Review by Simon Jenner, 28th May 2025
Norman Jacobs and Music Of Our Time have long been the South’s unsung heroes of contemporary music, specifically modernism.
This recital, first of two, concentrates on Morton Feldman (1926-87) and Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928-2007). The concert took place at the Brighton’s Unitarian in May 28th.
Two composers born two years apart could hardly prove more different. The pared down minimal but not minimalist composer, and the explosive serial maximalist. There’s also a single commissioned work involving violin at the end but the onus is on soprano Sophie Dunér and pianist Jonathan Powell – whose previous visits have encompassed Kaikhosru Sorabji’s six-hour Opus Clavicembalisticum; and Shostakovich’s two—and-a-half-hour 24 Preludes and Fugues Op 87.
Dunér, a Swedish singer with a jazz background, actually contacted Stockhausen (and Dutch composer Luis Andriessen); so has also enjoyed a long immersion in this music. Her voice is rich, consummate and very flexible with a beautiful middle range and a capacity to hit stratospheric high notes
Powell – whose association with Jacob has been long and fruitful- is simply one of the greatest contemporary pianists: and one of few who crosses 20th century early modernism with classics of the post-war Avant Garde. His many recordings for BIS put our own labels to shame. Beyond a seemingly effortless virtuosity Powell is an instantly recognizable artist .His pianism is both expressive and – paradoxically for a high modernist – deeply humane on occasion.
The first piece is Feldman’s earliest work from 1845 a setting of Rilke’s Sinner to Orpheus XXIII. Entitled ‘Only’ it’s certainly stark and haunting. The only sonority it approaches in the US at rat time is early John Cage. Lasting just two minutes it’s a haunting start. Which Dunér dispatched with a floaty melisma somewhere above the Styx
Stockhausen’s Klavierstick V from 1954. Moving towards total serialism it’s a piece organized in six sections and impossible to grasp units entirety. A rich organization of notes with single exposed ones alternating with rich clusters is organized round as serial sequence. Full of cloud bursts and pointillistic gestures that dissolve, it also expands mine ta if silence then ends. Haunting, and full of the that massive potential early Stockhausen radiates with.
His Tierkreus – Zodiac is as far removed from that as possible. Written in 1965-75 it’s not less than Stockhausen’s response to the astrological zodiac, following Holst and far more recently, Roberto Gerard.
Stockhausen’s interest in mysticism symbolism and occult transcendence dates from the later 1960s. His 12 Melodies here are a result if his immersion in”star signs” more properly Sun Signs of the 12 astrological types.
The idiot though is almost unrecognizable. As if Cathy Barbarian has influenced not just Luciano Berio with all kinds of singing, but Stockhausen too. So a bluesy skat-singing element introduces itself in Dunér’s performance. Which is also physical. Arms outstretched she then extends her arms and sound
Powell’s piano part sounds occasionally like late Frank Bridge, and at other moments Sorabji. Powell has played both and might even have been revealing some of Bridge’s music as it edged closer to Alban Berg in the 1920s. The melody of sustained melismas and high repeated notes almost decorative in effect, are worlds from the clusters of 20 years earlier.
Pianistically and as a conception it sounds like nothing so much as a pioneering lost modernist piece of the 1920s. Probably by some extreme exile Russian follower of Scriabin in Paris, like Protoprokov. But then there’s the vocal part. Ah. As if Cathy Beebariwn had discovered it in 1965 and written a vocal part on top.
Dunér meanwhile performs with a variety of expensive jazzy gestures. It reminds me of the climax in Alfred Schnittke’s Faust Cantata, emphasized by the clack of high heels
Each section is clearly marked. We can count where we are. ‘Aries’ for instance is more voluble and expressive than its predecessors. And ‘Taurus’ starts slowly in a bovine-like wind. But can this esoteric labelling really express the pith of this 40 minute work? Nothing so obvious.
Still.’Gemini’ certainly packs a surprise with spracht at one moment and brevity at the other. Others are briefer, more free and voluble. Dunér riffs and floats, swoops down and sings with stratospheric elan.
I’m not sure of Stockhausen’s rather unvarying instructions about arms and twirling. He could have done with a choreographer. But it really doesn’t count. Dunér beguiles and draws everyone in.
Meanwhile Powell the maximalist pianist par excellence has less to do. The piano part too is inviting. Though it’s difficult to read a development there. It’s not that kind of piece.
At one point Dunér is alone. And memorably bluesy. It lasts only a moment though. But after an ensemble moment the piano takes a riff too. Still the overall effect is unvarying, the extra musical features lacking function as equally repetitive: Dunér does her best. If there were true balletic moments it might detract.
There’s a little announcement and badinage about arriving “at the last sign Capricorn.” Stockhausen’s proceeded from January to December and this Aquarius to Capricorn. Not Pisces. What we do enjoy though is a longer than normal pianistic introduction. And a far more elegaic postlude. It’s a contained fining-down.
What a remarkable piece: not a major . No-one would guess knowing early Stockhausen that this was by the same composer. Mantras for two pianos from 1971 hunts at a similar language but very distantly. But it’s extremely accessible. Though perhaps best approached in a couple of movements.
The second half begins with Stockhausen’s Klavierstuck IX No. 9 from 1961. To repeat the brief analysis would give some idea if contrasting tempi and the two elements: repetition and ornamentation
By this time Stockhausen has been influenced by more traditional modes like the Fibonacci Sequence. And had been reading Le Corbusier on architecture. Al this fed into this work
Cast in 33 sections over 9 minutes it’s a more expensive and repetitive piece with ostinato rhythms and the mind of profile the total aerialists would not surely have countenanced. Eruptive, with a kid of processional element like Birtwistle’s The Triumph of Time, it has an emotional expressive core: which feeds motoric rhythms that are disrupted with stratospheric notes splintering the ether: the ornamentation shimmers: “the rigid horizontal gives way to the florid horizontal in a triumph of lyricism over structure” as Powell says.
Feldman’s very late (and last piano) work Palais de Mari from rim 1986 has made an impression on everyone who’s ever heard it (this writer at Huddersfield in 1989).
It’s a miracle of quietism. Never rising above the damper pedal with it’s muted contemplation, it’s a piece about the Babylonian temple and shimmers with an immanence if long ago. As if the oast is continually floating just ahead and about to shimmer back into life
The slowly shifting tapestry as Powell describes it is set against repeated chords and phrases, very slightly varied by “rhythm, pitch or temporal displacement.” It’s exquisite music, and exquisitely slow to the point of trance. And premiered by Bunita Marcus: who herself had a troubled relationship with Feldman.
It’s also quite difficult to write about. Last time I heard it live was with friends, acutely conscious we might need to run to a last train back to Leeds. But it held us for its 22 minutes. Before the 11pm late November dark engulfed us back in 1989.
Here in a late May Brighton dusk as realised by Powell, it comes as a more intimate gift. And the 1899 instrument as he later noted is somehow beautifully attuned, along with an acoustic that held the audience so rapt there was not a rustle or breath throughout.
As Powell said in his introduction, as he saw the equally young (and later great modernist) Nicholas Hodges play the then brand new unpublished Feldman to him from a facsimile mss, just a year after it was written, his youthful instincts were proved right. And in a very modest way, my own too as a listener from a couple of years later.
Finally Feldman”s 1976 ‘Voice, Violin, and Piano’ brings Powell Dunér and violinist Leora Cohen brings a five minute postlude. Dunér sings in a middle register whilst Cohen’s Violin reaches small high notes a bit like Salvatore Sciarrino would compose, but of course wholly in Feldman’s pared style.
Powell has less to do here initially and it’s Dunér’s voice that leads the violin, more frequently reinforced by a few piano chords at the extreme registers of the keyboard; very softly. The two instruments threaten to have a moment together. But the voice here is queen.
An outstanding concert.
