No 52: Three Pieces About Ludwig van Beethoven, Richard Ayres’ BBC co-commission, received its premiere at the audience-free Proms from Nicholas Collon and the Aurora Orchestra. It’s more than a straightforward anniversary tribute, for, like his great predecessor, Ayres has suffered from hearing loss for the last 20 years, and his work is an attempt to convey how the sound world he imagines in his music has gradually been lost to him in performances.
The three pieces come with a subtitle, “dreaming, hearing loss, and saying goodbye”, in a vivid evocation of an aural journey into a world of blurred images and incoherence. In the first piece, the surging, expressive string lines (sometimes recalling Tippett’s Corelli Fantasia) are gradually infiltrated by high harmonics, simulating the sounds of tinnitus. The second sets off with a minimalist-style keyboard riff that gradually loses its shape and momentum, while the third breaks down into a series of increasingly tentative miniatures, punctuated by the distant, sampled sound of a 78rpm record, heard through a veil of hiss and scratches. There’s nothing jokey here, but, as so often with Ayres, the most surreal ideas and juxtapositions take on an unexpected emotional power.
A Beethoven symphony was the obvious pairing to the premiere, and it was the Seventh, played from memory with the musicians standing, as has become the Aurora trademark, and preceded by an introduction to the work from Collon and Tom Service, who was presenting the concert on radio and TV. Collon’s performance was light, lithe and immaculately played, always keeping something in reserve; this was the Seventh as a joyous celebration of energy, rather than as something more searchingly profound.
• Available on BBC Sounds and BBC iPlayer.
