Another Prom, another composer, another world premiere

Striking Stories: a series of posts written by volunteers unearthing the fascinating stories within The Evelyn Glennie Collection. 

This post describes the development and performance of Fractured Lines: a double percussion concerto by Mark-Anthony Turnage, 19 July 2000, at The Royal Albert Hall. With the BBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sir Andrew Davis.

By the year 2000, Evelyn was an experienced Prom artist. In comparison to her first, this one had a completely different feel about it, attracting major publicity in terms of articles advertising the concert and previews in publications and was much anticipated.  

It brought reviews from respected music critics in all the major newspapers and music magazines, generating a host of differing and considered opinions. It was also unusual in the sense that Evelyn shared the soloist role with the American jazz drummer, Peter Erskine. 

The Holy Roman Emperor, Joseph II was alleged to have said to Mozart that his Abduction from the Seraglio contained ‘too many notes’, to which Mozart replied ‘Just as many as necessary your majesty’. 

Mozart had a reputation for working things out in his head before writing everything down in one sitting or even composing works while playing skittles. This gives the impression of composers effortlessly producing astonishing works at the flick of a switch with no redrafts, no second thoughts, no self-doubts or sleepless nights.

This is emphatically not the case when it comes to the composition style of Mark-Anthony Turnage! Fractured Lines, commissioned by the BBC, featuring the solo percussionist Evelyn Glennie and the American jazz/rock drummer Peter Erskine, is a case in point. 

The gestation of this piece was quite long in the making: as early as June, 1997, the composer wrote to Evelyn:

“I recently worked with Peter Erskine…and provisionally decided to work together again when the right opportunity presented itself. I have been thinking what this opportunity could be for a while and I’ve had an idea for a Double Percussion Concerto and think that a work for both you and Peter + a large orchestra could be a very exciting project.” 

Originally associated with the Barbican and the London Symphony Orchestra, which professionally failed to work out, the proposed piece was enthusiastically embraced by Nicholas Kenyon, the Director of the BBC Proms, and supported by Turnage, who wanted to work with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Andrew Davis.

The nature of the evolving piece is captured in the BBC’s Music Magazine which outlines the work done on the score and relationship with the soloists entitled L@stminute.prom by Graham Topping. This reveals the importance of the drafting process to Turnage, and how he seeks to work with the musicians he is composing for, both soloists and orchestral players.

A duel between two soloists

From its commissioning in May 1999, the score went through three major drafts. It was originally billed as a duel between the two soloists, pitting Scottish rhythms against the jazz style of New Orleans, and , although this idea was ditched by the composer quite late on, it was an idea perpetuated through the previews and in the BBC Proms 2000 Guide. 

The revisions started almost immediately: Peter Erskine, in an email stream with Graham Topping, interrupted the conversation to say “As I write, my wife’s brought in the mail. And here are revised percussion parts. Holy Cow!! There’s a lot more of the brass drum stuff at the start. Including rolls!!! Looks like I got my work cut out…”.

The second draft, submitted late April 2000, still opened the piece with the orchestra followed by the soloists. This opening was thrown out to be replaced by a start with the bass drums followed by the orchestra because, in the words of the composer ‘It’s more dramatic that way.’

The drum opening was decided upon after a meeting between Erskine and the composer, and Turnage recalls ‘I had six or seven A3-sized pages of piano score. That’s quite a lot. But immediately after that meeting I inserted lots of new sections. Also, at that time I had a ton of tuned gongs and three octaves of Mahler cowbells. They’ve all gone. No hire fees, so the BBC will be happy!’ 

In orchestral terms, the tuning of the high winds of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, enabled him to write on-the-edge stuff together with hard, high trumpet parts, like big band jazz.

In March 2000, the composer and artists met at Evelyn’s studio in Cambridgeshire with a computerised mock-up of the orchestral score. That meeting led to a complete rewrite of the percussion parts because, as noted by the composer, 

‘Evelyn felt it wasn’t soloistic enough, and she was right. I’ve given her more notes in general – pitched and unpitched. There’s more variety in her sound. But I’ve also made her play more in counterpoint with the orchestra, rather than simply underpinning its music.’ 

Evelyn herself wrote ‘A concerto should involve extreme musicianship, virtuosity, surprise and emotion’. Even after all this, he jettisoned two slow sections, only to reinstate one in the final score, ‘I wanted the buildup of excitement to be continuous. This is really fast, very upfront, the loudest thing I have ever written. We almost burst the Maida Vale studio, and that was without the soloists.’ At that point, with the third draft, he mused ‘I think it’s done now.’

The importance of the concert is best summed up in a preview in G2 of ‘The Guardian’ by Christopher Lambton: ‘before Evelyn Glennie arrived on the scene, the idea of any sort of percussion concerto was somewhat outlandish, but now a hugely respected composer such as Mark-Anthony Turnage is happy to write a piece that confronts Glennie and her battery of marimbas and xylophones with the American rock drummer Peter Erskine. Fractured Lines, says the composer, is more dissonant than his recent work, with the soloists pitted against each other in a ‘sort of dual between New Orleans and Scotland’.

Everyone’s a critic

There were altogether 11 reviews of the concert which, according to David Kettle in his preview in The Times (NP190700b) ‘was one of the standout proms of the season’. It would be fair to say that the reviews were mixed: Tom Sutcliffe in the ‘Evening Standard’ entitled it ‘Hit, bash and melody’, whilst  acknowledging  that it was ‘packed to the rafters and all because of Evelyn Glennie’, he thought ‘much of the piece was diverting, though sometimes little more than a traveloguish filmscore’ . 

Andrew Clark in the ‘Financial Times’ wrote ‘as an interplay between performers of very different personal characteristics, the piece is mildly effective’ but overall concludes  that ‘he has nothing to say…Like all too many recipients of a Proms commission, he has been seduced by the size of the forces at his disposal…In short, the new concerto is another Proms ‘piece d’occasion’’. 

Geoffrey Norris in ‘The Daily Telegraph’ is much more positive, writing that it is a  ‘dynamic and potent fusion’ and  ‘the music which is virile, colourful, astringent and rhythmically subversive, has powerful momentum. Just when you think that the energy is being dissipated and that the music is beginning to stall, the ending provides a structural resolution that is entirely at one with the work’s aural and visual theatre.’ 

John Warnaby in ‘Musical Opinion’ wrote ‘Fractured Lines possessed more imagination than the average percussion concerto’. 

And Andrew Clements in ‘The Guardian’ wrote ‘A first encounter suggests that Turnage’s music has continued to expand its range and its flexibility, and that he has written a work that confounds expectations of what a double percussion concerto might be, as much as it confirms them’ 

He later expanded on this very positive review with another one in ‘BBC Music Magazine’ which stated ‘The dialogues were full of subtleties and their cadenzas sharply characterised, in one of Turnage’s most impressive and unexpected recent orchestral works’.

Fractured Lines presents a fascinating insight into the creative process and the interaction between composer, artists and instrumentalists. It also demonstrates a great deal of positivity amongst artist and concert promoters to enable new percussion music to reach audiences and to pack out venues. 

Despite some reservations, the critics appreciated and analysed the music seriously within the context of the musical genre and within the oeuvre of the composer.

written by Peter Horley