New music featured prominently in the Aldeburgh festival’s opening weekend. And, given both the Britten legacy and the super-intent listening the Snape audiences afford such works, it’s clear that Aldeburgh’s platform continues to be of particular significance to composers.
The Kreutzer Quartet’s fundamental commitment to new music was palpable in their two recitals. In the four movements of Sadie Harrison’s The River Dreams of Winter, the descriptive flow inspired by the paintings of the Kreutzer’s first violinist Peter Sheppard Skærved made for even closer connections. But in this first public performance it was Harrison’s addition of a final movement reflecting on the death of George Floyd that made an emotional mark.
As though building up a head of steam, the quartet’s decision to place David Horne’s quintet, Different Ghosts, with clarinettist Linda Merrick, and David Matthews’ Quartet No 17 at the very end of their respective recitals was clever. They brought a fierce energy to these first hearings, present even in the evanescence of some of Horne’s sounds and in the vibrancy of Matthews’ string writing.
Not all premieres were of living composers. Exaudi sang songs by Orlando Gibbons, arrangements by their director James Weeks, delivered with the fantastic flair that is the Exaudi’s gift, as was Michael Finnissy’s extraordinary Cipriano and the touching encore, a first performance of his Reges Tharsis. In the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra’s concert under John Storgårds, the novelty was composer Francisco Coll’s wonderfully idiomatic arrangement of Manuel de Falla’s Fantasía Bética written originally for pianist Arthur Rubinstein. Featured composer Cassandra Miller’s propensity is for using “found” musical material and the sound of the Genovese Trallalero singing was the starting point of her piece La Donna. The initial element of the BBC Philharmonic’s brass braggadocio was arresting but, in this quarter-of-an-hour score, it was the languid winding down of the last minutes, like an old gramophone gradually running out of steam, whose effect was quietly captivating.
Pianist Pavel Kolesnikov’s artistry is consummate, but he is also a thinker, always questioning and pushing boundaries. Inspired by the artist Joseph Cornell’s Celestial Navigation, his performance had no premieres, but it offered a remarkable first in terms of his approach to presenting music, a collaboration involving light and design from architect Sophie Hicks with text curated by Martin Crimp. In a darkened Snape Maltings, with the evocative projections of sun and moon seen on the back wall – its proportions mirroring the box in which Cornell created his piece – sequences of music by Couperin, Messiaen, Chopin, Thomas Adès and later Schubert were simply mesmerising. With his back to the audience – no trace of ego but some gestures catching the light to give a more theatrical feel than usual – Kolesnikov’s playing was exquisite.
• The Aldeburgh festival runs until 25 June. Pavel Kolesnikov’s concert is broadcast on Radio 3 on 13 June and is then available on BBC Sounds for 30 days. The BBC Phiharmonic’s concert will be broadcast on Radio 3 at a future date.
