Édith Canat de Chizy
REVIEWED FROM LIVE RELAY ON BBC RADIO 3
Tuesday, August 18, 2026
Royal Albert Hall, London
Skyline by Édith Canat de Chizy (born 1950 in Lyon) is a “Concerto for three percussionists, timpani and orchestra”, a BBC co-commission. This UK premiere of the fifteen-minute piece (presumably setting and re-setting the platform allowed for no other first-half music) was of virtuosity, ricochets and widescreen imagery. Otherwise, percussion is percussion.
Cristian Măcelaru cued Shostakovich Ten with ominous lower strings, Richard Hosford’s clarinet weaved tales within tales, and the quixotic flute melody entered in relationship, the musical line intense, unbroken (over twenty-five minutes) climaxing in a cri de coeur of rawness, a piccolo given the last, lonely, word. The succeeding Scherzo, believed to be an unflattering portrait of Stalin (who died in 1953, allowing this Symphony to be released) was initially a little tame in tempo and temperament if stealthily developed. Following which, a strange landscape, coded horn-calls, sardonic bassoon, an eruptive dance, mysteries abounded, and how expressive was the introduction to the Finale, suspense-filled, led by a penetrating oboe; otherwise zipping along, the hoisting of the DSCH motif a personal triumph. The close was moved towards smoothly if perhaps less ambiguously than can be – this is Shostakovich, after all – but it made for a well-rounded performance capped by a crisp timpani salvo.
However, the whole truth about the Tenth is below, Kurt Sanderling.
***
“The concert opens with the UK premiere of Édith Canat de Chizy’s intricately textured Skyline for three percussionists, timpani and orchestra – a musical vision of the cosmos, from void to teeming, multiplying musical life.” [R3]
Lucy Landymore, Emma Arden, Delia Stevens (percussion) & Richard Cartlidge (timpani)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00302bc
Yes, Kurt Sanderling was a genius. As a schoolboy I saw his Manchester debut (bbcpo) for which he asked to do ‘Heldenleben’ (has been on cd) Even finer was a Halle Schumann 4 soon afterwards. In London I saw him do two concerts of Shostakovich 15, a work he seemed to grasp better than anyone. A nice memory is of seeing him in Berlin aged about 95 watching one of his son Michael’s first concerts as a conductor (was a cellist before that).