Aurora Orchestra: behind the scenes, reinventing music
'He's too sensitive for this world.' Star tenor Allan Clayton on Schubert's poetic obsessive
Nicholas Collin and Aurora Orchestra, a big hit at the Proms, constantly rethink music. Photo: Mark Allan
In black crow masks, four woodwind players perch as if on a telegraph wire, staring down at a man on the ground in a heavy black overcoat, his hair in disarray and despair etched in his haunted, staring eyes. They raise their instruments to play. Plainly, this is not going to be a run-of-the-mill concert at London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall.
On a cold spring morning, with the wind whipping off the nearby Thames, Aurora Orchestra, Culture Whisper's favourite orchestra of 2023, has gathered in an appropriately chilly rehearsal room to put the finishing touches to its latest venture: Schubert’s last great song cycle, Winterreise, or A Winter Journey – 24 achingly beautiful melodies, written in 1828 to be sung by a soloist with piano accompaniment. But this is very different.
In 1993, German composer and conductor Hans Zender published his re-imagining of Winterreise. He retained Schubert’s soloist but orchestrated and occasionally extended his piano part, reshaping the work for a chamber orchestra made up of strings, woodwind, brass, harp, substantial percussion, classical guitar and wind machines. In doing so, Zender took the piece a long way from its roots while at the same time remaining faithful to its original melodic and narrative outline.
Aurora's woodwind players, masked as crows, caw over tenor Allan Clayton in rehearsal for Winterreise
He also added stage directions to his score. He wanted his Winterreise to be a piece of theatre, with the singer, who portrays a tortured young man devastated by the loss of a love affair, moving through the orchestra on his lonely journey, communicating with both players and audience.
This project is just the latest in a long line of ground-breaking events stage by Aurora. In 2014 it became the first professional orchestra in modern times to play a symphony entirely from memory. Mozart’s 40th Symphony at the BBC Proms was followed by other memorised performances of Mozart’s 41st, Beethoven’s Third, Fifth and Sixth symphonies, Brahms's First Symphony, Shostakovich’s Ninth Symphony, Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique, and one that really caught the eye – a stunning performance of Stravinsky’s highly dramatic Rite of Spring at last year’s Proms.
This time, as Culture Whisper discovered when invited to join the Winterreise rehearsal, those four woodwind players too will be playing from memory when they put on their black masks, but otherwise the instrumentalists will have the music in front of them. International star tenor soloist Allan Clayton will sing from memory, but unlike recital soloists he will be crawling on the floor, tearing up letters, running up steps or sitting slumped, despondent and careworn; in short, employing his famed theatrical skills.
Aurora Orchestra and Allan Clayton (seated) in rehearsal for a theatrical Winterreise
When the band takes a break for lunch, Clayton sits down to talk about the role of the winter wanderer and Zender’s re-imagining. He says that like many of today’s top singers he has sung Schubert's cycle with a pianist, so Zender’s work feels almost like a new piece. 'It’s very exciting to perform in this way, he says. 'It is such an immersive experience for everyone.'
Schubert set Wilhelm Müller’s emotional poetry when he knew he was dying, so there is an immensely personal element to the work, and it’s hard not separate the despairing young man of Winterreise from Schubert himself. Clayton is no stranger to playing tortured souls: his portrayal of the eponymous fisherman in Benjamin Britten’s Peter Grimes at the Royal Opera House won him huge plaudits in 2022, and before that his performance as Hamlet in Brett Dean’s opera of the same name at Glyndebourne was the hit of the season.
He points out, though, that soliloquising Hamlet is seeking revenge and Grimes is a misunderstood misfit. He thinks the protagonist in Winterreise is not actually particularly likeable. 'He’s a self-obsessed, intensely focused person – he’s so sensitive he’s not really meant for this world.' Sounds a bit like quite a lot of today's pop singers....The piece is directed by Jane Mitchell, principal flautist with Aurora – a distinct advantage when directing a piece of orchestral theatre. She understands the nuts and bolts of orchestral practice and how far she can ask instrumentalists to bend to accommodate the drama.
Schubertian pop singer: Allan Clayton in Winterreise
'Zender gave us the direction of travel with his staging notes,' Mitchell explains. 'They are the starting point, and formed the basis of our first performance of this piece in Shoreditch Church in 2015, but now we have embellished his ideas with our own. The church was quite small, but having the stage of the Queen Elizabeth Hall gives us more room to try out other things.'
At the centre of the action is conductor Nicholas Collon, who rehearses his players meticulously, teasing out the colours available in Zender’s idiosyncratic orchestration and always alert to the delicate balance between the instrumentalists and Clayton’s golden voice. It’s fascinating to hear him pick apart a single chord, asking perhaps for a little more from the cello, a little less from the viola, more attack from the double bass. Equilibrium is everything (especially when there’s also a recording session with the Signum label coming down the track).
And Zender asks for some pretty startling effects. In the song 'Der stürmische Morgen' ('The stormy morning'), two percussionists come to the front of the stage to emulate the raging wind on side drums. Clayton, on a raised platform right at the back, reaches for a large black megaphone to be heard above the roaring orchestra. To repeat: this promises to be no ordinary concert.
Winterreise is sung in German with English translations in the programme. Performances are on Thurs 14 and Fri 16 March 2024, 7:30PM. Running time 1hr 30 min, with no interval.Click here for tickets (from £15). Click here for other forthcoming Aurora appearances
On a cold spring morning, with the wind whipping off the nearby Thames, Aurora Orchestra, Culture Whisper's favourite orchestra of 2023, has gathered in an appropriately chilly rehearsal room to put the finishing touches to its latest venture: Schubert’s last great song cycle, Winterreise, or A Winter Journey – 24 achingly beautiful melodies, written in 1828 to be sung by a soloist with piano accompaniment. But this is very different.
In 1993, German composer and conductor Hans Zender published his re-imagining of Winterreise. He retained Schubert’s soloist but orchestrated and occasionally extended his piano part, reshaping the work for a chamber orchestra made up of strings, woodwind, brass, harp, substantial percussion, classical guitar and wind machines. In doing so, Zender took the piece a long way from its roots while at the same time remaining faithful to its original melodic and narrative outline.
Aurora's woodwind players, masked as crows, caw over tenor Allan Clayton in rehearsal for Winterreise
He also added stage directions to his score. He wanted his Winterreise to be a piece of theatre, with the singer, who portrays a tortured young man devastated by the loss of a love affair, moving through the orchestra on his lonely journey, communicating with both players and audience.
This project is just the latest in a long line of ground-breaking events stage by Aurora. In 2014 it became the first professional orchestra in modern times to play a symphony entirely from memory. Mozart’s 40th Symphony at the BBC Proms was followed by other memorised performances of Mozart’s 41st, Beethoven’s Third, Fifth and Sixth symphonies, Brahms's First Symphony, Shostakovich’s Ninth Symphony, Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique, and one that really caught the eye – a stunning performance of Stravinsky’s highly dramatic Rite of Spring at last year’s Proms.
This time, as Culture Whisper discovered when invited to join the Winterreise rehearsal, those four woodwind players too will be playing from memory when they put on their black masks, but otherwise the instrumentalists will have the music in front of them. International star tenor soloist Allan Clayton will sing from memory, but unlike recital soloists he will be crawling on the floor, tearing up letters, running up steps or sitting slumped, despondent and careworn; in short, employing his famed theatrical skills.
Aurora Orchestra and Allan Clayton (seated) in rehearsal for a theatrical Winterreise
When the band takes a break for lunch, Clayton sits down to talk about the role of the winter wanderer and Zender’s re-imagining. He says that like many of today’s top singers he has sung Schubert's cycle with a pianist, so Zender’s work feels almost like a new piece. 'It’s very exciting to perform in this way, he says. 'It is such an immersive experience for everyone.'
Schubert set Wilhelm Müller’s emotional poetry when he knew he was dying, so there is an immensely personal element to the work, and it’s hard not separate the despairing young man of Winterreise from Schubert himself. Clayton is no stranger to playing tortured souls: his portrayal of the eponymous fisherman in Benjamin Britten’s Peter Grimes at the Royal Opera House won him huge plaudits in 2022, and before that his performance as Hamlet in Brett Dean’s opera of the same name at Glyndebourne was the hit of the season.
He points out, though, that soliloquising Hamlet is seeking revenge and Grimes is a misunderstood misfit. He thinks the protagonist in Winterreise is not actually particularly likeable. 'He’s a self-obsessed, intensely focused person – he’s so sensitive he’s not really meant for this world.' Sounds a bit like quite a lot of today's pop singers....The piece is directed by Jane Mitchell, principal flautist with Aurora – a distinct advantage when directing a piece of orchestral theatre. She understands the nuts and bolts of orchestral practice and how far she can ask instrumentalists to bend to accommodate the drama.
Schubertian pop singer: Allan Clayton in Winterreise
'Zender gave us the direction of travel with his staging notes,' Mitchell explains. 'They are the starting point, and formed the basis of our first performance of this piece in Shoreditch Church in 2015, but now we have embellished his ideas with our own. The church was quite small, but having the stage of the Queen Elizabeth Hall gives us more room to try out other things.'
At the centre of the action is conductor Nicholas Collon, who rehearses his players meticulously, teasing out the colours available in Zender’s idiosyncratic orchestration and always alert to the delicate balance between the instrumentalists and Clayton’s golden voice. It’s fascinating to hear him pick apart a single chord, asking perhaps for a little more from the cello, a little less from the viola, more attack from the double bass. Equilibrium is everything (especially when there’s also a recording session with the Signum label coming down the track).
And Zender asks for some pretty startling effects. In the song 'Der stürmische Morgen' ('The stormy morning'), two percussionists come to the front of the stage to emulate the raging wind on side drums. Clayton, on a raised platform right at the back, reaches for a large black megaphone to be heard above the roaring orchestra. To repeat: this promises to be no ordinary concert.
Winterreise is sung in German with English translations in the programme. Performances are on Thurs 14 and Fri 16 March 2024, 7:30PM. Running time 1hr 30 min, with no interval.Click here for tickets (from £15). Click here for other forthcoming Aurora appearances
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