Too long and too loud: Varèse at the Barbican
Varèse's Arcana, Nocturnal, Étude pour espace, Déserts, Tuning Up and Amériques
BBC Symphony Orchestra, Sakari Oramo, Allison Bell, BBC Singers
Barbican Hall
6 May 2017
Stalls J2, moved to J9, £10
https://www.barbican.org.uk/music/event-detail.asp?ID=19147
It turns out I like Varèse in micro and not in macro, at least on the whole. The exceptions in this all-Varèse programme were those pieces involving choir, Nocturnal and Étude pour espace. Nocturnal, headed by the appropriately glamorous Allison Bell and backed by a bass chorus, is extremely silly and highly entertaining. 'Sperm!', she gasps, 'Ehhh-GUH', the emphaticly manly response, while around them the orchestra has kittens. All very fun. Étude pour espace is less silly and a bit less fun, although the BBC Singers shone – this is probably the best I've heard them. Soprano Emma Tring 100% nailed her solo with such aplomb that for me it basically justified the entire concert. What amazing singing.
The rest of the concert did need justifying. For someone who only wrote about three hours' worth of music it's odd that Varèse, on the basis of these pieces, just didn't seem to know when to stop. Arcana, Déserts and Amériques all display an endearing enchantment with sound, a delight in the audio possibilities of a large orchestra and of tape. But they are also (I think) too long and too loud, sensations not helped by his resistance to internal structuring, whereby any section could to my mind have appeared at any point within the piece without it making much difference. Perhaps I needed to be more in love with Varèse before going to an all-Varèse programme, but as it was I felt at the end like I'd been bludgeoned in the face with a large orchestra for three hours, and grateful to escape to the relative peace and quiet of London traffic.
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