Thus started the Brighton Philharmonic Orchestra’s penultimate concert, featuring modern composers Steve Reich, Gerhard Richter, Terry Riley, Lou Harrison and Yoko Ono, knowing we were in for something different.
There were sparse orchestra seats, not a full orchestra. Two grand pianos at the back. One with Joanna, the other with Xiaowen Shang.
Thus the Brighton Philharmonic Orchestra began a varied programme featuring modern composers whose imaginations created music with its own brand of tunefulness. It had a hypnotic quality that kept us aurally transfixed.
At the start, on came two women, two men. All the percussion team from the back row of the orchestra, now taking special places front of stage. The foursome: Donna-Maria Landowski, Chris Brannick, Meadow Brooks and Cameron Gorman.
Plus conductor Colin Currie in the first piece, to start tapping in a syncopated rhythm. To the left we hear intermittent taps that increase bit by bit. Tapper number five joins in and the rhythm changes pace and speeds up. The sticks - or claves - at the beginning are specially designed, each with different tuning and in different lengths. All in harmony. We were hypnotised.
This was the first piece, by New Yorker Steve Reich, a living legend in contemporary music and musical collaborator with Gerhard Richter. The concert featured three of Reich’s works, all different.
Well done, Artistic Director, Joanna MacGregor, for introducing yet another round of musical enigmas to tease our ears and remind us that, though they may be all the same notes, it’s how you arrange them that makes the difference.
Having woken up from our trance, we’re on the floor, enjoying Double Music, by Lou Harrison (1917-2003) and John Cage (1912-1992).
Harrison was a pioneer in the use of alternate tunings, world music influences, and new instruments, with an explorer’s heart, and a lyrical gift which he used freely..
Over to the right there’s a circle of mats covered with different percussion items - brake drums, a tam-tam (hanging gong), a sistra (ancient Egyptian) and a thunder sheet. And other tappable items that the percussion team join to echo the measured themes of Harrison’s piece - again with the percussion foursome.
Then American composer Terry Riley, (now 89 and known as a pioneer of minimalism in musical composition). Performing “Half Wolf Dances Mad in Moonlight”. Four strings. Joanna conducting, Lead violin Ruth Rogers leading the foursome with a second violin, viola and cello (Nikki Gleed, Caroline Harrison and Peter Adams). Not a piece you could hum to, but something captivating about the tunes that finally peter out to a soft ending.
Having only ever associated Yoko Ono with John Lennon, I hadn’t realised she was also a musician - now 92 and in a wheelchair, but still acknowledged as the iconic figure that her Japanese musical background fostered. Once again, the percussive foursome performed her work: “Pieces for Orchestra”: tapping on the floor, on standing drums of a different kind; dark taps on a grand piano by Joanna MacGregor, with Xiaowen Shang on the adjacent grand.
I had a few words with conductor Colin Currie, afterwards. “There’s no composer I’m more closely associated with than Steve Reich. I conducted “Runner” and “Reich/Richter. I can’t promise you’ll go away whistling anything, but this particular area of Reich’s music is deeply melodic, and profoundly memorable, because of the richness of the harmonic language and the beauty of the melodies that are in there. On a first-time listen, you may not be able to remember them but they will have entered your soul.” And that summed it up.
The last work - Reich/Richter - was the biggest surprise.. On a large cinema screen behind the orchestra, was the most colourful and original kaleidoscope of changing colours. A musical dissertation that teased our ears, with morphing images to feast our eyes. This lasted the whole of the second half - a final foray into a side to tunefulness that demonstrates the diversity of human classical music perception. The audience went wild.
Next and final concert in the BPO’s centenary season: Messiaen’s Turangalila Symphony: Sunday 13 April 2025, 2.45pm. Brighton Dome Tickets 01273 729288 or online. £13 to £38; £1 child/teen.