Andriessen: M is for Man, Music & Mystery, Barbican Centre

For one of the colossi of contemporary music, Louis Andriessen (De Staat) is surprisingly rarely performed in London. This is an absurd injustice – his oeuvre, which often fuses the rigour of European modernism with the appealing pulses of minimalism – is strikingly polychromatic and compelling, with a vast range of influences. Despite his groundings in complicated serialist theory and intellectually vigorous topoi, his works offer both instant sensorial pleasure and surpassing depths.
Thankfully, the Barbican have taken notice. Andriessen: M is for Man, Music and Mystery celebrates his work over a week, climaxing with a BBC Symphony Orchestra Total Immersion day. For those into contemporary music, or those willing to give it a try, this represents an apex of the Barbican Centre’s 2015/16 season.
The first concert, on 9 Feb, sees the Britten Sinfonia focus on Andriessen’s influences from minimalism. It opens with Scottish composer Steve Martland’s Tiger Dancing before launching into Steve Reich’s The Desert Music, a choral piece that sets the poems of William Carlos Williams. Then, the night climaxes with Andriessen’s sensuous and expressive La Passione for solo voice and violin. The piece was written especially for mezzo Cristina Zavalloni and violinist Monica Germino, both of whom will play it on the night.
Then, on 12 Feb, the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Martyn Brabbins will bring something very special indeed – the UK premiere of La Commedia, a gargantuan operatic work based on Dante’s great epic. The music, which references everything from the baroque to golden age Hollywood, promises to be wildly eclectic. It will be matched by visuals from American indie filmmaker Hal Hartley (Trust), and fronted by soprano Claron McFadden, mezzo Cristina Zavaloni and baritone Andrew Sauvageau. It might well prove unmissable.
The season closes on 13 Feb with a Total Immersion Day. At 1pm, Andriessen will appear in conversation before Guildhall students tackle his seminal operatic work De Staat, a critique of Plato’s Republic. At 3pm in Milton Court, the Britten Sinfonia will tackle Andriessen’s relationship with Stravinsky, with a line-up of dance music conveyed by soprano Alison Bell and supreme percussionist Colin Currie. Finally at 8pm, under the baton of Clark Rundell (RNCM), a collaborator of Andriessen, the BBC Symphony will close proceedings with three seminal works: De Stijl, a part of Andriessen’s four-part sequence De Materie that explores the art of Mondrian; Rosa’s Horses, a suite from the operatic ROSA, Death of a Composer; and finally Mysterien, a rapturously received new work that here receives its UK premiere. You could hardly hope for a better celebration of one of the very best living composers.