Page 36 - BBC Music (January 2020)

Lawrence Power
Performance art:
Lawrence Power
takes centre stage
at London’s Barbican
and is essentially a gathering of Power’s
friends, who happen to include the likes
of violinist Vilde Frang, cellist Adrian
Brendel and pianist Pavel Kolesnikov.
Critics aren’t exactly banned, but they
aren’t actively invited, either. West
Wycombe is where Power and pals have a
chance to play around with repertoire and
instrument swapping. ‘It’s important to
have a space where we can all be out of our
comfort zones,’ he explains.
There is also the Viola Commissioning
Circle (VCC), which Power set up to
fast-track the creation of new music for
the instrument. ‘I love working with
composers,’ he says, ‘but I get so frustrated for the assessment,
with how slow the process usually is –
putting together funds, commissioning
partners, all of that.’ He gives the example
of James MacMillan’s new concerto, which
took eight years to come to fruition from
first conversation to premiere.
The VCC is a way of circumnavigating
that wait, with a community of
philanthropic viola enthusiasts already
invested and funds at the ready. Its first
commission was from Thomas Adès – his
Three Berceuses premiered at Wigmore
Hall only a year after the idea was dreamed toured. Yet how often does that happen?
up. New VCC concertos are in
the pipeline from Anders Hillborg,
Magnus Lindberg and Huw Watkins.
38 BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE
The ambition here is not small. ‘Think of
someone like Rostropovich,’ says Power.
‘If he hadn’t existed, the cello repertoire
would be miniscule. But he got everyone
to write for him: Prokofiev, Britten,
Shostakovich, Lutos!awski, Hindemith.
He created a repertoire for his instrument
which cellists now enjoy on a daily basis.
You could say it’s a responsibility. If you’re
‘They ran out of
violins the day I went
so I got a viola’
out there playing, what a waste not to get
people to write for you.’
True enough – though that sense of duty
to new music does not seem to apply to
most soloists. Power nods. ‘I could sit here
and criticise all of them. I could put it out
there: that if you’re a massively successful
artist, surely within one conversation
you could get a piece commissioned and
Yeah, I do get frustrated.’
The other major factor to which Power
credits his wide musical horizons is his
particular route into the profession. He
grew up in Buckinghamshire and was
handed a viola at the age of seven. This
was no family heirloom, but a chance
encounter thanks to the peripatetic music
lessons that were still offered by England’s
state education system in the mid-1980s.
‘They ran out of violins on the day I went
for the assessment, so I got a viola,’ he
smiles. ‘Which meant nothing to me. The
next day I turned up for my violin lesson
and was told, “nope, that’s a viola. You get
the green book, not the red one”.’
Thirty-five years later, cuts to state
instrumental provision mean children
from Power’s background are unlikely to
experience any such a chance encounter.
His face darkens at the thought. ‘If you’re
not from a musical family – and I wasn’t
– how else can you be found? Pianist Paul
Lewis was the same. I am absolutely sure
that there are many wonderful musicians
out there who aren’t being found. On a
daily basis I find that a really depressing
thought, and probably something I should
be doing a hell of a lot more about. It’s
probably something all musicians should
be doing a lot more about.’
Power’s own trajectory took him from
that surprise green book into London,
where he attended Saturday junior classes
at Guildhall (‘wonderfully intense!’). A