Principal Player Focus: Mark van de Wiel

London Sinfonietta Principal clarinettist, Mark van de Wiel

Over the coming months we’ll be profiling a selection of the London Sinfonietta Principal players, giving you the chance to learn a little more about the people you watch on stage at our concerts.  This month, Principal clarinettist Mark van de Wiel tells us about his favourite London Sinfonietta experience, what piece of music makes him smile, and what inspires him…

What was the first recording you bought?

I can’t remember that, but I can remember the first recordings I listened to as a child on LP’s belonging to my father, of Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony, Rachmaninov’s Symphonic Dances, and Mahler’s First Symphony.

What has been your favourite London Sinfonietta experience?

Our week in Sydney during January 2003 when we started out with lunch for the whole group at Doyle’s fish restaurant on Watsons Bay and played a wide range of repertoire in the Sydney Opera House over three concerts, was very special.  However, playing Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time in the Italian Chapel on Orkney a few years ago was probably the most special of all. We played this very emotional piece twice, at 10 pm and then 11.15 pm, I think, emerging after midnight- and it was still daylight.  An amazing experience!

What’s the most unusual thing you’ve been asked to do in a musical work?

To sing down the clarinet while its bell rested on top of a timpani, adjusting the angle of the bell and making fast pedal changes to the drum with my right foot, all at the same time, in Vinko Globokar’s Dedoublement.

What piece of music brings a smile to your face when you see it on your music stand?

Ligeti’s Piano Concerto. It’s very difficult, but great fun and exhilarating to play- and I know that my trying to negotiate the ocarina solo (which the clarinettist is required to play) will always amuse my colleagues….

Who or what inspires you?

My colleagues and my students.

What piece of new music changed you?

Ablauf, by Magnus Lindberg, for clarinet and two bass drums. It was the first piece I performed with extensive use of such techniques as multiphonics, quarter tones, and simultaneous singing and playing, and encouraged me to make this type of music a major part of my career.

Who would play you in a film of your life?

It would have to be myself. Nobody else would accept the part.

And finally, which London Sinfonietta concert are you most looking forward to in 2012?

In Portrait: Harrison Birtwistle, on 24 May, which contains so much great music, including Cortege, which was written for us, and the marvellous Five Distances for Five instruments, for wind quintet.

Mark van de Wiel’s next performance with the London Sinfonietta will be in Wolfgang Rihm at 60, on Tuesday 24 January.

Writing the Future: First Pieces (part 2)

Shiva Feshareki is another of the six composers selected to take part in the London Sinfonietta’s new Writing the Future scheme, and has been working with the ensemble’s Principal clarinet Mark van de Wiel since the scheme’s launch in February.

The result of this collaboration is a Sinfonietta Short, titled departing in peace, arriving with love which will be premiered at an exclusive London Sinfonietta’s Pioneers’ event on Wednesday 13 April 2011.

Keep your eyes on the London Sinfoniettta website for news about the first public performance.

Composer Shiva Feshareki (r) at the launch of Writing the Future, February 2011. Photo © Briony Campbell

Shiva tells us more about her piece…

Mark and I already knew each other, when we met on stage of the Royal Festival Hall in a Q&A session last year. Not exactly the most common place to meet, but a lot started even then. In regards to this collaboration, I think he had already understood my way of thinking. I like picking up things that come my way very spontaneously, which then register in my head as being significant, or having had an impact on me. So during the time we have spent with each other so far, we have been focussing on emotions and meanings, and what’s significant for both of us, both in music and in our everyday lives. Now, this will remain between just the two of us, however, for example, I asked him about what makes him happy, what makes him smile, why he likes certain passages of music (which he played a lot of for me: such a luxury), why certain things are scary for him or tedious etc (rather than what sound does it produce if you shove a pen knife in the clarinet or what extended technique can we bastardise this time(!)). In other words, for Mark and me, it’s about the personal, not the technical (or techniques). And I really did find some really beautiful moments emerged between us, so far, in the collaboration. This doesn’t mean that the piece I am writing for him will be so tailored for him that other clarinettists can’t play it; it just means that we have found a soul for the piece, and it’s something that I am now translating into the music (it never had any verbal identity anyway).

The next time we meet, Mark will receive the complete piece. He already knew that that’s what I do: something just clicks in my head after much internal thought, and then I write ’the whole’, with no disruption.

Mark is a fantastic person. Not only does he produce one of the best sounds I have ever heard, but his attitude and commitment to music have no comparison. We both trust each other wholeheartedly, and that is the definition of a collaboration.’

Shiva will not be using electronics in this piece.

Book your tickets to hear more of the Writing the Future pieces at our Pavilions pre-concert performance on Sunday 29 May 2011.

Click here to find out more about how the London Sinfonietta is creating new music with some of the finest emerging composers on Writing the Future.

Living Toys in Budapest- Part 3

On 29 January 2011, London Sinfonietta performed for the first time in the Palace of Arts in Budapest. Included in the programme was Living Toys by Thomas Adès, which has a particularly interesting part for trumpet.

Alistair Mackie, Principal trumpet of the London Sinfonietta, describes the concert day:

Saturday 29th Jan.

5.30am.

In a taxi to Gatwick-it’s a cold dark morning and I find it impossible to contemplate the reality that I’ve got to do a concert tonight. Budapest seems like another world from here.

7.20am

I’m sat on the plane which was due to leave at 7.40am. The captain has just found a scratch near the rear door. He suspects that stairs have been pushed too hard against the plane and engineers have been summoned to check for any structural damage. Possible two hour delay. Great.

9.45am

Finally taking off, two hours late. Wonderful.

1.15pm

We’ve landed and are taxiing to the terminal. The rehearsal started at 1pm and has to finish by 3.30pm as there is another concert in the hall before ours. It doesn’t look like we will manage a complete run through of tonight’s concert.

5pm

By the time we got our bags and had been driven to the hall we were really pushed for time. We did manage to play through the first piece in the concert. It’s the only other piece I’m in tonight and is called “At First Light”. It’s by George Benjamin and is a great piece with a brilliant high trumpet part. The Adès piece is 17 minutes long and was rehearsed for 7 min before we had to vacate the hall. I’d like to have done more, to say the least, but at least my lip is fresh!

Sunday 30th Jan.

The concert went well, better than I could have hoped. The group played with fantastic energy and the Adès, which closed the concert, felt really good. It seemed like a real performance and the people around me played with such panache that for long periods of time I did manage to forget about the technical terrors of the piece and just enjoyed the spirit and excitement of the moment. I love it when it’s like that, it’s why I’m a musician. However long you prepare, and for however long afterwards you retain the memories, music is an art which only really exists in the moment it’s played. There were some great moments last night. I think sometimes that as works grow old, performers become more and more able to master their challenges-The Rite of Spring for example is now a standard repertoire piece for most orchestras. The Adès, like most of the music the London Sinfonietta play, is still new to all of us and has certainly not grown into the comfortable experience of a repertoire piece. There is a vibrant edge to the performance of new works that brings with it a unique excitement. It makes me feel immensely privileged to be part of this amazing group.

At the end of the show I felt in a bit of an exhausted daze. I think people sometimes think I’m disappointed or flat when I’m like that. I’m not, it’s just my response to the intensity of a show like last night’s.  We had a party afterwards at a flat Mark van de Wiel keeps in Budapest. It was great fun, lots of Hungarian champagne and everybody in noisy high spirits.

I’m on the plane back to London now. I’ve got a rehearsal this afternoon for a tour to Spain that starts tomorrow morning. It’s also my wife’s birthday today so we’ve managed to squeeze in a birthday meal with the family at a nice Italian restaurant. Although it’s been a hectic couple days, I feel good. It was an experience to tackle the Adès and however many more times I play it, I will never forget my first attempt in Budapest.

Living Toys in Budapest- Part 2

On 29 January 2011, the London Sinfonietta performed for the first time in the Palace of Arts in Budapest. Included in the programme was Living Toys by Thomas Adès, which has a particularly interesting part for trumpet.

 Alistair Mackie, Principal trumpet of the London Sinfonietta, explains how the nerves kick in as the rehearsals begin:

Wed 26th Jan.

The first rehearsal for the Adès has just finished and I’m now sat in my second rehearsal of the day-Bartok’s 1st piano concerto with the Philharmonia, Esa-Pekka Salonen and Yefim Bronfman. I feel shattered and unable to concentrate. All my confidence disappeared during the first Adès run through, when I began to understand the enormous challenges of fitting my part together with the rest of the group. For example, there is one extended solo passage where the group and conductor play in bars divided by three while the trumpet plays in bars divided by four.  At the end of the passage I was a full two bars adrift. The rehearsal was good though and by the end a lot had been achieved and my confidence was partially restored. I can’t make the next rehearsal because of my Philharmonia commitments so that’s it till Budapest now. Yikes!

Friday 28th Jan.

The group has left for Budapest this evening. Three of us- Mark van de Wiel (clarinet),  Byron Fulcher (trombone) and myself are committed to the Bartok series the Philharmonia is running at the moment so tonight we were repeating our Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall concert from last night in Basingstoke. It was a hard concert and I found it particularly difficult, partly because my mind was very much on the challenges of tomorrow-travel/rehearsal/concert, and partly because I had, today, to endure the yearly torture of finalising my accounts with my accountant. It took most of the morning and I was too tired to focus after a late dinner with sponsors after last night’s concert. The taxi is ordered for 5am tomorrow and I’m going try to make the most of another short night’s sleep. I’m feeling envious of my colleagues who I’m sure will now be finishing a splendid meal in a good Budapest restaurant before heading to bed for a good night’s sleep. I look forward to their smug humour when we arrive tomorrow.

To be continued…

Harry Moments

We’ve been doing a lot of Sir Harrison Birtwistle’s music recently – because it is fantastic – and because it is his 75th birthday. So, two experiences in the last few weeks that I will remember for a long time.

Last weekend – went to Bregenz for the last performance of Semper Dowland/The Corridor (the new music theatre piece that London Sinfonietta premiered at Aldeburgh and then Southbank – both of whom commissioned it). Amazing place for one, and great to find the band, cast and crew on great form. Everyone has enjoyed this one because it’s been a real ‘company’ project. The musicians never get to rehearse for long on any performance, but with this they had a great lead in for the premiere in Aldeburgh, and then several performances. Mark van de Wiel (clarinet) convinced that last Saturday in Bregenz was the best perf of the lot. Mark Padmore and Liz Atherton stunning. Performance was in the Werkstattbühne – audience very close to the action and could hear lots of new things in the text and the music. Post concert Bregenz banana-split incredible! Can’t do 3.00am in the morning much more though.

Tuesday night – Harry’s 75th birthday concert at the PROMS. Late night London Sinfonietta performance of Carmen Arcadiae, Silbury Air and Verses for Ensembles. Before the concert, we hosted a meal for Harry at Café Anglais to say happy birthday. At the end he said some kind things about the Sinfonietta musicians, and also some amazing things about his composition and his work in general. One idea in particular that stuck with me was about tradition – not about worrying about how to keep something going, but perhaps more about creating something new that then makes the tradition. And then the music…compelling stuff, and a performance that makes the admin work worthwhile.

Andrew Burke