Joe Hisaishi and Steve Reich @ the BBC Proms

Joe Hisaishi
The Boy and the Heron – symphonic suite *‡ †
The End of the World
(Both European premières)

Steve Reich
The Desert Music ‡ ⁋

John Holiday (countertenor) †
BBC Singers ‡
Philharmonia Chorus †
National Youth Choir ⁋

Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
Joe Hisaishi conductor/piano *

Joe Hisaishi’s debut at the Proms brought a distinctive Japanese slant to the audience packing seats and standing areas, with lots of young kids for which the eve of the 80^th anniversary of VJ Day resonance in the programming might have been considered inappropriate. With the originally advertised programme consisting of Hisaishi’s own The End of the World, composed as a response to his visit to Ground Zero in New York after the destruction of the twin towers of the World Trade Center, and Steve Reich’s The Desert Music, in part a mediation on the testing of the nuclear bomb in the New Mexico desert before being used on both Hiroshima and Nagasaki almost exactly 80 years ago, this was a serious programme.

Perhaps that’s why it was thought expedient to add another work, Hisaishi’s symphonic suite from his latest Ghibli film The Boy and the Heron. Not that (like all other Hayao Miyazaki films) the story doesn’t have dark sides to it, as a boy works through a family death. But, in essence, this is light music, with Hisaishi on the piano bringing out some jazzy rhythms in a central section.

The End of the World – originally three movements, with two added later and one of the original reimagined with words – takes its title from Skeeter Davis’ 1962 song The End of the World, here being the added fifth movement, sung – like the third movement D.e.a.d by yellow-cloaked countertenor John Holiday. Hisaishi’s inspirations – particularly the second movement’s Grace of St Paul (St Paul’s Chapel used as a command centre for the rescue operation) – seem more evocative than the music associated with them, although there is a recurring motif on tubular bells, alluded to at the very end as the music dies away. Also, John Holiday’s colourful vocal addition seemed at odds with the nature of the work, but the audience cheered him and Hisaishi so much they were dragged back onto the stage even after the applause was dying away. The Philharmonia Chorus and BBC Singers added their choral textures to the mix.

One of the vicarious pleasures for an audience of late at certain Proms has been the Herculean efforts of a phalanx of players and stagehands in clearing and resetting the stage during the interval: vis a vis after Birtwistle’s Earth Dances and Tippett’s Rose Lake. Even more impressive tonight, because it wasn’t just taking percussion instruments away, it was reshaping the seating apart from the strings. The interval was longer (30 minutes instead of the usual 20) and that was even extended as sound engineers puzzled over some problem or other before the second half kicked off.

Last year Hisaishi gave the Japan premiere of Steve Reich’s then 40-year-old masterpiece The Desert Music. That performance and The End of the World has just been released as a Deutsche Grammophon download (with CD/vinyl to follow next year), and Hisaishi tours the programme later this month through Japan. Tonight, the Royal Philharmonic, with the miked BBC Singers and National Youth Choir arrayed behind the orchestra on either side of Sir Henry Wood’s bust above, played it for all they were worth in a performance of lucidity and power. 

Reich’s palindromic structure, couched in five movements but in essence in seven sections, with its sequence of two repeated texts amongst the seven all taken from William Carlos Williams’ The Orchestra, was beautifully and lovingly honed by Hisaishi, sometimes discarding his baton on the stand to mould the wind or voices with just his hands. The opening minimalist wordless salvo (eventually coming back at the end, before the music evaporates instrument by instrument to the last marimba) was slower than his new DG recording (and close to the classic Michael Tilson Thomas recording on Nonesuch) and much the better for it. The jaunty string section was full of nuanced bounce, and the amplified chorus came over incredibly well from where I was sitting with clear diction (admittedly with reference to the text in the programme).

This was an epic performance that didn’t outlast its welcome (a far cry from the UK premiere at the Proms in 1986 when, seemingly, BBC Symphony forces were somewhat disinterested in it). It was gloriously received, and – hopefully – a foretaste for next year, which not only marks Reich’s 90^th birthday but will feature a special focus on American music, in the 250^th anniversary year of the founding of the United States.