0:00:02 > 0:00:04In this second Sunday from the Proms, death,
0:00:04 > 0:00:10faced, feared, transcended and even celebrated in what, for me,
0:00:10 > 0:00:13is one of the highlights of the whole Proms season.
0:00:13 > 0:00:17Ahead of us, a Danse Macabre, a requiem for peace,
0:00:17 > 0:00:20and a cello concerto that pits a solo cello
0:00:20 > 0:00:22against the might of the full orchestra,
0:00:22 > 0:00:24a work composed at the heart
0:00:24 > 0:00:27of one of the century's most seismic political struggles.
0:00:56 > 0:00:59The concert climaxes with the world premiere of Thomas Ades'
0:00:59 > 0:01:02Totentanz - Dance of Death -
0:01:02 > 0:01:04a piece specially commissioned for this year's Proms
0:01:04 > 0:01:07and that the brilliant composer himself will conduct
0:01:07 > 0:01:10at the Royal Albert Hall with the BBC Symphony Orchestra.
0:01:10 > 0:01:15Before that, two dark, dazzling, dramatic pieces
0:01:15 > 0:01:16close to Ades' heart,
0:01:16 > 0:01:19by two composers who share a centenary this year -
0:01:19 > 0:01:21Witold Lutoslawski's Cello Concerto,
0:01:21 > 0:01:25and Benjamin Britten's Sinfonia da Requiem.
0:01:28 > 0:01:32Thomas Ades joins me here at the appropriately atmospheric
0:01:32 > 0:01:35Highgate Cemetery to talk about all of the music on his programme,
0:01:35 > 0:01:40starting with Benjamin Britten's wartime plea for peace.
0:01:40 > 0:01:43Well, it's powerfully a wartime piece.
0:01:43 > 0:01:47Sinfonia da Requiem is about death, it's about violence,
0:01:47 > 0:01:52death which, of course, when he wrote it, was around in a terrible way.
0:01:52 > 0:01:54In 1939 when he composed it.
0:01:54 > 0:01:58Yes. Of course, the second movement is Totentanz,
0:01:58 > 0:02:00a dance of death itself,
0:02:00 > 0:02:07and is particularly...vivid, and towards the end of it,
0:02:07 > 0:02:10it really is as though the canvas of the piece is being torn apart,
0:02:10 > 0:02:13the whole orchestra in unison.
0:02:13 > 0:02:14It's really a kind of...
0:02:16 > 0:02:18..very violent piece of Britten.
0:02:18 > 0:02:22Do you feel the force of meaning in this music,
0:02:22 > 0:02:24that it's a cry about peace,
0:02:24 > 0:02:26a cry for pacifism, a cry against war?
0:02:26 > 0:02:30I always think that when you hear things like the saxophone solos
0:02:30 > 0:02:33in the piece, it reminds me very much
0:02:33 > 0:02:36of the sort of work that in painting Francis Bacon
0:02:36 > 0:02:41was doing at the time, these sort of wraithlike figures.
0:02:41 > 0:02:44It has this extraordinary expressive power,
0:02:44 > 0:02:48at once fragility and violence, in the two extremes.
0:02:48 > 0:02:51He was a young guy of 26, 27,
0:02:51 > 0:02:55of strong political, pacifist convictions.
0:02:55 > 0:02:59Does that mean...is that one reason you think that this is,
0:02:59 > 0:03:02if not THE most, then among the most direct orchestral music
0:03:02 > 0:03:07- that Britten EVER wrote?- Yes, it's incredibly precocious. And thrilling.
0:03:07 > 0:03:10Of course, war is a subject he returned to
0:03:10 > 0:03:14many times in the course of his life, but there's something, to me,
0:03:14 > 0:03:20I can tell this has sprung very freshly from his pen.
0:03:20 > 0:03:25It's really inspired. And also brilliant control of the music.
0:03:25 > 0:03:28It's not a mess. It's an extremely concise piece, actually.
0:03:28 > 0:03:30How does it feel to conduct this piece?
0:03:30 > 0:03:33Is it a piece that works well when you're up there giving it
0:03:33 > 0:03:36to the orchestra, making it work with an orchestra?
0:03:36 > 0:03:39Oh, well, it's quite masterly in the way it's constructed
0:03:39 > 0:03:42and put together, and it's a pleasure to hear the amazing
0:03:42 > 0:03:48structures he's made become real under one's hands.
0:03:48 > 0:03:51APPLAUSE
0:22:32 > 0:22:35APPLAUSE
0:22:39 > 0:22:42Benjamin Britten's Sinfonia da Requiem at the Proms.
0:22:42 > 0:22:46Thomas Ades conducted the BBC Symphony Orchestra.
0:22:50 > 0:22:53Thomas Ades is with me in Highgate Cemetery.
0:22:53 > 0:22:55Look, the next piece we're going to hear
0:22:55 > 0:22:58is by another composer who was born in 1913
0:22:58 > 0:23:00and who, in fact, wrote music
0:23:00 > 0:23:02for Benjamin Britten's partner, Peter Pears.
0:23:02 > 0:23:04This piece, though, is Witold Lutoslawski,
0:23:04 > 0:23:06the Polish composer's Cello Concerto
0:23:06 > 0:23:07that he wrote in 1970
0:23:07 > 0:23:10for the Russian cellist Mstislav Rostropovich.
0:23:10 > 0:23:14Look, Tom, this piece seems to be about an individual,
0:23:14 > 0:23:18sometimes a rather fragile individual,
0:23:18 > 0:23:21against an often very violent mass.
0:23:21 > 0:23:26I think it's clearly an opposition that's in the piece.
0:23:26 > 0:23:29The opening solo is very long,
0:23:29 > 0:23:31and it does feel like hearing somebody's thoughts,
0:23:31 > 0:23:35and it starts with a heartbeat or a breath, or just this rhythm.
0:23:35 > 0:23:39And it seems to be quite skittish and sort of capricious
0:23:39 > 0:23:41and will go anywhere it wants.
0:23:41 > 0:23:45The orchestra, Lutoslawski describes it
0:23:45 > 0:23:48as being invited to join in by the cellist,
0:23:48 > 0:23:51and it is actually linked to what he's just played,
0:23:51 > 0:23:54but it is really hard to hear it as anything other than an interruption.
0:23:54 > 0:23:55Four sections in the piece.
0:23:55 > 0:23:59It starts with that repeated D in the cello,
0:23:59 > 0:24:00which is marked in...
0:24:00 > 0:24:03the most amazing mark in this - indifferente, indifferently,
0:24:03 > 0:24:05so the cellist is almost asked to play...
0:24:05 > 0:24:08I don't mean bored, but asked to play indifferently.
0:24:08 > 0:24:10Yes, it's not supposed to be thought about.
0:24:10 > 0:24:13It's just something that happens like a breath or walking, I think.
0:24:13 > 0:24:15I think that's fairly clear, yeah.
0:24:15 > 0:24:18But there's then a song, a cantilena in the piece.
0:24:18 > 0:24:20Yes, there's a brilliant slow movement, wonderful.
0:24:20 > 0:24:24And then there's a tremendous, uh... section
0:24:24 > 0:24:27where the cello is pitted against the full orchestra,
0:24:27 > 0:24:30and it unleashes its full impact.
0:24:30 > 0:24:32And a wonderful part that I like to think of as the ghost train,
0:24:32 > 0:24:36where he just plays and plays, and I have to catch various cues
0:24:36 > 0:24:39and point to people who almost pop out like skeletons,
0:24:39 > 0:24:41you know, like in a ghost train,
0:24:41 > 0:24:44sort of...interrupt, try to interrupt,
0:24:44 > 0:24:46try to stop him, and they can't stop him,
0:24:46 > 0:24:49and then finally there's this tremendous guillotine-like,
0:24:49 > 0:24:52repeated ten times, chord,
0:24:52 > 0:24:56which does actually finish that off, that section.
0:24:56 > 0:24:57It's very powerful.
0:24:57 > 0:25:00Is it a piece you've learned from as a composer?
0:25:00 > 0:25:02I, actually, was very lucky,
0:25:02 > 0:25:05when I was at Guildhall School of Music,
0:25:05 > 0:25:07I must have been about 17,
0:25:07 > 0:25:12and Lutoslawski came and conducted as the invited composer.
0:25:12 > 0:25:14He conducted the Cello Concerto
0:25:14 > 0:25:18with Louise Hopkins, uh... playing the cello.
0:25:18 > 0:25:20And I played the orchestral piano part,
0:25:20 > 0:25:22and that's when I first heard the piece,
0:25:22 > 0:25:25and of course it was... I completely fell in love with it.
0:25:25 > 0:25:29APPLAUSE
0:25:29 > 0:25:33Here is Witold Lutoslawski's Cello Concerto at the Proms.
0:25:33 > 0:25:35Have a look on Twitter
0:25:35 > 0:25:37for Lutoslawski's own guide to the concerto
0:25:37 > 0:25:41from a letter he wrote to the work's dedicatee, Mstislav Rostropovich,
0:25:41 > 0:25:42live on Twitter.
0:25:45 > 0:25:46Paul Watkins, the cello soloist,
0:25:46 > 0:25:50and Thomas Ades conducts the BBC Symphony Orchestra.
0:48:20 > 0:48:25APPLAUSE
0:48:37 > 0:48:40CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
0:48:45 > 0:48:50Witold Lutoslawski's Cello Concerto at the Royal Albert Hall.
0:48:50 > 0:48:51Paul Watkins was the soloist,
0:48:51 > 0:48:55and Thomas Ades conducted the BBC Symphony Orchestra.
0:49:01 > 0:49:04SUSTAINED APPLAUSE
0:49:19 > 0:49:22CHEERS AND APPLAUSE
0:49:38 > 0:49:41SOME LAUGHTER
0:49:41 > 0:49:44More Lutoslawski!
0:49:44 > 0:49:48APPLAUSE
0:52:51 > 0:52:54APPLAUSE
0:53:42 > 0:53:44SUSTAINED APPLAUSE
0:53:55 > 0:53:57The final piece in this Prom is by Thomas Ades himself,
0:53:57 > 0:53:59the world premiere of Totentanz,
0:53:59 > 0:54:02an existential battle between life and death
0:54:02 > 0:54:04that's played out between two singers,
0:54:04 > 0:54:07Simon Keenlyside and Christianne Stotijn.
0:54:07 > 0:54:11Simon sings the part of the macabre, the gleefully macabre Grim Reaper,
0:54:11 > 0:54:14who takes the lives of the cavalcade of characters
0:54:14 > 0:54:16that Christianne sings,
0:54:16 > 0:54:19everyone and everything from a pope to a newborn babe,
0:54:19 > 0:54:22from an emperor to a handworker.
0:54:22 > 0:54:26But look, Totentanz, I mean, it's based on a German medieval frieze,
0:54:26 > 0:54:28which you have an image of in front of us here,
0:54:28 > 0:54:31that was originally in Luebeck and then destroyed in the war.
0:54:31 > 0:54:33It was a huge cloth hanging
0:54:33 > 0:54:37that went round the entire Marienkirche in Luebeck,
0:54:37 > 0:54:40made in about...in 1463.
0:54:40 > 0:54:44And it was very deteriorated by the early 18th century.
0:54:44 > 0:54:48In 1701, they did a new one with new text.
0:54:48 > 0:54:53Then it was indeed bombed, a huge firestorm on Palm Sunday 1942,
0:54:53 > 0:54:55during the Second World War.
0:54:55 > 0:54:57A lot of Luebeck was destroyed at that point.
0:54:57 > 0:54:59Even from the start here,
0:54:59 > 0:55:02there's something in the paintings already theatrical, musical.
0:55:02 > 0:55:05I mean, look, here's Death kicking us off with the hat and the pipes.
0:55:05 > 0:55:09The dance of death is not an optional dance, that's what it is.
0:55:09 > 0:55:12It's the one dance that we all have to dance.
0:55:12 > 0:55:15It's supposed to be at the same time, you know, terrifying,
0:55:15 > 0:55:20levelling - you know, everybody is equal, no-one can escape it.
0:55:20 > 0:55:23And also, it's funny, it's absurd.
0:55:23 > 0:55:27And the thing that makes it funny is the total powerlessness of everybody,
0:55:27 > 0:55:28no matter who they are.
0:55:28 > 0:55:30The point is, Tom,
0:55:30 > 0:55:35Death has absolutely the same ineluctable attitude to everyone.
0:55:35 > 0:55:36You meet the human race
0:55:36 > 0:55:41in strictly descending order of importance at the time.
0:55:41 > 0:55:44- So you begin with the Pope, who was the top.- Yeah.
0:55:44 > 0:55:47And you end with the baby.
0:55:47 > 0:55:50This is the box that he says he's going to put the Pope in.
0:55:50 > 0:55:51He says to the Pope,
0:55:51 > 0:55:55"Your hat's too tall, you're going to have to live in a narrower space."
0:55:55 > 0:55:56That's what he says here.
0:55:56 > 0:56:01The baby, which is the last one, is actually everybody, you know.
0:56:01 > 0:56:06Even the Pope started as a baby, so the baby is kind of everyone.
0:56:06 > 0:56:11Do you have more or less sympathy for some of the characters?
0:56:11 > 0:56:14Well, I think Death definitely has more or less sympathy.
0:56:14 > 0:56:18He has got very little time for the middle classes, I'm afraid,
0:56:18 > 0:56:21for the mayor, that is, the doctor,
0:56:21 > 0:56:26the...the merchant, the usurer, these kind of people.
0:56:26 > 0:56:29He swats them like flies, very quickly.
0:56:29 > 0:56:31- And we hear that in the piece, dealt with fairly quickly?- Yes.
0:56:31 > 0:56:33Then you have the peasant,
0:56:33 > 0:56:35who is the only one that Death really likes, I think,
0:56:35 > 0:56:40and they have a rather... the duet, a sort of harmonious thing.
0:56:40 > 0:56:43So, look, at the very end, then...
0:56:43 > 0:56:47Here's the peasant, who is really kind of arm in arm with Death.
0:56:47 > 0:56:49- He's really enjoying this one.- Yes.
0:56:49 > 0:56:54And this is Death and the Maiden, as in the Schubert, that's it.
0:56:54 > 0:56:57And here's the little... in his cradle.
0:56:57 > 0:57:01Tom, how do you turn all this into a single piece of music?
0:57:01 > 0:57:03Do all of the 15 human beings
0:57:03 > 0:57:07have a different kind of musical characterisation?
0:57:07 > 0:57:11The first human to sing, which is the Pope,
0:57:11 > 0:57:16has a completely different sound from the music that Death sings to him.
0:57:16 > 0:57:21He - she - sings against all of the violins and violas
0:57:21 > 0:57:25that play freely without me... any conducting
0:57:25 > 0:57:27in a sort of freefall.
0:57:27 > 0:57:29And in a way, the humans' music,
0:57:29 > 0:57:33quite a lot of them are a bit related to each other.
0:57:33 > 0:57:36Not all, but there is a kind of thread that goes through.
0:57:36 > 0:57:38Some of them, they sing in duet,
0:57:38 > 0:57:42some of them are very much a panel, Death and then the human.
0:57:42 > 0:57:45And some of them are sort of dialogues,
0:57:45 > 0:57:48almost like a row or something.
0:57:48 > 0:57:50Has it changed your thinking about mortality and death,
0:57:50 > 0:57:52- writing this piece?- No, no.
0:57:52 > 0:57:56It wouldn't matter if it had - it's not going to change anything, is it?
0:57:56 > 0:57:58HE LAUGHS That's the point of the piece!
1:30:25 > 1:30:29APPLAUSE
1:30:32 > 1:30:35The world premiere of Thomas Ades' Totentanz,
1:30:35 > 1:30:38his Dance of Death, at the BBC Proms.
1:30:38 > 1:30:41The composer himself conducted the BBC Symphony Orchestra
1:30:41 > 1:30:43at the Royal Albert Hall.
1:30:43 > 1:30:48That piece was commissioned by Robin Boyle, the ex-head of Faber Music, Thomas Ades' publisher,
1:30:48 > 1:30:52in memory of Witold Lutoslawski and his wife, Danuta.
1:30:52 > 1:30:57The soloists were the wickedly macabre Simon Keenlyside as Death
1:30:57 > 1:31:00and Christianne Stotijn, who took the roles of all us sinners,
1:31:00 > 1:31:02from the emperor to the maiden
1:31:02 > 1:31:04and the little child at the very end of the piece.
1:31:04 > 1:31:08"I cannot walk, yet I must dance!"
1:31:08 > 1:31:10None of us will escape.
1:31:10 > 1:31:12As the preacher put it right at the start of the work,
1:31:12 > 1:31:15"Though every man would live for ever, no-one can."
1:31:15 > 1:31:18APPLAUSE CONTINUES
1:31:33 > 1:31:38That's all for this Sunday's Sounds of the Century at the Proms.
1:31:38 > 1:31:41And what on earth could follow that anyway?
1:31:41 > 1:31:43Every Prom is live on BBC Radio 3.
1:31:43 > 1:31:47The next one you can see on television is on Thursday on BBC Four,
1:31:47 > 1:31:54when Daniel Harding conducts the Mahler Chamber Orchestra in music by Mozart, Schumann and Sibelius.
1:31:54 > 1:31:58I'm back next Sunday with music that faces, and faces down,
1:31:58 > 1:32:02one of the most oppressive regimes of the 20th century,
1:32:02 > 1:32:05Dmitri Shostakovich's 11th Symphony.
1:32:05 > 1:32:08Now, at the symphony's premiere in Moscow in October 1957,
1:32:08 > 1:32:14his son, Maxim, turned to him and said, "Papa, what if they hang you for this?"
1:32:14 > 1:32:17Join me next Sunday.
1:32:22 > 1:32:27HE WHISTLES "ALWAYS LOOK ON THE BRIGHT SIDE OF LIFE"
1:32:41 > 1:32:44Subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing by Red Bee Media Ltd