LPO-0031_booklet

Mark-Anthony Turnage b.1960

29:46

Twice Through the Heart

01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09

03:11 03:18 03:51 02:20 02:58 02:14 00:57 06:02 04:51

No Way Out Inside (part 1) Love By the Sea Inside (part 2) Four Walls Interlude Landslide China Cup

Sarah Connolly mezzo-soprano

Hidden Love Song

10 10:24

Martin Robertson soprano saxophone

26:02

Gerald Finley baritone

11 12 13 14 15 16 17

01:46 02:47 02:32 09:48 02:18 03:38 03:10

Prologue Loss No More Jokes Wounded Interlude The Mouthless Dead Aftermath

The Torn Fields

MARIN ALSOP conductor LONDON PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA Pieter Schoeman leader LPO – 0031

Mark-Anthony turnage Twice Through the Heart Hidden Love Song | The Torn Fields marin alsop conductor SARAH CONNOLLY mezzo-soprano MARTIN ROBERTSON soprano saxophone GERALD FINLEY baritone LONDON PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA

Such is the immediacy of the names Mark-Anthony Turnage gives his works that even a glance through his catalogue can provoke an emotional response. Many of his titles generously reveal the content of the piece they label, none more so than those on this disc: one, a literal description of the human act which gave birth to the piece; the next a touchingly disarming reference to the work’s emotional tectonics; the third an image that seems to encapsulate both the pace of the work and the terror of its subject. This point-blank communication extends beyond titling to the works’ very thematic and musical fabric. “I pick strong emotional subject matter because it stimulates me”, says the composer – those subject matters frequently include the human effects of drug addiction, abuse, death and war.

‘There’s no way out, no way out.’ Turnage’s mezzo-soprano launches into the tabootroubled subject matter of Twice Through the Heart with a similar immediacy to that of the work’s title. The verse by Jackie Kay continues in a straightforward non-poetic manner – “everyday…almost banal” in Kay’s words. It tells of a woman who stabbed her husband with a kitchen knife after suffering years of emotional and physical abuse, subsequently meeting Kay during education work in prison.

Turnage and Kay were bound by similar experience working with prisoners: “I’d done education work with prisoners, particularly

lifers [prisoners serving life sentences], and felt great empathy with them, as well as an attraction to the solitude”, Turnage said in 1997. He was drawn to a BBC film of Kay’s poetry, including Twice Through the Heart, some years earlier. “This story struck me because the woman had refused to testify against her husband. When Jackie and I tried to make it into an opera, we realised that the strength lay in the poetry, and so it became a ‘dramatic scena’, from the woman’s point of view.” The resulting drafts were nurtured by the Contemporary Opera Studio at English National Opera, and the finished piece was first performed on 13 June 1997 at the Aldeburgh Festival by Sally Burgess and members of the Orchestra of English National Opera, conducted by Nicholas Kok. Across nine sections in three sets of three, ‘the woman’ – originally named but subsequently stripped of an identity by Kay and Turnage to achieve ‘more distance’ – turns to contrasting aspects of her predicament in a first person free-flow narrative style associated with conversational therapy; Kay describes it as the woman’s ‘imagined voice’. Despite her ordeal, remnants of the woman’s love for her husband survive and are shot through the work in a strand almost more unnerving than the obvious anger and fear, ‘the heart’ of the title can be seen as anatomical and emotional as the woman recalls both marital happiness and her courtroom loyalty to her husband.

Turnage’s music poses an emotional subtext to the woman’s speech. Like her, it’s rarely violent or hysterical, but does reflect the claustrophobia of both her marital incarceration before the killing and her physical incarceration after it – opening with a stern cascade akin to the falling of a prison portcullis, almost as an inversion of the rising of a stage curtain.

Turnage commented in 1997 that writing the piece was “more difficult than anything else I’ve done”, but still Twice through the Heart is one of the most remarkable creations of his 30s – the period that gave birth to Blood on the Floor and Scorched. His hallmarks are discernible: woodwind and brass sing out bluesy pleas (though unusually there’s no part for saxophone), and there’s a lyricism that recalls Alban Berg’s celebrated marital-murder opera Wozzeck (as does the translucency of some of the instrumental writing, particularly at the work’s conclusion). The predominantly low instrumental textures are by turns thin like a prison mattress, broad and menacing, and luscious and heartfelt. Taunting themes emerge and become familiar, whilst the purely instrumental passages offer something of the indulgent, poetic emotion that Kay’s text deliberately avoids. That text is utterly embodied by Turnage’s vocal writing, which underwent major revision during a series of workshops prior to performance. As a measure of his sensitivity and embracing of the text, in

some passages the music seems scarcely there at all; every word as discernible and rhythmic as it would be in speech.

It might seem surprising, then, that Turnage is particularly challenged by the prospect of writing for voice: “I find it hard to write vocal music… but Gerald Finley is, in my view, the greatest baritone around. Writing for him made it easier.” So commented Turnage in advance of the London première of the song cycle The Torn Fields by the Birmingham Contempory Music Group and Gerald Finley, conducted by Alexander Briger, on 6 October 2004 (the first performance, by the same forces, took place two years earlier at the Berlin Festival). It was for Finley that Turnage created the role of Harry Heegan in his First World War opera The Silver Tassie, of which this song cycle is a creative evacuee – the Wilfred Owen poem Wounded, set in the fourth movement, was the template for the original play.

The Torn Fields feels immediately less impulsive than Twice Through the Heart.

Framed by enigmatic fanfares which suggest a world of nightmarish incomprehensibility, the work sets five First World War poems that savagely attack the sweeping loss of war, often spiked with acerbic, critical humour.

Emerging from an oblique low-string fog, the soloist is first heard in a lonely, bluesy hum doubled by bassoon; far from the elastic twang

that launches Twice Through the Heart.

Moreover, Turnage’s instrumental landscape, though often angular and lyrical like that of Twice Through the Heart, embodies the strange, alien world of indiscriminate killing rather than the more ‘everyday’ concept of one-off murder.

In conveying this landscape, Turnage calls on larger instrumental forces, this time including soprano saxophone. Within the score he conjures episodes of vivid, explicit drama from the ensemble, including the galloping instrumental advances that corner the soloist in No More Jokes, and the pale jazz dances (on muted, vibrato-less strings and celeste) and derelict fanfares that recall ‘the old times’ lost by the maimed survivor of Owen’s Disabled.

But the texts dominate still, even if the musical lyricism is perhaps more marked in a response to that of the poetic phrase. Atop the lurching ‘pale battalions’ of mouthless dead which troll across Turnage’s setting of Charles Sorley’s verse, the sore truths of the text are left gaping and obvious, with only touches of ironic anger from the woodwind. In the final movement, the baritone’s lyricism transcends the melee in the manner of Siegfried Sassoon’s poem, the instruments try to join him, attempting to spiral heavenward with major-key inflections as far as the implications of the returning opening fanfare will allow, but seeming not quite to reach the haven found by the ‘prisoned birds in freedom’ of the vocal line.

Turnage became the London Philharmonic Orchestra’s Composer in Residence in 2005, and Hidden Love Song, a brief ‘song’ for soprano saxophone and chamber orchestra including harpsichord, was the first collaboration of the residency, commissioned by the Orchestra with Norwegian and German partners. The work was written with two artists in mind: to perform it, a frequent recipient of Turnage commissions and the composer’s good friend the saxophonist Martin Robertson; and its dedicatee, Turnage’s then fiancée and now wife, the musician Gabriella Swallow. The piece creates a theme from the usable letters in her name (G-A-B-E-A-S-A, with S representing E flat in the German system of notation) which is heard at the work’s opening, recurring in the melody line that emerges later. The melancholy of the other featured works isn’t entirely eschewed despite the nature of the piece – that itself is a Turnage hallmark – and the piece is more a lullaby than a rhapsody, in which the saxophone is joined occasionally by the cello, Gabriella’s instrument, in a touching gesture of understanding rather than an embrace.

Alongside his writing for voice, Turnage’s music for woodwind has a natural sensitivity to it; here the expression of love through purely abstracted musical means seems an appropriate gesture – sentiments coming exclusively from the composer himself, whose frankness sees them not so hidden after all.

Andrew Mellor, 2007

Twice Through the Heart PART 1 1. No Way Out There’s no way out, no way out, He ties the kitchen towel into a garrotte, There’s no way out, no way out.

He hits me with a rolling pin.

There’s no way out, no way out.

I notice a steak knife missing, There’s no way out, no way out.

We’re too old for this, I shout.

There’s no way out, no way out.

He just keeps on and on about, There’s no way out, no way out.

He’s always on about how I am in the wrong, He’ll sort me out, sort me out.

He walks towards me. Lout.

I pick up a knife to protect myself, There’s no way out, no way out.

He keeps on walking towards me.

There’s no way out, no way out.

The knife is smiling. Come on, kill me.

There’s no way out, not one way out, no way out.

He towers above me, that odd mouth.

2. Inside (part 1) There was no one to tell the tale I couldn’t be that disloyal The way his love turned into a belt As if hatred was all he felt.

I am in this small cell All those years in a silent hell My lawyer said talk at the trial But I couldn’t be that disloyal.

So many years and I could never tell Shame ringing like a church bell Every time taking its toll There is no one to tell the tale.

3. Love For the first time in my life I had a love child, Planted like a garden, wanted. I swelled With pleasure, passing the days along the coast, Light breeze, laughing. I was forty, laughing.

He and I we liked to keep things simple.

We sat down to dinner and toasted each other.

All for us, the bright stars in the sky, The half moon.

I never wanted anyone so much, so soon.

Desire shook me. Then Suddenly something went wrong. Love gone rotten.

Our child screamed.

You write notes. We fight. You won’t talk.

You write notes. We fight. You won’t talk.

The walls come in like a terrible tide.

Trapped here, marooned, mouth open wide.

PART II 4. By the Sea What is there to talk about?

There’s no way out, no way out.

Fear stopped me walking out There was no way out, no way out.

I didn’t want to sully his name I wore it like a skin, the shame.

He wasn’t a frail weak man I’m not what you think I am.

I can’t talk of his repeated sin He hit me with a rolling pin.

All I ever wanted was a simple life My church, my child, being a wife.

Just him and me, him and me Inside a small house by the sea.

5. Inside (part 2) Inside I’d say please don’t, Grit my teeth, bite the pillow.

You pulled me to a place Where everything went numb, hollow.

I’d lose my voice.

Inside, I’d say don’t please.

High on the wall I’d watch your shadow Turn against me – shape of a storm.

My own heart, broken like bones, I’d wish at night for tomorrow, When I might wash you away and sorrow Would leave me alone.

Nothing, nothing washes you away, You, underneath my skin That smell, that voice, that hollow, My own heart, broken like bones.

6. Four Walls Within these four walls he stares at me.

We don’t venture out much these days.

Holiday brochures come by post; I leaf through the glorious pictures of Tunisia.

What about a coach trip? A mystery tour?

He won’t go anywhere.

His endless notes: More milk, get me my tea, I talk to myself. Live somewhere else.

He writes notes. We fight. He won’t talk.

He writes notes. We fight. He won’t talk.

He writes notes. We fight. He won’t talk.

PART III 7. Interlude 8. Landslide His body is buried in the land.

You are buried here: this place Where your voice is.

A disused mine. You mime The same sentence. The sound gets stuck, Life. Life.

You wait for the time that never comes, Days slide into nights. Waiting.

Nights long like years in a small room.

The wind sings through cells.

You buried something and forgot Where you put it. Years ago.

Maybe you even forgot what you buried.

How it went. What the tune was.

Remembering is dying slowly, dying slowly.

Slipping away. Walking the same Coastline until your body steps – Like land slides into the sea – Under the path, people will later walk over.

9. China Cup This china cup, every night, this china cup The same fragile bone china from home.

My hands cupping bluebells. Locked in.

In my cell I lift my mouth to my china cup The same fragile bone china from home.

Outside, the long stretch of stone. Tide in.

Every night this hot drink from my china cup In this small cell like the one at home.

Four walls here, four there. Tide in.

Every night this same routine china cup, Powdered milk. Alone. Sipping away at home.

The noise of the key turning. Locked in.

Locked in. Locked in.

Verse by Jackie Kay (b. 1961) reproduced by permission of Schott Music Limited

The Torn Fields 11. Prologue 12. A son (Loss) My son was killed while laughing at some jest. I would I knew What it was, and it might serve me in a time when jests are few.

Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) from Epitaphs of War 13. The Immortals (No More Jokes) I killed them, but they would not die.

Yea! all the day and all the night For them I could not rest or sleep, Nor guard from them nor hide in flight.

Then in my agony I turned And made my hands red in their gore.

In vain – for faster than I slew They rose more cruel than before.

I killed and killed with slaughter mad; I killed till all my strength was gone.

And still they rose to torture me, For Devils only die in fun.

I used to think the Devil hid In women’s smiles and wine’s carouse.

I called him Satan, Balzebub.

But now I call him, dirty louse.

Isaac Rosenberg (1890–1918)

14. Disabled (Wounded) He sat in a wheeled chair, waiting for dark, And shivered in his ghastly suit of grey, Legless, sewn short at elbow. Through the park Voices of boys rang saddening like a hymn, Voices of play and pleasure after day, Till gathering sleep had mothered them from him.

About this time Town used to swing so gay When glow-lamps budded in the light-blue trees And girls glanced lovelier as the air grew dim, — In the old times, before he threw away his knees.

Now he will never feel again how slim Girls’ waists are, or how warm their subtle hands, All of them touch him like some queer disease.

There was an artist silly for his face, For it was younger than his youth, last year.

Now he is old; his back will never brace; He’s lost his colour very far from here, Poured it down shell-holes till the veins ran dry, And half his lifetime lapsed in the hot race, And leap of purple spurted from his thigh.

One time he liked a bloodsmear down his leg, After the matches carried shoulder-high.

It was after football, when he’d drunk a peg, He thought he’d better join. [He wonders why…

Someone had said he’d look a god in kilts.

That’s Why; and maybe, too, to please his Meg, Aye, that was it, to please the giddy jilts, He asked to join. He didn’t have to beg] Smiling they wrote his lie; aged nineteen years.

[Germans he scarcely thought of; and no fears Of fear came yet. He thought of jewelled hilts For daggers in plaid socks; of smart salutes; And care of arms and leave; and pay arrears; Esprit de corps; and hints for young recruits.]

And soon, he was drafted out with drums and cheers.

Some cheered him home, but not as crowds cheer Goal.

Only a solemn man who brought him fruits Thanked him; and then inquired about his soul.

Now, he will spend a few sick years in Institutes, And do what things the rules consider wise, And take whatever pity they may dole.

Tonight he noticed how the women’s eyes Passed from him to the strong men that were whole.

How cold and late it is! Why don’t they come And put him into bed? Why don’t they come?

Wilfred Owen (1893–1918)

15. Interlude 16. When you see millions of the mouthless dead (The Mouthless Dead) When you see millions of the mouthless dead Across your dreams in pale battalions go, Say not soft things as other men have said, That you’ll remember. For you need not so.

Give them not praise. For, deaf, how should they know It is not curses heaped on each gashed head?

Nor tears. Their blind eyes see not your tears flow.

Nor honour. It is easy to be dead.

Say only this, “They are dead.” Then add thereto, “Yet many a better one has died before.”

Then, scanning all the o’ercrowded mass, should you Perceive one face that you loved heretofore, It is a spook. None wears the face you knew.

Great death has made all his for evermore.

Charles Sorley (1895–1915) 17. Everyone Sang (Aftermath) Everyone suddenly burst out singing; And I was filled with such delight As prisoned birds must find in freedom, Winging wildly across the white Orchards and dark-green fields; on, on, and out of sight.

Everyone’s voice was suddenly lifted; And beauty came like the setting sun: My heart was shaken with tears; [and horror Drifted away...] O, but Everyone Was a bird; and the song was wordless; the singing will never be done.

Siegfried Sassoon (1886–1967) [text in square brackets not set by Turnage]

Martin Robertson soprano saxophone

Sarah Connolly studied at the Royal College of Music and has achieved international success in opera, in concert and in recital. Her appearances on the opera stage include the title roles in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas (La Scala), Handel’s Giulio Cesare (Glyndebourne Festival Opera) and Gluck’s Orfeo (Bayerische Staatsoper, Munich); Annio in La clemenza di Tito (Metropolitan Opera); Sesto (La clemenza di Tito, nominated for an Olivier Award), Dido (Les Troyens), Susie (The Silver Tassie) and the title roles in Handel’s Agrippina, Xerxes and Ariodante – all at English National Opera.

Sarah Connolly has appeared at numerous concert halls and festivals worldwide, under conductors including Sir Simon Rattle, Sir Colin Davis, Daniel Harding and Philippe Herreweghe whilst her commitment to the promotion of new music has seen her give the world premières of works by Mark-Anthony Turnage, Jonathan Harvey and Sir John Tavener. She has recorded prolifically and appears on the Harmonia Mundi, Deutsche Grammophon, Erato and Naxos labels, also appearing as soloist on Sir John Tavener’s soundtrack to the film Children of Men.

Martin Roberston studied clarinet and saxophone at the Royal College of Music, and is now one of the world’s leading saxophonists, with a special interest in contemporary music and a strong creative relationship with Mark-Anthony Turnage, by whom he has been gifted a number of works. It was with Turnage’s Sarabande that Martin Robertson made his solo professional debut at the Purcell Room in 1986, following which Turnage’s concerto Your Rockaby was written for him. He has performed with orchestras throughout the world including the London, Los Angeles, Hamburg and Tampere Philharmonic Orchestras, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Symphony and Scottish Symphony Orchestras and the Ensemble Modern. He has also performed at the Tanglewood and Umea Festivals, and extensively at the BBC Proms. Martin Robertson has worked across many genres of music, seamlessly crossing the boundaries of classical, jazz and world music and performing on ethnic woodwind instruments including the taragato and duduk. He appears extensively on record and on film, including the soundtracks to major pictures Billy Elliot, Shakespeare in Love, Captain Corelli’s Mandolin and Earth.

Panayotis Sinnos

Peter Warren

Sarah Connolly mezzo-soprano

Marin Alsop conductor

Canadian baritone Gerald Finley began singing as a chorister in Ottawa and later in the choir of King’s College Cambridge, studying at the Royal College of Music and the National Opera Studio; he enjoys a strong collaborative relationship with composer Mark-Anthony Turnage. He began his operatic career in Mozart’s operatic roles with Glyndebourne Festival Opera, and is now regularly heard at opera houses throughout the world. He works regularly at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, where his roles have included the Count (Le nozze di Figaro), Golaud (Pelléas et Mélisande), the Forester (The Cunning Little Vixen), Germont (La traviata) and the title role in Don Giovanni. Gerald Finley is a leading exponent of contemporary music, and amongst the roles he has given the first performances of are those of Harry Heegan in Mark-Anthony Turnage’s The Silver Tassie, J. Robert Oppenheimer in John Adams’ Doctor Atomic, Jaufre Rudel in Kaija Saariaho’s L’amour de loin and Mr Fox in Tobias Picker’s Fantastic Mr Fox. Gerald Finley is an active recording artist, appearing as a soloist on discs conducted by Sir Simon Rattle, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Christopher Hogwood, Richard Hickox and Nikolaus Harnoncourt, whilst his recital discs for CBS and Hyperion have attracted major awards.

Marin Alsop was born in New York and studied at Yale University and the Juilliard School. She became the first woman to head a major American orchestra when she became Music Director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in 2007, and in the same year she commenced her fifth and final season as Principal Conductor of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra in the UK. She is one of the few conductors to regularly appear with both the London Symphony and London Philharmonic Orchestras, and frequently conducts other high-profile ensembles including the Philadelphia, Chicago Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic and New York Philharmonic Orchestras. She was for twelve years Music Director of the Colorado Symphony, later Conductor Laureate, and has been Music Director of the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music in California since 1991. Marin Alsop has recorded the Brahms symphonies with the London Philharmonic Orchestra for the Naxos label, on which she also appears with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. She is the first artist to have won Gramophone’s Artist of the Year award and the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Conductor Award in the same season, and in 2005 became the first ever conductor to be named a MacArthur Fellow, joining an illustrious list of American thinkers and artists.

Kym Thomson

Sim Canetty-Clarke

Gerald Finley baritone

Commission Details Twice Through the Heart

The Torn Fields

Commissioned by the John S Cohen Foundation.

Commissioned by the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group (BCMG) with financial assistance from West Midland Arts and participants in the BCMG’s Sound Investment scheme.

First performed at Snape Maltings Concert Hall as part of the Fiftieth Aldeburgh Festival, 13 June 1997.

Hidden Love Song

First performed at the Philharmonie, Berlin as part of the Berlin Chamber Music Festival, 17 September 2002.

Keith Saunders / ArenaPAL

Commissioned by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, with generous support from the Southbank Centre and in association with the Risør Festival of Chamber Music and Staatsorchester Rheinische Philharmonie (Koblenz, Germany).

First performed at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, on 30 January 2006.

Mark-Anthony Turnage

Die Namen, die Mark-Anthony Turnage seinen Kompositionen gibt, sind so unmittelbar ansprechend, dass schon das bloße Durchblättern seines Werkkatalogs zu einer emotionalen Reaktion führen kann.

Viele seiner Titel enthüllen den jeweiligen Inhalt der einzelnen Stücke, und das trifft ganz besonders auf diejenigen zu, die auf der vorliegenden CD versammelt sind: ein Titel ist eine wörtliche Beschreibung der menschlichen Tat, dem die Entstehung des Werks zu verdanken ist; der nächste bezieht sich, ebenso entwaffnend wie rührend, auf den emotionalen Aufbau der Komposition; der dritte scheint sowohl das Tempo als auch den Schrecken des Sujets illustrieren zu wollen.

Diese ganz direkte Kommunikation geht über die reine Namensgebung hinaus und erstreckt sich auf die thematische und musikalische Struktur der Werke. Der Komponist sagt dazu: „Ich wähle gern kraftvolle Stoffe - sie spornen mich an.“ Oftmals geht es um die Auswirkungen, die Drogensucht, Missbrauch, Tod und Krieg auf den Menschen haben. „There’s no way out, no way out“ (Es gibt keinen Ausweg), ruft Turnages Mezzosopran im tabubelasteten Twice Through the Heart, („zweimal durchs Herz“), und zwar mit der gleichen Direktheit, wie sie dem Titel eignet. Die Dichtung von Jackie Kay geht in einer geradlinigen, unlyrischen Weise weiter - „alltäglich - fast schon banal“, wie Kay es ausdrückt. Es geht um eine Ehefrau, die nach Jahren seelischer und körperlicher

Misshandlungen ihren Mann mit einem Küchenmesser erstochen hat. Kay lernte die Frau später in einer erzieherischen Massnahme im Gefängnis kennen. Auch Turnage hatte Erfahrungen in der Arbeit mit Gefangenen: „Ich habe pädagogische Arbeit mit Gefangenen geleistet, vor allem mit Lebenslänglichen. Ich konnte mich sehr gut in sie hineinfühlen, und von der Einsamkeit fühlte ich mich angezogen“, so Turnage 1997. Sehr angesprochen hatte ihn schon einige Jahre zuvor ein Film der BBC über Jackie Kays Lyrik, der auch Twice Through the Heart behandelte. „Mich berührte besonders, dass die Frau sich geweigert hatte, gegen ihren Mann auszusagen. Als Jackie und ich versuchten, daraus eine Oper zu machen, merkten wir, dass die Kraft des Sujets in der Dichtung lag, und so wurde daraus eine ‚dramatische Szene’ aus dem Blickwinkel der Frau heraus.“ Mit den Entwürfen beschäftigte sich das Contemporary Opera Studio an der English National Opera. Das fertige Werk wurde am 13. Juni 1997 im Rahmen des Aldeburgh Festivals von Sally Burgess und Mitgliedern des English National Orchestra uraufgeführt.

In dreimal drei Abschnitten beleuchtet „die Frau“ (die ursprünglich einen Namen hatte, aber dann von Kay und Turnage ihrer Identität beraubt wurde, um „größere Distanz“ zu erzielen) verschiedene Aspekte ihrer traurigen Lage. Sie tut dies in freiem Erzählfluss in der ersten Person Singular, der

an eine Gesprächstherapie denken lässt; Kay spricht von ihrer „imaginierten Stimme“. Den Torturen zum Trotz, unter denen die Frau zu leiden hat, hat sie sich einen Rest Liebe zu ihrem Ehemann bewahrt, und dieses Gefühl scheint immer wieder auf und wirkt auf den Hörer verstörender als ihre verständliche Wut und Angst. Das im Titel genannte „Herz“ kann anatomisch und emotional verstanden werden, wenn die Frau sich ihres ehelichen Glücks und ihrer Loyalität erinnert.

Turnages Musik liefert einen emotionalen Subtext zur Rede der Frau. Ganz wie sie, ist die Musik kaum je heftig oder hysterisch, spiegelt aber die klaustrophobischen Empfindungen der Frau während ihres Ehegefängnisses sowie während ihres realen Gefängnisaufenthalts wider. Das Werk beginnt mit einer strengen Klangkaskade, die an das Herabsenken eines GefängnisFallgatters gemahnt - quasi als Gegenentwurf zum Heraufziehen eines Bühnenvorhangs.

1997 schrieb Turnage, dass die Arbeit an diesem Werk „schwieriger war als alles andere, was ich je gemacht habe“. Dennoch gehört Twice Through the Heart zu den bemerkenswertesten Schöpfungen Turnages in seinem vierten Lebensjahrzehnt, in dem auch Blood on the Floor und Scorched entstanden. Gewisse Besonderheiten finden sich immer wieder: So erklingen in den Holz- und Blechbläsern Hilferufe mit spürbarem Blues-Charakter (auch wenn Turnage normalerweise kein Saxophon

einsetzt), und es gibt lyrische Passagen, die an Alban Bergs Oper Wozzeck denken lassen, die ja auch den Ehegattenmord thematisiert. Ebenfalls an Berg erinnert die quasi durchsichtige Instrumentierung, vor allem gegen Ende des Stücks. Die vorwiegend tiefe Instrumentierung ist streckenweise dünn wie eine Gefängnismatratze, dann wieder breit und bedrohlich oder üppig und sehr emotional. Spöttische Themen tauchen auf und setzen sich im Ohr fest, während die reinen Orchesterpassagen etwas von jener zarten, poetischen Empfindsamkeit haben, die Kays Text bewusst vermeidet. Diesen Text hat Turnage komplett übernommen; im übrigen wurde er im Rahmen diverser Workshops vor der Uraufführung gründlich überarbeitet.

So sensibel und aufmerksam behandelt Turnage den Text, dass gelegentlich die Musik fast verstummt; jedes einzelne Wort ist so klar verständlich, als wäre es gesprochen.

Um so überraschender ist es, dass Turnage das Komponieren für Stimme als besondere Herausforderung empfindet: „Vokalmusik zu schreiben finde ich schwierig... aber nach meiner Meinung ist Gerald Finley weit und breit der beste Bariton, den es gibt, und das machte die Arbeit für mich einfacher.“ So Turnage vor der Londoner Premiere seines Liederzyklus’ The Torn Fields („die zerrissenen Felder“), am 6. Oktober 2004 (die Welturaufführung fand zwei Jahre zuvor bei den Berliner Festspielen in derselben Besetzung statt, mit den Auftraggebern

des Werkes, der Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, und Gerald Finley). Für Finley konzipierte Turnage auch die Rolle des Harry Heegan in seiner im Ersten Weltkrieg spielenden Oper The Silver Tassie. Es gibt eine Verbindung zwischen dieser Oper und The Torn Fields, denn Wilfred Owens Gedicht Wounded, das sich im vierten Satz findet, war die Vorlage für das Originalstück.

The Torn Fields erscheint weniger spontan und impulsiv als Twice Through the Heart.

Den Rahmen des Stücks bilden zwei blutarme, rätselhafte Fanfaren aus einer alptraumhaften, unbegreiflichen Welt, das Herzstück fünf Vertonungen von Gedichten zum Ersten Weltkrieg mit heftigen Angriffen auf die Verluste, die der Krieg mit sich bringt, oft versetzt mit einem bitteren, kritischen Witz. Vor einem Hintergrund von tiefen Streichern erhebt sich die Stimme des Solisten zunächst in einem einsamen, schwermütigen Summen, das vom Fagott begleitet wird. Wir sind hier in einer ganz anderen Welt als beim scharfen, federnden Beginn von Twice Through the Heart. Obwohl Turnages musikalische Landschaft oft scharfkantig und lyrisch wirkt wie bei Twice Through the Heart, schildert er in The Torn Fields eher die seltsame, fremdartige Welt anonymen Tötens als den „alltäglichen“ Mord an einer konkreten Person.

Hierfür setzt Turnage einen größeren Orchesterapparat ein, inklusive Sopransaxophon. Es gibt lebhafte,

dramatische Episoden, wie z. B. die galoppierenden Instrumentalattacken, die den Sänger in Rosenbergs No More Jokes in die Enge treiben, oder die fahlen Jazztänze (auf vibratolosen Streichern und Celesta), oder, in Owens Disabled, die kraftlosen Fanfaren, die die verlorene „gute alte Zeit“ des schwerverletzten Überlebenden evozieren.

Und doch dominiert immer der Text. In Turnages Vertonung der Verse von Charles Sorley, der vorwärtstaumelnden „blassen Bataillone“ von Toten ohne Münder, gähnen unverhüllt die schmerzvollen Wahrheiten des Textes, und nur gelegentlich zeigen die Holzbläser ironischen Zorn. Im letzten Satz transzendiert der lyrische Gesang des Baritons den Tumult nach Art von Siegfried Sassoons Gedicht. Die Instrumente bemühen sich, ihm zu folgen und sich in Dur-Farben himmelwärts hinaufzuwinden, soweit dies die erneut erklingenden Fanfaren zulassen - aber es scheint, dass sie es nicht schaffen, den rettenden Hafen zu erreichen, im Gegensatz zu den „eingesperrten Vögeln in Freiheit“, von denen der Sänger singt.

2005 wurde Turnage zum „Composer in Residence“ des London Philharmonic Orchestra ernannt, und das erste Werk, das im Rahmen dieser Zusammenarbeit entstand, war Hidden Love Song („verborgenes Liebeslied“), ein kurzes „Lied“ für Sopransaxophon und Kammerorchester inkl. Cembalo. Der Auftrag kam vom Orchester gemeinsam mit Partnern aus

Norwegen und Deutschland. Turnage hatte bei der Niederschrift zwei Künstler im Sinn: einmal seinen guten Freund, den Saxophonisten Martin Robertson, für den Turnage schon häufig geschrieben hatte, und zum anderen die Musikerin Gabriella Swallow, seine damalige Verlobte und heutige Ehefrau. Das Werk arbeitet mit den verwendbaren Buchstaben aus dem Namen Gabriella (G-A-B-E-A-S-A, wobei das S für Es steht). Dieses Thema steht am Beginn der Komposition und taucht später wieder auf.

Trotz seines Charakters ist auch diese Musik, eher ein Wiegendlied als eine Rhapsodie, nicht völlig frei von der Melancholie der anderen Stücke (was für Turnage durchaus charakteristisch ist). Zum Saxophon gesellt sich - weniger in einer leidenschaftlichen Umarmung als vielmehr in einer rührenden Geste vertrauten Verstehens - immer wieder das Cello, Gabriellas Instrument.

Turnages Behandlung der Holzbläser ist von der gleichen Sensitivität geprägt wie sein Umgang mit der menschlichen Stimme. In Hidden Love Song drückt sich die Liebe - und das scheint das angemessene Vorgehen abstrakt allein durch die Instrumente aus.

Die Gefühle entspringen dem Komponisten selbst, und letztlich scheinen sie gar nicht so verborgen (hidden) zu sein.

Andrew Mellor Übersetzung Martina Gottschau

Sarah Connolly mezzo-sopran

Martin Robertson sopransaxophon

Sarah Connolly studierte am Royal College of Music und feiert internationale Erfolge auf der Opernbühne, im Konzertsaal und mit Liederabenden. Zu hören war sie in den Titelrollen von Purcells Dido and Aeneas (La Scala), Händels Giulio Cesare (Glyndebourne) und Glucks Orfeo (Bayerische Staatsoper, München), dazu als Annio in Mozarts La Clemenza di Tito (Metropolitan Opera), Sesto (ebenfalls La Clemenza, nominiert für einen Olivier Award), Dido (in Berlioz’ Les Troyens), Susie (in Turnages The Silver Tassie) und in den Titelrollen von Händels Agrippina, Xerxes und Ariodante (alle an der English National Opera). Sarah Connolly tritt weltweit in Konzerthallen und bei Festspielen auf und hat sich auch die Förderung neuer Musik zur Aufgabe gemacht, wovon ihre Mitwirkung bei Welturaufführungen von Werken von Mark-Anthony Turnage, Jonathan Harvey und Sir John Tavener Zeugnis ablegt. Die Künstlerin ist auf zahlreichen CDs zu hören, die bei Harmonia Mundi, Deutsche Grammophon, Erato und Naxos erschienen sind. Zudem ist sie als Solistin in John Taveners Soundtrack zu dem Film Children of Men zu hören.

Martin Robertson studierte Klarinette und Saxophon am Royal College of Music und gilt heute als einer der führenden Saxophonisten, wobei er ein besonderes Interesse für zeitgenössische Musik entwickelt hat und eine enge künstlerische Beziehung zu MarkAnthony Turnage pflegt, der für ihn eine ganze Reihe von Werken geschrieben hat. Mit Turnages Sarabande debütierte er 1986 als Solist im Purcell Room, woraufhin Turnage für ihn Rockaby komponierte. Martin Robertson ist in der ganzen Welt aufgetreten, mit Klangkörpern wie dem London Philharmonic Orchestra, den Philharmonikern von Los Angeles, Hamburg und Tampere, mit dem City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, dem BBC Symphony und Scottish Symphony Orchestra, und dem Ensemble Modern. Weiterhin war er bei den Festivals von Tanglewood und Umea und mehrfach bei den BBC Proms zu hören. Der Künstler überschreitet mühelos alle Genregrenzen zwischen klassicher Musik, Jazz und Weltmusik und spielt auch Holzblasinstrumente fremder Kulturen, wie Taragato oder Duduk. Mit ihm sind viele CDs und Filme erschienen; so wirkte er bei den Soundtracks von bedeutenden Filmen wie Billy Elliot, Shakespeare in Love, Captain Corelli’s Mandolin und Earth mit.

Gerald Finley bariton

Marin Alsop dirigentin

Der kanadische Bariton Gerald Finley war zunächst Chorknabe in Ottawa und sang später im Chor des King’s College Cambridge.

Er studierte am Royal College of Music und am National Opera Studio. Eine enge Zusammenarbeit verbindet ihn mit dem Komponisten Mark-Anthony Turnage. Seine Opernkarriere begann er mit Mozart-Rollen in Glyndebourne; inzwischen ist er auf Opernbühnen in der ganzen Welt zu hören.

Regelmäßig ist er am Royal Opera House Covent Garden zu Gast. Dort war er zu hören als Graf (Le nozze di Figaro), Golaud (Pelléas et Mélisande), Förster (Das schlaue Füchslein), Germont (La Traviata) und in der Titelrolle von Don Giovanni. Gerald Finley ist ein bedeutender Interpret zeitgenössischer Musik. Er war bei den Uraufführungen von Mark-Anthony Turnages The Silver Tassie (als Harry Heegan), John Adams’ Doctor Atomic (als J. Robert Oppenheimer), Kaija Saariahos L’amour de loin (als Jaufre Rudel) and Tobias Picker’s Fantastic Mr Fox (als Mr. Fox) dabei. Von Gerald Finley liegen diverse Schallplatteneinspielungen vor, mit Dirigenten wie Sir Simon Rattle, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Christopher Hogwood, Richard Hickox und Nikolaus Harnoncourt. Für seine bei CBS und Hyperion erschienenen Liedaufnahmen wurde er mit wichtigen Preisen ausgezeichnet.

Die New Yorkerin Marin Alsop studierte in Yale und an der Juilliard School. 2007 wurde sie zum Music Director des Baltimore Symphony Orchestra ernannt und war damit die erste Frau an der Spitze eines der großen amerikanischen Klangkörper. Im selben Jahr startete sie in ihre fünfte und letzte Saison als Chefdirigentin des englischen Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra.

Sie gehört zu den wenigen Dirigenten, die regelmäßig sowohl am Pult des London Symphony als auch des London Philharmonic Orchestra stehen. Daneben dirigiert sie immer wieder prestigeträchtige Orchester wie das Philadelphia Orchestra, das Chicago Symphony oder die Philharmoniker von Los Angeles und New York. Zwölf Jahre lang war sie Music Director des Colorado Symphony, das sie auch zu seiner Ehrendirigentin erhoben hat. Seit 1991 ist sie auch Music Director des Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music in Kalifornien.

Für Naxos hat sie die Brahms-Symphonien mit dem London Philharmonic Orchestra eingespielt; für dasselbe Label hat sie auch CDs mit dem Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra aufgenommen. Sie ist die erste Künstlerin, der im selben Jahr sowohl der Gramophone’s Artist of the Year Award als auch der Royal Philharmonic Society’s Conductor Award zuerkannt wurde. Seit 2005 zählt sie zur erlauchten Schar der MacArthur Fellows; in dieser Vereinigung amerikanischer Denker und Künstler ist sie die erste Dirigentenpersönlichkeit überhaupt.