EIF music reviews: Exploring Ilumina | Illumina - In the Light of Shadow | Ian Bostridge & Steven Osborne

Exploring Ilumina ★★★★★

Usher Hall

There’s music theatre, and there’s theatrical music. In the scene-setting event of its four-day residency this week the spectacular Brazilian string and indigenous percussion collective Ilumina, led by founder and player-manager Jennifer Stumm, demonstrated the latter. 

The impact for us seated on beanbags was felt immediately as the bare-footed musicians unleashed the gathering density of Preludio from Villa-Lobos’ Bachianas Brasileiras No 4, firstly offstage, then entering gradually with exquisitely choreographed fluidity, never wavering once in pitch, tone or attack.

“We don’t believe in maestros”, Stumm said in her ongoing narrative, spelling out the raison d’être of a São Paulo project that began life on a coffee plantation and now attracts the most amazing young musicians from around Latin America. “It’s all about feelings,” she added, and a democratic philosophy that encourages the musicians to sense for themselves a commonality of expression.

What struck most was the open-minded musicality, hypnotic physicality and shared joy of the performances, a lack of sanctimonious snobbery about classical music.

Brazilian Funk and the sophisticated cool of traditional Chorinho were bedfellows with Lully, Beethoven and Mozart to the infectious beat of Brazilian percussion. Beethoven’s Op131 Quartet, its final fiery Allegro, will never sound the same again.

Ken Walton

Illumina - In the Light of Shadow ★★★★★

Usher Hall

Beginning their EIF residency with an eclectic programme blending western classical music with the rhythms of Brazil, São Paulo-based artist collective Illumina proved a revelation.

Part of EIF’s informal concert series where stalls seating is replaced by beanbags and musicians play alongside the audience, Illumina combines younger musicians with established virtuosi.

The first half comprised six string arrangements of pieces by Villa-Lobos, Lully, György Kurtág, Powell de Aquino, Wagner and Beethoven. These were segued by percussion-led improvisations featuring Afro-Brazilian stylings (capoeira) and favela funk (carioca).

If the mix sounded unlikely on paper, in performance it was well constructed and mesmerizingly suite-like. The shifting moods, textures and dynamics of this musical tapestry carried an enthusiastic audience from one era and cultural shore to another.

From the sumptuous opening bars of Villa-Lobos’ Bachianas Brasileiras No. 4 to the majestic allegro of Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 14, Illumina performed from memory and with colourful passion.

The second half, amplified by woodwind, was principally devoted to an electrifying account of Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante, with Alina Ibragimova (violin) and Jennifer Stumm (viola) handling the solo parts with graceful verve.

Concluding with another jaunty piece by Brazilian guitarist Powell, this was an omnicultural evening to remember.

Simon Barrow

Ian Bostridge & Steven Osborne ★★★★

Queen’s Hall

There’s no escaping the explorative depths to which tenor Ian Bostridge will go to extract his own very personalised interpretations of mainstream Lieder repertoire.

That’s as relevant to his tormented, in some cases contorted, visual delivery - imagine Bill Nighy over-delivering a tragic monologue - as to the soul-searching drama that colours his intense vocal interpretations. 

To accept the first and concentrate on the latter is to witness a musical sincerity that may or may not be to your taste, but harnesses such self-belief, emotive range and crystal-clear diction as to stimulate and challenge.

Bostridge teamed up with Scots pianist Steven Osborne for a programme centred on Schubert’s Schwanengesang, with four additional songs to separate the Rellstab settings from the Heine.

This duo proved a well-matched pair, two intelligent minds unafraid to open up to wilder expressive opportunities, as in Osborne’s thundering final chord of In Der Ferne, or the weight-of-the-world anguish in Bostridge’s Der Atlas.

The extra songs offered a welcome aside, their lighter personae - especially the happily stomping Der Wanderer an den Mond - a breath of fresh air. It was a short but fulfilling concert, even if took till a dreamy encore to reveal the truly personable Bostridge.

Ken Walton