The New European Ensemble, a versatile septet from the Netherlands, delivered a captivating performance at London's Spitalfields festival, pairing music with words from Ali Smith's Seasonal Quartet. The concert featured new compositions by four female composers—Kate Moore, Alice Yeung, Seung-Won Oh, and Sara Zamboni—each responding to one of Smith's novels. The event also included works by Peter Maxwell Davies, Anna Thorvaldsdottir, and Kinan Azmeh, creating a cycle from autumn to summer.
Interconnectedness in Music and Literature
Smith's Seasonal Quartet explores themes of interconnectedness through intersecting paths, repeating patterns, and echoing stories. This project extended that web musically, with each composer interpreting a novel. Without programme notes, the audience was left to imagine connections. Moore's "Fall Falling" mirrored Smith's love of lists through looping repetitions and slow-phase harmonies, while Azmeh's "Essays on Solitude" evoked Spring's folk-tale of virgin sacrifice with throbbing rhythms and insistent ostinato layers, reminiscent of a contemporary Rite of Spring.
Highlight: Yeung's Inabsolute Zero
Alice Yeung's "Inabsolute Zero" stood out for its ravishing play of texture, with Winter's ghosts whispering through piano strings and violin bows. The waltz from Shostakovich's Jazz Suite wandered in and out, adding a haunting quality. The New European Ensemble performed as a taut, unified force, with leadership passing fluidly among its excellent players. Smith herself read extracts between pieces, visibly engaged with each work, as words and music met at the equinox of her fictional year.
Performance and Future Dates
The concert took place at the Dutch Church during the Spitalfields festival. The New European Ensemble, described as a moveable feast of a group, communicated seamlessly. The Seasonal Quartet will be performed at the Edinburgh book festival on 28 August.
