21st March, 2015
Barbican Hall, London, United Kingdom
PIERRE BOULEZ Notations I, III, IV, VII, II
PIERRE BOULEZ Pli selon Pli
Yeree Suh (soprano)
BBC Symphony Orchestra
Thierry Fischer (conductor)
This is a very interesting concert for many reasons. It is rare to hear large-scale Boulez works conducted by conductors other than Boulez himself; and the original conductor pulled out last minute and these are not the pieces one can easily step in to perform with such short notice. Expecting the unpopularity of the event, Barbican actually closed the upper area and the balcony, and still the hall was not full. "Pli selon Pli" is a work I have heard many times (recordings) since secondary school, and Boulez's own live performance of the work in 2011 was my single most favourite concert of all time. Every time I hear the work I find something new. It is a piece Stravinsky called "pretty monotonous and monotonously pretty" and indeed the endless evolution of static beauty is ever so captivating. Here, substitute conductor Thierry Fischer brought out a fantastic palette of sounds from the BBC SO. Being so used to Boulez's own interpretations, it is interesting to hear individual parts being delineated as such, but now the effect is that the work lacks a(n apparent) narration and each instrument effectively just did their own things with little internal interactions. The soloist went for operatic drama on her own and made moments like the soloist-flute interactions in the third "Improvisations" very odd. I can't work out whether it was because they struggled to put the piece together (massive kudos to them for playing it at all), a question of taste or whether or not it provided a new perspective to this piece altogether. The net result, to me, was that this performance sounded even colder than Boulez's own takes. I do have issues with Thierry Fischer's control of volume though, in which he provided little variations in amplitude, and it made listening to the five orchestral "Notations" a relatively surprisingly dull experience, and the second "Improvisations" was too loud. The celesta solo is very sweet though. Interesting concert all in all, and I am very curious what the "professional" critics will say tomorrow.
This entry was originally published in my private Instagram account.
22 March, 2015
20 March, 2015
Towards the Total Synthesis of Chemical Music
Chemistry is an intriguingly artistic subject. When I applied to university, I cited the artistic nature of chemistry as one of my biggest initial interests in the subject and the admissions interviewers often found it very amusing. It is not difficult to explain why, even to non-chemically minded audiences – the colours of solutions, the symmetry, or lack thereof, of molecular structures, or the intricate arrangements of macromolecules such as proteins and DNA. It is oddly satisfying to work with some of these structures and not difficult to see the parallels between chemistry and visual arts such as paintings and sculptures.
One thing I have always wondered, however, is whether there is any link between chemistry and music. If so, can we compose music using chemistry? Let’s face it, chemistry is not a sonically interesting subject. The most entertaining sound one hears in the laboratory is probably the moment when one inserts a sample tube into an NMR spectrometer, and the next in line would perhaps be the noises from the pumps of the HPLC – really, there is nothing more fascinating to hear in a cold room than pumps working at different pitches in different rhythms. The late Hungarian composer György Ligeti would have called that “micropolyphony”.
It is relatively rare for classical composers to take inspirations from natural sciences, and rarer still from chemistry. Sir Edward Elgar and Alexander Borodin are famous for being both chemists and composers, with the latter being a professor in chemistry, but neither appear to relate chemistry to their music. Edgard Varèse entitled two of his complex compositions Ionisation and Density 21.5 (the latter refers to the approximate density of platinum at room temperature in g cm^-3, as the work was written for a platinum flute), but both seem to have little to do with chemistry other than the title. Perhaps the most relevant example is Pithoprakta (Greek: actions through probability) for 50 instruments, by Iannis Xenakis, where the composer treats each instrument like a molecule in an ensemble (no pun intended) and let the musical material evolve according to statistical mechanics. It is certainly a grand, if non-canonical, way to compose.
Approaching it from the other angle, there is an attempt to “hear” molecules using their vibrational modes, and a method has been developed to generate notes from chemical reactions. In either case, they are methods to generate notes and less so about using them to write complete pieces of music. Can we go further?
The art of musical composition, to put it in the most unromantic way, is the 2D visual representation of a time-dependent sonic event to be interpreted and realised by performing musicians. The music of legendary classical composers such as Bach, Beethoven and Brahms are rigorously structured as well as sonically captivating. The narration, emotions and sophistication of the composer are immortalised by carefully constructed melodies, harmonies and/or rhythms.
As noted above, chemistry is full of building blocks for art – structural motifs, symmetry, sequences, etc. – and, as it turns out, for life itself. Is it possible, then, for chemistry to play a role in musical compositions? Here are two quick proposals inspired by famous composers. Firstly, there is an established compositional method called serialism, where musical parameters – pitch, duration, dynamic, etc. – are determined by strict mathematical rules. Many composers have worked with this technique, including important figures such as Shostakovich and Stravinsky. There is a lot of material in chemistry to form the basis of serial compositions. For example, one can form a legitimate melody from a protein structure by assigning musical notes to its sequence. Rules can then be applied to determine how the notes are played. This then becomes the seed of the composition and one can apply operations to permute the notes, to harmonise and to give it a rhythmical drive.
Alternatively, the Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos used to compose music by sketching out contours from geographical landscapes in works such as New York Skyline and Symphony No. 6, which is subtitled “On the Outline of the Mountains of Brazil”. One can imagine a lot of experimental data from chemistry, such as IR spectra of organic molecules or structures of amorphous materials, are suitable for such compositions. Mass spectrometry data of proteins seem to be particularly useful.
If I were able to finish the endless rounds of protein purification, I might finally get a chance to sit down with manuscript paper to compose my own chemical music. Just to brainstorm, I have a 340-note melody from my PhD project, a rhythmic pattern for four instruments from the HPLC, a dynamic distribution from the screams of my lab-mates, and a vast disconnectivity graph from my computational chemistry friend. This could be the beginning of a very dramatic symphony.
[Word count: 790]
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The above article was previously submitted to the magazine Chemistry World (Royal Society of Chemistry, United Kingdom) for the Chemistry World Science Communication Competition 2014, and won a finalist award.
One thing I have always wondered, however, is whether there is any link between chemistry and music. If so, can we compose music using chemistry? Let’s face it, chemistry is not a sonically interesting subject. The most entertaining sound one hears in the laboratory is probably the moment when one inserts a sample tube into an NMR spectrometer, and the next in line would perhaps be the noises from the pumps of the HPLC – really, there is nothing more fascinating to hear in a cold room than pumps working at different pitches in different rhythms. The late Hungarian composer György Ligeti would have called that “micropolyphony”.
It is relatively rare for classical composers to take inspirations from natural sciences, and rarer still from chemistry. Sir Edward Elgar and Alexander Borodin are famous for being both chemists and composers, with the latter being a professor in chemistry, but neither appear to relate chemistry to their music. Edgard Varèse entitled two of his complex compositions Ionisation and Density 21.5 (the latter refers to the approximate density of platinum at room temperature in g cm^-3, as the work was written for a platinum flute), but both seem to have little to do with chemistry other than the title. Perhaps the most relevant example is Pithoprakta (Greek: actions through probability) for 50 instruments, by Iannis Xenakis, where the composer treats each instrument like a molecule in an ensemble (no pun intended) and let the musical material evolve according to statistical mechanics. It is certainly a grand, if non-canonical, way to compose.
Approaching it from the other angle, there is an attempt to “hear” molecules using their vibrational modes, and a method has been developed to generate notes from chemical reactions. In either case, they are methods to generate notes and less so about using them to write complete pieces of music. Can we go further?
The art of musical composition, to put it in the most unromantic way, is the 2D visual representation of a time-dependent sonic event to be interpreted and realised by performing musicians. The music of legendary classical composers such as Bach, Beethoven and Brahms are rigorously structured as well as sonically captivating. The narration, emotions and sophistication of the composer are immortalised by carefully constructed melodies, harmonies and/or rhythms.
As noted above, chemistry is full of building blocks for art – structural motifs, symmetry, sequences, etc. – and, as it turns out, for life itself. Is it possible, then, for chemistry to play a role in musical compositions? Here are two quick proposals inspired by famous composers. Firstly, there is an established compositional method called serialism, where musical parameters – pitch, duration, dynamic, etc. – are determined by strict mathematical rules. Many composers have worked with this technique, including important figures such as Shostakovich and Stravinsky. There is a lot of material in chemistry to form the basis of serial compositions. For example, one can form a legitimate melody from a protein structure by assigning musical notes to its sequence. Rules can then be applied to determine how the notes are played. This then becomes the seed of the composition and one can apply operations to permute the notes, to harmonise and to give it a rhythmical drive.
Alternatively, the Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos used to compose music by sketching out contours from geographical landscapes in works such as New York Skyline and Symphony No. 6, which is subtitled “On the Outline of the Mountains of Brazil”. One can imagine a lot of experimental data from chemistry, such as IR spectra of organic molecules or structures of amorphous materials, are suitable for such compositions. Mass spectrometry data of proteins seem to be particularly useful.
If I were able to finish the endless rounds of protein purification, I might finally get a chance to sit down with manuscript paper to compose my own chemical music. Just to brainstorm, I have a 340-note melody from my PhD project, a rhythmic pattern for four instruments from the HPLC, a dynamic distribution from the screams of my lab-mates, and a vast disconnectivity graph from my computational chemistry friend. This could be the beginning of a very dramatic symphony.
[Word count: 790]
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The above article was previously submitted to the magazine Chemistry World (Royal Society of Chemistry, United Kingdom) for the Chemistry World Science Communication Competition 2014, and won a finalist award.
13 March, 2015
Brahms: Symphony No. 4 (Philharmonia / Sokhiev)
12th March, 2015
Royal Festival Hall, London, United Kingdom
BEETHOVEN "Egmont" Overture
STRAUSS Horn Concerto No. 2
BRAHMS Symphony No. 4
Katy Woolley (horn)
Philharmonia Orchestra
Tugan Sokhiev (conductor)
Switching to a different orchestra (Philharmonia), it is all-German affair tonight here at the RFH. The advantage of looking comparatively young, being rather underdressed and being unfashionably late meant that I was offered a very cheap student ticket to sit in the sixth row, slightly to the right, at conductor level - not bad! - and it allowed me to explore some unfamiliar territories with totally overwhelming impact. I was completely blown by the thunderous strings in Beethoven's "Egmont Overture". Unfortunately, I do not know the instrument well enough to comment on Strauss' "Horn Concerto No. 2", but I have a feeling the wonderfully colourful playing of the orchestra, especially in the second movement, completely upstaged the soloist. The real winner tonight was the urgently intense Brahms 4. Tugan Sokhiev went for earth-shattering outpour of passion, again with much full-body strings, and the results was a spell-binding performance throughout. The magic was such that he allowed the orchestra to go auto-pilot in the third movement, giving only minimal amounts of cues, with a lot of facial commands that reminded me of what Carlos Kleiber used to do. You can only do that when the orchestra is thoroughly well-rehearsed. Brahms 4 might be standard repertoire, but it is not every day you get to hear it played with such total conviction. What a couple of nights.
This entry was originally published in my private Instagram account.
Royal Festival Hall, London, United Kingdom
BEETHOVEN "Egmont" Overture
STRAUSS Horn Concerto No. 2
BRAHMS Symphony No. 4
Katy Woolley (horn)
Philharmonia Orchestra
Tugan Sokhiev (conductor)
Switching to a different orchestra (Philharmonia), it is all-German affair tonight here at the RFH. The advantage of looking comparatively young, being rather underdressed and being unfashionably late meant that I was offered a very cheap student ticket to sit in the sixth row, slightly to the right, at conductor level - not bad! - and it allowed me to explore some unfamiliar territories with totally overwhelming impact. I was completely blown by the thunderous strings in Beethoven's "Egmont Overture". Unfortunately, I do not know the instrument well enough to comment on Strauss' "Horn Concerto No. 2", but I have a feeling the wonderfully colourful playing of the orchestra, especially in the second movement, completely upstaged the soloist. The real winner tonight was the urgently intense Brahms 4. Tugan Sokhiev went for earth-shattering outpour of passion, again with much full-body strings, and the results was a spell-binding performance throughout. The magic was such that he allowed the orchestra to go auto-pilot in the third movement, giving only minimal amounts of cues, with a lot of facial commands that reminded me of what Carlos Kleiber used to do. You can only do that when the orchestra is thoroughly well-rehearsed. Brahms 4 might be standard repertoire, but it is not every day you get to hear it played with such total conviction. What a couple of nights.
This entry was originally published in my private Instagram account.
12 March, 2015
Ireland: Piano Concerto; Walton: Symphony No. 1 (Lane / LPO / Manze)
11th March, 2015
Royal Festival Hall, London, United Kingdom
ELGAR Introduction and Allegro
IRELAND Piano Concerto
WALTON Symphony No. 1
Piers Lane (piano)
London Philharmonic Orchestra
Andrew Manze (conductor)
Early music specialist Andrew Manze made his LPO debut with a curious programme. The Elgar "Introduction and Allegro" for string quartet and string orchestra was a very pleasant surprise, played with such clinical classical grace that sounded totally un-Elgar. It was followed by a sensitive, pristine and perpetually colourful performance of the evocative but rarely performed John Ireland "Piano Concerto" played by Piers Lane. It was BREATHTAKING. The joyful first half was complimented by the fiery emotional rollercoaster that was Walton's "Symphony No. 1". The brass players must have hated Walton, for the non-stop blasts, but what sensational performance overall. The sumptuous closing moments sent chills down my spine. A very thoroughly successful debut of Andrew Manze. We should hear more from him. It was a shame the hall was only half full, but that meant I got full impact of the music even though I sat at the very back of RFH.
This entry was originally published in my private Instagram account.
Royal Festival Hall, London, United Kingdom
ELGAR Introduction and Allegro
IRELAND Piano Concerto
WALTON Symphony No. 1
Piers Lane (piano)
London Philharmonic Orchestra
Andrew Manze (conductor)
Early music specialist Andrew Manze made his LPO debut with a curious programme. The Elgar "Introduction and Allegro" for string quartet and string orchestra was a very pleasant surprise, played with such clinical classical grace that sounded totally un-Elgar. It was followed by a sensitive, pristine and perpetually colourful performance of the evocative but rarely performed John Ireland "Piano Concerto" played by Piers Lane. It was BREATHTAKING. The joyful first half was complimented by the fiery emotional rollercoaster that was Walton's "Symphony No. 1". The brass players must have hated Walton, for the non-stop blasts, but what sensational performance overall. The sumptuous closing moments sent chills down my spine. A very thoroughly successful debut of Andrew Manze. We should hear more from him. It was a shame the hall was only half full, but that meant I got full impact of the music even though I sat at the very back of RFH.
This entry was originally published in my private Instagram account.
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