London Sinfonietta/Beat Furrer – review

Though little known in Britain, the Swiss-born Austrian Beat Furrer is a considerable force in European new music, both as the founding conductor of the ensemble Klangforum Wien and as a composer in his own right, with four music-theatre works and a clutch of substantial instrumental work to his credit. The London Sinfonietta offered a timely introduction to the 56-year-old Furrer and his music, inviting him to conduct the UK premieres of two major ensemble pieces, both of which reinforced the impression, left by discs of Furrer's music, that he is a composer of sure touch and sometimes compelling individuality. The more recent of the pieces, Xenos from 2008, is based on the song of an imam Furrer heard in Istanbul – though the melody itself only appears fleetingly towards the end of the piece, as the resolution of the piercing, densely packed chords and occasional moments of bleak immobility before it. Nuun, from 1996, is even more impressive, using a pair of pianos (played by Rolf Hind and Zubin Kanga) to propel a virtuoso torrent of instrumental writing that eventually disintegrates into a Lachenmann-like soundworld of scrapings and whispers, and never quite leads where you expect. Between them, Furrer also conducted the premiere of Naomi Pinnock's Words, a piece for which he had acted as mentor as part of the Sinfonietta's Blue Touch Paper scheme. It's a short three-movement setting of a gnomic, Gertrude Stein-like text by Pinnock herself, the atomised words delivered by the baritone Omar Ebrahim like a biblical text from a revivalist preacher. It works itself to a ferocious climax, and then turns more reflective, surrounding the voice with shadowy, evanescent textures. Strangely compelling. Broadcast on Radio 3's Hear and Now on 12 March.