Page 62 - Coverage Book_Aurora Orchestra Autumn 2020

11 September 2020

Aurora Orch/Collon review – Ayres and Beethoven

pairing is vivid and lithe

****
Royal Albert Hall, London/Radio 3/BBC Four
Richard Ayres’s complex Beethoven tribute had real emotional power, while the latter’s Seventh
symphony – performed from memory – was a joyous celebration of energy

Andrew Clements

‘Light and lithe’ … Nicholas Collon conducts the Aurora orchestra at the Proms. Photograph: Chris
Christodoulou/BBC

No 52: Three Pieces About Ludwig van Beethoven, Richard Ayres’ BBC co-commission, received
its premiere at the audience-free Proms from Nicholas Collon and the Aurora Orchestra. It’s more
than a straightforward anniversary tribute, for, like his great predecessor, Ayres has suffered from
hearing loss for the last 20 years, and his work is an attempt to convey how the sound world he
imagines in his music has gradually been lost to him in performances.

The three pieces come with a subtitle, “dreaming, hearing loss, and saying goodbye”, in a vivid
evocation of an aural journey into a world of blurred images and incoherence. In the first piece, the
surging, expressive string lines (sometimes recalling Tippett’s Corelli Fantasia) are gradually
infiltrated by high harmonics, simulating the sounds of tinnitus. The second sets off with a
minimalist-style keyboard riff that gradually loses its shape and momentum, while the third breaks
down into a series of increasingly tentative miniatures, punctuated by the distant, sampled sound
of a 78rpm record, heard through a veil of hiss and scratches. There’s nothing jokey here, but, as so
often with Ayres, the most surreal ideas and juxtapositions take on an unexpected emotional
power.

A Beethoven symphony was the obvious pairing to the premiere, and it was the Seventh, played
from memory with the musicians standing, as has become the Aurora trademark, and preceded by
an introduction to the work from Collon and Tom Service, who was presenting the concert on radio
and TV. Collon’s performance was light, lithe and immaculately played, always keeping something
in reserve; this was the Seventh as a joyous celebration of energy, rather than as something more
searchingly profound.

• Available on BBC Sounds and BBC iPlayer.