar's magnificent Anatomy of the Orchestra. Norman (above) was not to be messed with – a large man with a formidable intellect. To orchestral musicians, he was variously known as 'The Mass of Life' (a pun on the title of a composition by Delius), 'The Greatest Waste of Space' (which was not fair), 'The Butcher' (on account of his decisive but inelegant beat), and, more affectionately 'Bubble Bum'. Confronted by more than 60 hardened professional musicians, many of whom had served in the Second World War and knew what it was like to be made to run 10 times round the parade ground carrying a heavy shell for playing a wrong note, even a Del Mar was put to the test. On one such occasion, he was guiding the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra through a mountain of challenging scores – Strauss's Till Eulenspiegel and the like – deliberately thrown at him by the BBC in London because public protest had prevented them from axing the orchestra. Norman had a desk with scores to the right of his conductor's podium – the In-Tray, and another to the left – the Out-Tray. They had no time for proper rehearsals, only run-throughs, and Norman was running them. At one point, in the frantic passage of scores and decisive beating of time, Norman's baton flew out of his hand and fell to the floor. He was a tall man, standing on a podium and barked out: 'My baton please!' Quick as a flash, the principal violinist, Peter Gibbs (who had piloted Spitfires during the Battle of Britain) deliberately dropped his bow and turned to the second desk of violins and demanded: 'My bow please!' But Norman loved these people and understood them better than many a conductor, taking in his stride the fourth horn, Billy Bull who, on being told by Del Mar that he couldn't see him, replied: 'Ah cannae see you either, sir, but ah can feel your presence.' Never was a truer word spoken. So I was frightened but fortunate that Norman gave an early piece of mine a run-through with the same orchestra. It made use of sundry effects – singing at the same time as playing, different kinds of mute and so on. Norman was immensely encouraging but also warned me against striving for effect. A year later, I got my comeuppance in that department from the timpanist in the Radió Teilefis Éireann Symphony Orchestra. His name was Kurt Hans Goedicke and this was back in 1962 so I was only 19 and he was still in his 20s. He subsequently acquired an international reputation and is more or less a legend in his own time. I had won the Radió Éireann Carolan Prize for orchestral variations on Amhran Dochais. One of the variations had a fanfare for the brass, followed by a solo for the timpani. Four timpani, one timpanist. I was really looking forward to hearing this. I thought it would sound spectacular. The brass section sounded great but the timpani bit was very disappointing. Too slow, almost stumbling. During the coffee break Kurt came to me with the timpani part. The conversation went as follows, he with a thick German accent: 'Zees timpani part – she is ver difficult. Ver difficult indeed.' 'I'm sorry. I thought it would be fine.' 'You see, I cannot keep crossing my arms like zis.' He demonstrated the knots he would get into when one arm had to cross over the other and the first one had to be retrieved from underneath in no time at all to get to the next of the four timpani. Truly impossible and I hadn't thought of it. 'O-o-oh! I'll try to re-write it then.' 'But zis is ze original inspiration, ja?' 'It's what I first thought of ... I ...' 'Oh ve must not change. Ve must not change ze original inspiration!' 'I'd rather change it and make it work better.' 'No, no. I tell you vat I do! I praaaactice!' And with that he forewent his coffee and spent the break trying to make the impossible possible. He got as close as could be but what he really achieved was the very kindliest of lessons in correcting incompetence, and I remain grateful to him to this day. The improper installation of a Rumford chimney was what won me that Carolan Prize. I composed it in St Kevin's Cottage in Co. Wicklow with the score opened out on the kitchen table. I was completing a double-page spread a day and the fine turf (peat) ash was falling on the pages and the smoke circulating promiscuously. As soon as you took the anonymous score out of the brown envelope you could smell the turf. Orchestral scores are not easy to judge and this no doubt saved everyone the bother. I imagine a judge exclaiming as he extracted the manuscript: 'Can you smell that now! Straight from the bogs! That's the winner. No discussion!' Not imaginary is the sixpence I attached to the start of the trombone part of my Opus 7, adding a signed 'with sympathy'. It came about because I was concerned about the top D. In those days, top Ds on a tenor trombone were not commonplace, and this was a held note in an already high-pitched passage. I asked him how he would manage it and his answer explains all! 'Well, it's like this, John. When you're going for the top D, you take a sixpence, stick it up your arsehole, squeeze like hell, and when it bends you know you've got it!'
Calgary Herald
31-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Calgary Herald
Review: Rune Bergmann gives exemplary farewell to orchestra and city
Article content Reviews and recommendations are unbiased and products are independently selected. Postmedia may earn an affiliate commission from purchases made through links on this page. Article content It was a night of finales and farewells. On the last weekend in May, the CPO performed its final pair of concerts of the current season, a season with many highlights (including this one) and with 40 sold-out performances, a company first. Recovering from near bankruptcy some years ago, the CPO is now enjoying some of the strongest support it has had in many years. Article content Article content At least some of the reason for this lies in the astute programming, but perhaps even more lies in the new manner of presentation, not the least by its outgoing conductor, Rune Bergmann, whose smiling face and manner have signalled to all that classical concerts can be both serious and simple fun. Article content Article content Bergmann has been with the orchestra for nine years, which includes the difficult years of COVID-19. It hasn't been easy to bring audiences back, but Bergmann persevered and has led the orchestra in delicate performances of works by Mozart as well as monumental symphonies by Mahler. Article content And it was with Mahler, specifically Mahler's popular Second Symphony (Resurrection), that Bergmann chose to conclude his time with the orchestra. A symphony about farewells, it is also about hope and new life. It is also a symphony by which to measure the growth in the performing stature of the orchestra and the Calgary Philharmonic Chorus, both of which are enjoying a period in which a great many of their recent concerts have been of a very high level. Article content Just this past season, the orchestra performed a splashy Carmina Burana to open its season (also with the CPO Chorus), with concerts featuring world-famous soloists like Jonathan Biss and Honens winner Nicolas Namoradze. It also gave superb performances of Mozart and Elgar with Bergmann at the helm, and a wonderful Symphonie Fantastique by Hector Berlioz. String soloists were not ignored either, with outstanding performances by violinists James Ehnes and Diana Cohen, and recently a sold-out appearance with cellist Yo-Yo Ma. Article content This list of accomplishments, together with an earlier Beethoven symphony and concerto cycle and several Mahler symphonies, including an impressive performance of the Third Symphony, gives an indication of the wide range of music performed, and with impressive surety and confidence. Article content These qualities marked Bergmann's final appearance with the orchestra. One could only marvel at the authority of the opening cello section solo, as well as the numerous solo turns given to the wind and brass players (especially the solo trumpet of Adam Zinatelli). The percussion section whipped up a storm, and the chorus sang with hushed emotion and, in the final moment, with dramatic grandeur.
Calgary Herald
31-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Calgary Herald
Review:
Article content Reviews and recommendations are unbiased and products are independently selected. Postmedia may earn an affiliate commission from purchases made through links on this page. Article content It was a night of finales and farewells. On the last weekend in May, the CPO performed its final pair of concerts of the current season, a season with many highlights (including this one) and with 40 sold-out performances, a company first. Recovering from near bankruptcy some years ago, the CPO is now enjoying some of the strongest support it has had in many years. Article content Article content Article content At least some of the reason for this lies in the astute programming, but perhaps even more lies in the new manner of presentation, not the least by its outgoing conductor, Rune Bergmann, whose smiling face and manner have signalled to all that classical concerts can be both serious and simple fun. Article content Article content Bergmann has been with the orchestra for nine years, which includes the difficult years of COVID-19. It hasn't been easy to bring audiences back, but Bergmann persevered and has led the orchestra in delicate performances of works by Mozart as well as monumental symphonies by Mahler. Article content And it was with Mahler, specifically Mahler's popular Second Symphony (Resurrection), that Bergmann chose to conclude his time with the orchestra. A symphony about farewells, it is also about hope and new life. It is also a symphony by which to measure the growth in the performing stature of the orchestra and the Calgary Philharmonic Chorus, both of which are enjoying a period in which a great many of their recent concerts have been of a very high level. Article content Article content Just this past season, the orchestra performed a splashy Carmina Burana to open its season (also with the CPO Chorus), with concerts featuring world-famous soloists like Jonathan Biss and Honens winner Nicolas Namoradze. It also gave superb performances of Mozart and Elgar with Bergmann at the helm, and a wonderful Symphonie Fantastique by Hector Berlioz. String soloists were not ignored either, with outstanding performances by violinists James Ehnes and Diana Cohen, and recently a sold-out appearance with cellist Yo-Yo Ma. Article content This list of accomplishments, together with an earlier Beethoven symphony and concerto cycle and several Mahler symphonies, including an impressive performance of the Third Symphony, gives an indication of the wide range of music performed, and with impressive surety and confidence. Article content These qualities marked Bergmann's final appearance with the orchestra. One could only marvel at the authority of the opening cello section solo, as well as the numerous solo turns given to the wind and brass players (especially the solo trumpet of Adam Zinatelli). The percussion section whipped up a storm, and the chorus sang with hushed emotion and, in the final moment, with dramatic grandeur.
