Twentieth Century Rocks at LSO St Luke’s: Guildhall Ubu Ensemble play Adams, Boulez, Varèse, and Zappa, by Gabriel Kellett

Zappa
Frank Zappa

Twentieth Century Rocks at LSO St Luke's
LSO St Luke's, Old Street
Jerwood Hall, March 24th, 2011

John Adams  - Chamber Symphony

Pierre Boulez  - Dérive

Edgard Varèse - Octandre

Frank Zappa -

The Dog Breath Variations/Uncle Meat
The Girl in the Magnesium Dress
The Perfect Stranger
Questi cazzi di piccione
Harry, You're a Beast/Orange County Lumber Truck
G-spot Tornado

Guildhall Ubu Ensemble
Simon Wills, Ben Gernon conductors


It was the title of the concert that first caught my eye, a pun and a gratuitous film reference joined in unholy wedlock, with no objections raised from my pew. Then I noticed the performers. The Guildhall Ubu Ensemble are apparently no mere youth orchestra composed of Guildhall students, but “the musicians of tomorrow playing the music of our time.” I would condemn the arrogance and dubious accuracy of that statement, were I not too busy praising the superb choice of name and happily envisaging a future where all musicians pretend to be influenced by seminal proto-Surrealist literature.

Also, the music looked pretty good. So it was off to my first time at St Luke's, the permanent home of the LSO's “Discovery” music education programme. It's a converted 18th century church that, once inside, has the atmosphere and appearance of the assembly hall of some well-heeled school — not, in this case, a criticism, as it seems somehow appropriate for the lightly subversive slant of this concert. The programming throws up some interesting relations between the chosen composers, especially in the mischievous pairing of Adams and Boulez, who have been quite disparaging about each other's work. I'm a big fan of Adams' unabashed eclecticism and exuberance, and my impression of this performance of his Chamber Symphony was that the Ubus — as I will now refer to them — are too, the string players in particular full of emphatic gestures that showed their immersion in the music. Jointly inspired by cartoon scores and Schoenberg's piece of the same name, but with the latter influence generally paramount, it's more violent and menacing than most Adams, though humorous as well. Other than a passage in the last movement for double bass and synthesiser that was not quite tight, it was an assured opening to the concert.

Read the full review on the Berkshire Review, an international journal for the Arts!

Michael Miller