A work of art, in any medium, can often turn out quite unlike what its creator originally had in mind. Poul Ruders's Listening Earth, given its UK premiere by the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by David Robertson, is a case in point. Taking his inspiration from a hymn by the 17th-century English writer Joseph Addison, Ruders originally intended his "symphonic drama for orchestra" to be "a meditation on the cyclic nature of human existence", a work essentially expressing spiritual continuity and optimism. The September 11 terrorist attacks took place during the course of its composition, however, and he felt compelled to change the ending, replacing its certainty with queasy doubt.
It proves to be a gripping piece, though Ruders's debt to Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring is in places over-obvious. Stravinsky's famous comment about depicting "the earth cracking open" comes to mind during the seismic convulsions of Ruders's opening, in which rearing figurations suggest some vast, barely tamed force of nature. The central section, drawn from Addison's description of a mystic dialogue between the earth and the moon, is a phenomenally beautiful nocturne based on the melody of the original hymn, its contours picked out by the brass over slowly shifting, penumbral dissonances. A shrill woodwind squeal, however, brings the momentum of the finale to a sudden halt and the piece collapses into a series of fragmentary phrases punctuated by explosive percussion thuds.
At the Barbican, Robertson flanked Listening Earth with works that echoed Ruders's preoccupations. The lunar landscapes of Debussy's Nocturnes were balanced by Bartok's earthbound Cantata Profana, its complex polyphony beautifully negotiated by the BBC Symphony Chorus. Bartok's Second Violin Concerto, meanwhile, was written during another defining political tragedy: the Nazi Anschluss of Austria.
The soloist was Leonidas Kavakos, by turns eloquent, lyrical and grieving. Robertson, as always passionately alert to every shift of meaning in all he conducts, forcefully emphasised the concerto's harmonic unease and sudden plunges into orchestral violence.
