Fiona Maddocks: best classical music of 2016

First the highs: the Lithuanian conductor Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla raised spirits as new music director of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. Chineke!, Europe’s first BME orchestra, really took off and witnessed the success of two younger members, both aged 17: cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason won BBC Young Musician 2016; Elodie Chousmer-Howells is the new leader of the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain. Radio 3 celebrated its 70th birthday with strong ratings. Vasily Petrenko, popular chief conductor of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, was awarded honorary citizenship of the city. Pianists Igor Levit and Daniil Trifonov had a good year: contrasting in style but both virtuosos with, we hope, long futures. Martha Argerich and Daniel Barenboim, decades ahead in age and wisdom, played magical Schubert – four hands, one piano – at the Proms.

The painful saga of English National Opera, battling harsh Arts Council cuts and internal unrest, continued: the year began with a chorus pay dispute and the resignation of music director Mark Wigglesworth and ended with an outcry against next year’s Carousel, starring Katherine Jenkins and Alfie Boe. A promising new creative team is in place: Martyn Brabbins as music director and Daniel Kramer as artistic director. Ears and eyes will be on them. In performance, standards have remained consistently high: from Wigglesworth, in his short time as music director, Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, The Magic Flute, Jenůfa, Lulu, and from the entire company, not just those you see on stage, in Akhnaten, Tristan and Isolde and more.

The Royal Opera had success with rarities: Enescu’s Oedipe and Shostakovich’s The Nose, as well as (not quite so rare) Bellini’s Norma. Philip Venables’s 4.48 Psychosis (ROH/Lyric Hammersmith) grabbed headlines for invention and style. Opera North excelled with Wagner’s Ring on tour, Billy Budd, Il tabarro/Suor Angelica and Mark Simpson’s Pleasure. Welsh National Opera continued its themed seasons, winning particular acclaim for Figaro Gets a Divorce. Scottish Opera made a mark with Stuart MacRae’s The Devil Inside (with Music Theatre Wales) and Handel’s Ariodante.

In Hampshire, Grange Park Opera left the Grange to build a new Theatre in the Woods in West Horsley, Surrey, opening in June next year. An entirely different if similarly named company – the Grange festival – moved into the vacant venue. Garsington at Wormsley scored with a fine Eugene Onegin. So too did enterprising Dorset Opera. Opera Holland Park, newly independent, had a critically acclaimed year with a dark and thrilling Queen of Spades. Glyndebourne, struggling somewhat with all this competition, came out on top with one of the world premiere hits of the year, Nothing, performed by 14- to 19-year-olds of Glyndebourne Youth Opera.

Post-Brexit vote, plans for the proposed Centre for Music in London collapsed. Scotland is doing better. Edinburgh has announced a new concert hall, home for the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, with a 1,000-seat auditorium. The Royal Scottish National Orchestra, too, has a new base in Glasgow’s Killermont Street, an acoustically adjustable, 600-seat auditorium with world-class recording facilities. Abroad, among the usual switches around, Jaap van Zweden became new chief conductor of the New York Philharmonic and Yannick Nézet-Séguin, succeeding James Levine, was named music director at the Metropolitan Opera, only the third in the Met’s history.

There were final farewells: composers Pierre Boulez, Peter Maxwell Davies, Peter Reynolds and Pauline Oliveros; conductors Nikolaus Harnoncourt and Neville Marriner, pianist-conductor Zoltán Kocsis; soprano Daniela Dessì, tenor Johan Botha. The year ended with a resurrection: a lost manuscript by Stravinsky played in St Petersburg by the Mariinsky Orchestra for the first time since 1909. Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Philharmonia will give its UK premiere on 19 February.

Christine and the Queens, Brixton Academy, gig review: Applied the finishing touches to a future superstar

"I feel like Bruce Springsteen but without all the CDs," joked Heloise Letissier - better known by stage name Christine and the Queens - as the rapturous crowd deafeningly cheered her sold out opening show at London's Brixton Academy.

Letissier's statement is not misplaced: Christine and the Queens has whipped up an overt frenzy since releasing debut album Chaleur Humaine in June.

This chilly November evening was no exception - the singer-songwriter was greeted to the stage with adulation usually reserved for musicians five albums into a career. As the lights went down, a fervent excitement descended no doubt inspired by the shared knowledge that all packed into the particularly rammed music venue were fortunate to be there.

Not that she herself can believe it. The self-proclaimed "tiny French woman with a tiny French repertoire" seemed marvelled as the crowd whooped her every move, lyric and endearing anecdote she peppered throughout the 90-minute set. Of course, it helps that Letissier is the moment's most likeable on-stage presence, her words - delivered with French affectation - making the beaming audience willing putty in her hands (if they weren't already) as she bounded about the stage like a woman unaware she deserves such praise.

Christine and the Queens showcased the full package: tender lyrics - eschewed towards gender identity - sung with crystal clear clarity as Letissier found her note with every first attempt. The synchronised dancing with vibrant backing troupe empirically aided the visual aesthetic, while each song's charming preamble - most notably with signature track "Titled" - seemed so off-the-cuff it made all spectators feel as if they're the first she's ever performed to.

Whether through the discotheque vibes of "Intranquillité" or the stripped-back shimmer of "Saint Claude," every passing minute of the set - much like with her star-making Glastonbury performance earlier this summer - felt like the finishing touches being applied to a future superstar.

If the synth-heavy sound of "Safe and Holy" and standout track "IT" - with its impressive call and response involving her dutiful backing musicians - freed the flamboyance, it was over to the more heartfelt moments to crystallise the evening. A well-earned encore saw a faithful cover of Terence Trent D'Arby song "Sign Your Name" which segued into the jewel in the night's crown: "Nuit 17 à 52," a lyrically-melancholic yet enchanting - and endlessly hummable - tale that sent the crowd into the cold night with their hearts warmed.

On-stage persona Christine may have been surrounded by her Queens, but for two nights at least, Letissier was the monarch of London; all hail.

Ultimate Painting: 'Our music is a reaction against modern life'

Often when Ultimate Painting meet up to record, they won’t even get as far as picking up their instruments. Singer-guitarists Jack Cooper and James Hoare will meet at Hoare’s house – he has all the analogue equipment they could ever need in his front room – bringing with them lyric fragments and melodic ideas, with every intention of knuckling down on a new track. Then they just sort of … don’t.

“We’ll set aside days in the week where we’re going to record,” says Cooper, sipping black coffee in a Turkish cafe in east London. “But we’ll have, like, a cup of tea and something to eat, and go, ‘I don’t really wanna do anything today.’” Luckily, this creative lethargy is almost always mutual – it’s just a matter of who admits it first. “Normally the other person’s waiting for the person to say it,” Hoare agrees, “so they’re not …”

“So they’re not the bad guy!”

And yet somehow the duo – who formed in 2014 after Cooper’s band, Mazes, supported Hoare’s Veronica Falls on tour – have managed to make three albums in as many years. All of them are as resolutely unhurried as their creators’ work ethic – sparse, lo-fi guitars humming under catchy but undemonstrative melodies. Their latest, Dusk, is perhaps their most languid and unfussy so far. It takes as much care over the spaces between the notes, the deep, contemplative breaths in, as it does over the melodies themselves.

“Everyone’s minds nowadays are cluttered,” says Cooper. “I think what we do is like a reaction against how life can be. The songs we find ourselves played next to on the radio, you have these digital recordings where there’s hundreds of tracks on Pro Tools and it’s like, clutter. I think it’s a reaction against that, against modern life, in that we’re stripping everything away. It feels sort of cathartic.”

Lyrically, too, Ultimate Painting’s music is pared down to its core, never using three words where one will do. If they find a line that works, one that gets to the heart of a song, they’ll repeat it over and over. Hoare, who resembles a sort of grungy Benedict Cumberbatch, a stick-and-poke Beatles tattoo adorning his left arm, is prone to self-deprecation, so he suggests it’s down to laziness. When he suggests that he can’t really write upbeat songs, Cooper swiftly takes him to task.

“I don’t accept that you can’t write upbeat songs,” he retorts. “I really love James’s song Break the Chain, and I really like that line, ‘It’s all right to break the chain.’ I think that’s really quite a joyous lyric. It’s melancholic but it’s cool.” It happens several times throughout our conversation – this quiet but firm confirmation of the other’s abilities, no glimmer of self-doubt allowed to pass unchecked.

That’s not to say they don’t have the occasional disagreement. Hoare’s reluctance to come out and say when he doesn’t like a song has been problematic in the past. “Sometimes when you’ve been working on something for a few days at home, you bring it and James just sort of looks out the window,” Cooper laughs. “He’ll do a thing where if I brought something that he doesn’t like, he won’t say anything, he’ll wait for me to cotton on to the fact that it’s not right.” Hoare nods slowly.

“In hindsight,” he says, “it would be better just to say it straight away.”

“Yeah,” Cooper says, “it totally would.”

Though originally from different ends of the country (Cooper is from Blackpool, Hoare from Devon), they both now live in London. Their music comes, they believe, more in spite of their location than because of it. “It just seems like everything is getting pushed further and further out,” Cooper says. “I think this city in particular is crazy, the whole place is being hollowed out. When you go into central London, you go into these places with beautiful old houses around Regent’s Park and no one lives there. They’re owned by foreign investors, and that kind of attitude is spreading across the city. It definitely affects music venues or artist spaces. But people always find a way of creating, of reacting against that kind of thing.”

For them, that reaction lies in the languor of their music – a respite from the empty buzz of the capital – but it also, occasionally, crystallises into something more biting. In the song (I’ve Got the) Sanctioned Blues, Cooper sings of a nightmare train journey to a jobseekers’ meeting. At the time, the band described the song as an attempt to “make sense” of the Conservative government.

Do they feel confident trying political commentary in song? “I do like discussing politics,” says Cooper, “and I’m constantly thinking about it and talking to people about it. I don’t feel like I’m an authority. So I often try and take a step back from it, because I’m still processing what I think anyway. So it’s difficult.”

But then, it seems, everything is difficult. He says none of the thoughts or opinions he’s articulated in the last hour are set in stone. At least not for the moment. “When I completely figure everything out, which I intend to do, we can talk again,” Cooper says, smiling. “On my death bed.”

Stop Making Sense: Talking Music Videos at IFP Film Week

At today’s IFP Film Week panel, “Musical Approach to Visual Storytelling,” filmmakers Zia Anger, Celia Rowlson-Hall, Ashley Connor and David Svedosh will discuss their varying approaches to the medium of music videos; collaborations with the likes of Jenny Lewis, Angel Olsen, Mitski, MGMT, and Elliott Moss; and the benefits of working in a pipeline that’s a bit more streamlined than feature filmmaking. Prior to the discussion, the four shared a few thoughts on the experimental tendencies of the medium, its release strategies and much more.

As a filmmaker, music videos can afford the opportunity to experiment with images and sound beyond the bounds of a traditional narrative.

“I really love filmmakers like Marie Menken and Maya Deren who use the emotional side the camera to move in a way that I’ve tried to apply to a lot of my work,” says Connor. “Shooting music videos allows me that freedom because you can get away with a lot more when you’re less concerned with a narrative — the work then operates on a subconscious level, and sometimes I’m even able to throw that into my narrative work.”

Anger, whose music videos favor a lyrical quality, lets the transient experience of song listening guide her in her direction when she’s writing a treatment or developing a concept. “Generally music that is considered deserving of a music video is ephemeral,” she says. “The song usually deals with a singular feeling, and allows it to be ephemeral. It comes, it touches you, and then it leaves. If you are in love or a masochist or obsessive or angry or whatever, the feeling may come again and again because you repeat the song. That myopathy in repetition creates a meaning and an exploration that is far less singular. So I am interested in this duality: the ephemeral but also the repetition.”

Svedosh also notes that although experimental approaches in music videos are “not always easily accessible, they can demand repeated viewings, and over time can give way to new interpretations.”

The removal of a more traditional release strategy in the world of music videos can sometimes function as a double edged sword.

“I don’t know of any filmmaker who dreams of having his or her work screened on YouTube,” admits Svedosh. “But realistically, unless you plan on making the festival rounds, the internet is now the de facto platform for music videos. And while the visual experience suffers because of this (I’ve spent countless hours trying to minimize compression artifacts with the ‘perfect’ encoding settings), the upside is that your work is now accessible by almost anyone in the world.”

But the practice is a nice change of pace from feature filmmaking.

“Music videos are almost a respite from shooting features because the shoots are short and there’s a quick turn around with releasing it,” says Connor. “Sometimes you shoot a film and people don’t see it for years, so I love the immediacy of the whole process.”

Music videos were also key in honing Celia Rowlson-Hall’s directorial style, as her narrative films are often related through dance. “Music videos and fashion videos helped me transition from choreography into filmmaking,” she says. “As a choreographer, the music is what drives me to create the style and type of dance that I create for that particular song. I implemented this same practice as a director, and let the music inform my images and plot.”

The ideal relationship between a video and the song it represents is a complementary one.

“The story and the music should be equal players in the video,” says Rowlson-Hall. “It is a symbiotic relationship, and they elevate one another. Echoes Connor, “My favorite videos are those that feel so reflective of the music that you can’t really separate the two. I hate videos that are too literal or incongruous that you can’t really listen to the music. If you want to make a short film, go make a short film.”

Factory Floor: 25 25 Review – Everything Here Bounces

Often, live music can feel almost as rote an experience as the nine-to-five: queue, beer, whoop and good night. In 2012, however, Factory Floor – then a trio – played a three-hour set at London’s Tate Modern. Members of the audience reportedly became so transported, they started taking their clothes off.

Inspired by early synth music, industrial post-punk and the arty end of the dance music spectrum, Factory Floor acquired a reputation around the turn of the decade as one of the loudest, most exhilarating bands around – a band whose totalitarian-sounding loops required you to dance. An obvious kindred spirit, New Order’s Stephen Morris, produced their self-titled 2013 debut album for the DFA label, co-founded by another obvious kindred spirit, LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy. It was rather good.

Since that record, FF have parted ways (amicably, they say) with keyboard player Dominic Butler. Working as a duo, Nik Colk Void and Gabriel Gurnsey have slung out what little fat was on their rig and made a minimal techno record on modular synths and drum machines. It is very good indeed.

Both techno and industrial music make a virtue of repetition and dehumanisation; 25 25 is uncompromisingly machine music, but keeps the body very much in view: everything here bounces, no sound lands dead, no matter how many times they loop it. The sound is palpably analogue, aloof but inviting. You couldn’t hear Chicago house on the first album like you could hear Detroit techno; here, you clock disembodied handclaps; sweat drips down the walls.

Increasingly playing late-night sets, the duo moved clubwards. Void has transferred from guitar to synths; it’s her heavily pitch-shifted, dub-effect vocals that (barely) adorn the tracks; not singing, just intoning the odd word or phrase. “Work,” commands Meet Me at the End, the lubricated opening track, which has something of the percolating wobble and Doppler vocal effects of Underworld to it. Five minutes in, it sounds like a gangmaster is cracking a whip.

“Sad face,” breathes Void on the title track, battered by subtly mounting acid squelches; “awkward”. There’s no obvious joy or release on 25 25 – it’s not that housey – but Factory Floor aren’t just forbidding noiseniks hung up on post-punk any more: you can hear them having a lot of fun.

One of 25 25’s standout tracks, Ya, features that one repeated syllable while a rubbery hook plays out and percussive motifs (stuttering hi-hat, one-finger synth drip) unfurl for seven minutes. It sounds like German for “yes”; mostly comedy bored – “ja, ja, ja” – sometimes more doom-laden. The whole thing makes you want to punch the air – or maybe even strip off.