Wednesday, 5 August, 2026.
City Recital Hall, Angel Place
Review by Paul Neeson (Arts Wednesday)
Every year as the leaves begin to change colour, Artistic Director Richard Tognetti migrates north for the European summer concert season leaving his devoted fans pining for his musical brilliance. Sure, we get to experience highly talented guest Directors who bring musicianship at an international standard plus fresh and exciting programming. But better than all that, Tognetti returns with amazing musical treasures that he has dug up in the Northern Hemisphere. And this year he brought riches beyond our wildest imaginings in the guise of trumpeter, Arve Henriksen and vocal ensemble Trio Mediæval. To celebrate these amazing musicians he devised a program of diverse Nordic contemporary music, blended with ancient sacred music, creating a totally absorbing journey into the Arctic Circle winter: From Winter’s Stillness.
The concert opened with Henriksen’s The Plume of Ash / Acceptance inspired by an Icelandic volcanic explosion. A brave choice to begin the evening as the orchestra were still finding their tonal centre with pianissimo solo trumpet (largely improvised?) and muted strings. But these musicians were always going to settle within a few bars. His musicianship was immediately evident displaying his penchance for improvisation and jazz influences. He had in his arsenal both standard and piccolo trumpets, as well as a single reed woodwind instrument that looked like a tiny clarinet. The music constantly fluctuated between settled harmony, in particular on the piano (Simon Tedeschi) and chaotic dissonance that was largely improvised by the strings. Henriksen delighted in encouraging the musicians to go wilder in their improvs.
This segued into Terry Riley’s minimalist work, Half Wolf Dances Mad in the Moonlight. This was an angular work that featured the strings of the ACO. Technically and rhythmically demanding, the music was nonetheless evocative of the first flurries of snow in the approaching season.
Trio Mediæval would have to be one of the finest vocal ensembles I have ever experienced. The group, founded in Oslo in 1997, has a purity of sound that is as clear as a mountain brook, and a strength that could carry across vast alpine distances. Founding member, Anna Maria Friman describes in the program notes the song of the alpine cowherds as “a resonant, beautiful penetrating sound that echoes across the valleys.” And that is exactly what we felt.
Henriksen’s trumpet improvisation sought to blend with the voices in new and interesting ways, and in the World premiere of the commissioned work, Time and Water by Oscar winning film composer, Hildur Guônadóttir, you could actually see the vocal ensemble ‘feel’ the trumpet as an integral part of their sound. The text from the work only enhancing the Winter Stillness with lines such as “Below time’s snowless peak, my silence waited like ripening grain.”
A special mention goes to the uncredited Lighting Designer who took obvious delight in the theme and created an evolving arctic winter skyline that ranged from the midnight blue of the months-long night, through the extended orange dawn and into the eternal blue sky of the seemingly endless spring.
If the first half of the concert was about purity and strength, after interval we received a masterclass in dissonance and resolution. A large part of Trio Mediæval’s repertoire are 1000 year old hymns or plainchants. The absolute inspiration to interweave these beautiful sacred works with Alfred Schnittke’s Concerto Grosso No.1 stretched our minds and our ears to sometimes almost breaking point. Mediæval music was all about mathematically calculated dissonance that followed strict rules, that then resolved onto beautiful pleasing harmonies speaking to the divine wonder of the scriptures. Schnittke, on the other hand, explored dissonance for its own sake and as an end in itself. The contrast was striking, but in the hands of the ACO and their guests it was also enlightening. And the genius of the vocal arrangements that began with monophony to suddenly explode into harmony in the later strophes. Add to that the improvised trumpet, and it was mind blowing.
The ACO took Schnittke’s music to unprecedented extremes, ending the 2nd movement in a high harsh harmonic that evoked a gasp of wonder from the audience. The ACO crowd are well disciplined and know not to utter a sound while Tognetti’s bow is raised, but this was an extraordinary moment forcing us to relinquish our self-control. There was one section of the Concerto Grosso that I am sure was improvised by Tognetti and Satu Vänskä. The two violins duelled each other with competing musical gestures, the intensity and aggression ramping up until the sound became so unbearable that Satu let out a loud scream, releasing the tension in the audience. Once again this provoked an audible response, this time a tentative laugh. I can only imagine how much satisfaction that must give the musicians to elicit such a response from such a well-disciplined crowd.
This was one of those rare concerts where what you expect (brilliant virtuosity and musicianship) is surpassed beyond your wildest imaginings. The ACO performed as one brain with 25 bows, a fully integrated musical organism. In the Concerto Grosso, when Tognetti was playing a complex passage, Helena Rathbone took over the conducting role seamlessly. Add to this high level of musicianship the solid clarity and purity of Trio Mediæval and the improvisational skill of Arve Henriksen, and we are operating on a whole new plane.
I, for one, won’t mind when Sir Richard (btw why haven’t you been knighted yet?) ventures off on his annual musical Crusade, as long as he returns home with Teutonic treasures such as these in his vast, capacious saddle bag.
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