Turnage's Hidden Love Song revealed in London

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(January 2006)

The first new work resulting from Mark-Anthony Turnage’s composer residency with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Hidden Love Song, is premiered at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London on 30 January. Scored for saxophone and chamber orchestra, the work is conducted by Marin Alsop and features saxophonist Martin Robertson who has worked closely with Turnage for more than a decade, having premiered Turnage’s concerto Your Rockaby in 1994.

Hidden Love Song is a co-commission by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, with generous support from the South Bank Centre and in association with the Risør Festival of Chamber Music and Staatsorchester Rheinische Philharmonie. Further performances are scheduled at the Risør Festival in June and in Koblenz in December. Before his appointment as Composer in Residence, the London Philharmonic focussed on Turnage’s music last season and released a disc including Scherzoid and Yet Another Set To (LPO-0007).

The soprano saxophone is an instrument closely associated with Turnage’s music, and the love song of the title is heard as a melody in the solo part, with occasional contributions from orchestral soloists. The chamber orchestra provides supporting accompaniment for much of the piece, coloured distinctively with high and low contrasts (for instance with the woodwind line-up of pairs of flute, cor Anglais and bass clarinet), but a number of characteristic violent interruptions attempt to disrupt the lyrical line. The ‘hidden’ aspect of the title comes through the work’s ‘secret’ composition as a gift for Turnage’s fiancée Gabriella Swallow, the use of musical cryptograms of her name, and allusions to an Auden Lullaby (‘Lay your sleeping head, my love…’).

Turnage’s love affair with the saxophone is seen in a different perspective on 11 February, when A Man Descending receives its London premiere at the Barbican. Virtuoso alto saxophonist Joe Lovano is joined by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra conducted by Stefan Asbury. Turnage has described the work as an ‘opposite twin’ to Vaughan Williams’s The Lark Ascending, and rather than climbing skyward the solo part heads earthwards, travelling through both notated and improvisatory sections. The concert also features Turnage’s Scorched, as heard on the recent Deutsche Grammophon disc.

Turnage premieres in March include Ceres, an asteroid for Simon Rattle’s Planets project with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra (16-18 March), to be performed at the Philharmonie in sequence with other asteroids by Saariaho, Dean and Pintscher, Holst’s Planets suite and Colin Matthews’ Pluto. On 22 March the Wigmore Hall plays host to the premiere of Bleak Moments for horn and string quintet - the latest in the Nash Ensemble’s series of Turnage commissions. The group’s new Turnage disc was recently released by Onyx (4005).

On 21 March the Royal College of Music in London hosts a day exploring the music of Turnage, its Research Fellow in Composition.

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