Category Archives: Orchestral

In concert – Three Choirs Festival: Three Choirs Festival Chorus, Philharmonia Orchestra / Adrian Partington – Howells Hymnus Paradisi & Bliss Mary of Magdala

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Rebecca Hardwick (soprano), Dame Sarah Connolly (mezzo-soprano), Michael Bell (tenor), Malachy Frame (baritone), Three Choirs Festival Chorus, Philharmonia Orchestra / Adrian Partington

Howells Paradise Rondel (1925)
Bliss Mary of Magdala (1962)
Howells Hymnus Paradisi (1936-38)

Hereford Cathedral
Wednesday 30 July 2025

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse Photos (c) Dale Hodgetts (Dame Sarah Connolly, Festival Chorus), James O’Driscoll (Hereford Cathedral, Rebecca Hardwick, Adrian Partington)

Interesting that all three works comprising this concert were premiered at the Three Choirs in Gloucester or Worcester but they were, for the most part, admirably suited to the less opulent while always spacious ambience of Hereford Cathedral in what was a welcome retrospective.

Upsurge of Arthur Bliss performances in this fiftieth anniversary of his death continued with Mary of Magdala, essentially a cantata albeit with an element of operatic scena in the intense characterization of its title-role. Compiled by Christopher Hassall (the last collaboration with Bliss before his untimely death), its text finds Mary approaching the sepulchre where Christ’s body has been placed after crucifixion only to find it gone – Christ having assumed the guise of a gardener who bestows his blessing upon this most maligned yet most loyal of his circle.

The main part was given by Dame Sarah Connolly (above) with her customary fervour and insight, not least in the final stages after recognition when the music exudes a radiant gentleness rarely, if ever, encountered in Bliss hitherto. Malachy Frame drew an understated strength from the brief yet crucial role of Christus, but excessively large choral numbers rather compromised the relative intimacy of the music. Not that it seriously undermined the conviction of a timely revival for what is one of the least known though inherently personal among the composer’s later works.

It stayed under-wraps for over a decade after completion, but Hymnus Paradisi has long been the best known of Herbert Howells’s larger pieces and something like a ‘sacred text’ in Three Choirs culture. Written after the death of the composer’s son, it is avowedly music within the English choral tradition; not least that Gerontius-like aura of a Preludio (actually written last) whose yearning theme pervades what follows. The Requiem aeternam further intensifies such introspection, and if a setting of Psalm 23 tends towards the discursive, even generalized, that of Psalm 121 has a rapture that builds on an effervescent Sanctus in what is the most arresting section. A ruminative setting from The Burial Service precedes the impulsiveness of that from Salisbury Diurnal, with the return of the Requiem aeternam bringing about a fatalistic repose.

Something of a staple at these festivals it might be, Hymnus Paradisi is never an easy work to sustain in performance and tonight’s was a notable though not unqualified success. The vocal parts were well taken, Rebecca Hardwick’s occasional shrillness ostensibly a price to be paid for surmounting those often dense choral textures and Michael Bell making up for in accuracy what he lacked in personality. The sizable orchestral forces of the Philharmonia proved more than equal to the task, not just of balancing but in opening-out the expressive power of choral writing where the Three Choirs Festival Chorus was wholly in its element. Adrian Partington secured an interpretive focus that gained in conviction as the performance unfolded, making for an account which underlined the strengths yet also the weaknesses of this singular work.

It was the earlier and uninhibited Howells which ushered in proceedings. With its translucent orchestration and, at times, almost concertante-like piano part, Paradise Rondel makes for as irresistible a curtain-raiser as it no doubt was evoking that Cotswold hamlet of a century ago.

Published post no.2,615 – Sunday 3 August 2025

In concert – Sean Shibe, BBC Philharmonic Orchestra / Anja Bihlmaier @ BBC Proms: Richard Strauss, Mark Simpson ‘ZEBRA’ & Berlioz

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Sean Shibe (guitar), BBC Philharmonic Orchestra / Anja Bihlmaier

Richard Strauss Tod und Verklärung Op.24 (1888-89)
Simpson ZEBRA (or, 2-3-74: The Divine Invasion of Philip K. Dick) (2025) [BBC commission: World premiere]
Berlioz Symphonie fantastique Op.14 (1829-30)

Royal Albert Hall, London
Tuesday 22nd July 2025

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse Photos (c) BBC / Mark Allan

The current BBC Proms season features several high-profile premieres, not the least of them being tonight’s from Liverpool-born clarinettist and composer Mark Simpson, remembered at these concerts for his orchestral fanfare sparks launching 2012’s Last Night in no uncertain terms.

On one level, ZEBRA (or, 2-3-74: The Divine Invasion of Philip K. Dick) is a straightforward three-movement concerto following the customary formal trajectory. No work that draws its inspiration from one of Sci-Fi’s most distinctive authors could be deemed predictable and so it proved with this musical representation of an epiphany which, experienced in his mid-40s, pervaded his thinking until his untimely death. Whether or not possessing divine overtones, it duly provided an imaginative context for the present work as it unfolds from a combative and even assaultive opening movement, through a mostly ruminative yet sometimes restive elegy, into a finale whose rapidly accruing energy surges towards an apotheosis of theatrical overkill – the ‘Zebra’ of the title as demonstrative as it remained elusive a presence during Dick’s life.

Music whose virtuosity summoned an orchestral response to match – the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra responding with alacrity to Simpson’s often febrile textures and translucent sonorities under the assured guidance of Anja Bihlmaier. Ultimately, of course, this was Sean Shibe’s show – his magnetic presence and mastery of electric guitar making it a notable addition to a genre still lacking in worthwhile contributions. His encore of a dreamily disembodied soundscape might even have been paying oblique homage to the great, happily not so late Robert Fripp.

On another level, Simpson’s concerto chimed ideally with the likely concept of this concert. One that commenced with an unexceptionally fine account of Richard Strauss’s Tod und Verklärung, Bihlmaier characterizing its more inward episodes with affecting poignancy as compensated for a lack of implacability in its early stages or a slightly underwhelming affirmation toward its close. Rarely in doubt was the direction in which this composer’s metaphysical musings were headed, even if the outcome was a performance no more than the sum of its best parts.

Berlioz pursued a rather less elevated ‘death and transfiguration’ in his Symphonie fantastique, but an approach with which Bihlmaier seemed more fully in accord. The lengthy introduction of Rêveries – Passions was eloquently delineated, and if the main portion of this movement (without exposition repeat) was overly self-contained, it elided naturally into Un bal with its ingratiating waltz offset by passages of despondency and elation. The highlight was a Scène aux champs which unfolded seamlessly from its plangent cor anglais solo, through mounting agitation, near catastrophe then uneasy resignation, to its mesmeric ending made more so by undulating timpani chords. After this, Marche au supplice (with first-half repeat) built with ominous tread to a climax almost graphic in its depiction of the ‘hero’ condemned to death.

An outburst of applause suggested many had not anticipated the orgy to come, but Bihlmaier responded with a Songe d’une nuit du Sabbat that, if lacking the ultimate drama, set the seal on an engaging performance with the BBC Philharmonic at something like its collective best.

You can listen back to this Prom concert on BBC Sounds until Sunday 12 October.

Click on the artist names to read more about Sean Shibe, Anja Bihlmaier, the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra and composer Mark Simpson – and for more on the BBC Proms

Published post no.2,605 – Thursday 24 July 2025

In concert – Ryedale Festival: Timothy Ridout, Orchestra of Opera North / Tom Fetherstonhaugh – Bliss: Viola Concerto first performance; Vaughan Williams, Coleridge-Taylor & Elgar

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Timothy Ridout (viola), Orchestra of Opera North / Tom Fetherstonhaugh

Vaughan Williams The Wasps – Overture (1909)
Bliss (orch. Wilby) Viola Concerto, B68a (1933, orch. 2023)
Coleridge-Taylor Solemn Prelude in B minor, Op. 40 (1899)
Elgar Variations on an Original Theme, Op. 36 ‘Enigma’ (1898-99)

Ripon Cathedral
Saturday 19 July 2025

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse Photos (c) Jonas Cradock

With a variety of activities throughout its region, the Ryedale Festival is now well established among the most wide-ranging of such events 45 years since its inauguration and this evening’s concert showcased the Orchestra of Opera North in the impressive setting of Ripon Cathedral.

The all-British programme centred on the first hearing for a Viola Concerto that Arthur Bliss had always intended to create out of his sonata for that instrument, but has only recently been carried out by Philip Wilby. A former professor of composition at Leeds University, Wilby is best known for his choral and organ music but as was duly confirmed, is an able orchestrator with a keen appreciation of Bliss’ idiom. Hence the successful launch of a piece that deserves to assume its place within the still-limited repertoire of concertante works for this instrument.

That it exists at all was no doubt through the prompting of Lionel Tertis, for whom Bliss wrote his Viola Sonata some 20 years after a single-movement Violin Sonata (never played publicly during his lifetime) as was his only other such duo. Formally it is among his most innovative pieces, the skewed sonata design of its initial Moderato exuding a restive and even impulsive eloquence as responded well to an orchestration which resembles more the intimacy of Bliss’ late Cello Concerto than the full-blooded fervour of his earlier such works for piano or violin.

The ensuing Andante is Bliss at his most personal – its darkly ruminative progress building to an anguished culmination made the more so in this context, before subsiding into the fugitive unease from which it had emerged. There follows a propulsive Molto allegro modelled on the rhythmic syncopation of the Furiant, a scherzo-cum-finale climaxing with a powerful cadenza here forcefully partnered by timpani. After which, the Coda poignantly surveys all that went before in a sustained Andante maestoso as brings about an apotheosis of plangent resignation.

At around 27 minutes, Bliss’s Viola Concerto is equal in its scale as in its expressive reach to comparable works by Hindemith and Walton, so credit to Timothy Ridout (above, among the leading younger violists) that its essence was so tangibly conveyed. Nor was the OON found wanting under the assured direction of Tom Fetherstonhaugh, heard here in an ambience where detail lacked only the final degree of definition. Hopefully a recording will follow of what is likely to be the most important performance scheduled in this 50th anniversary-year of Bliss’ death.

The first half had begun in sparking fashion with the overture Vaughan Williams wrote as part of incidental music for a Cambridge University production of Aristophanes’ satire The Wasps, its incisiveness not precluding an open-hearted response to the ineffable melody at its centre.

A very different proposition duly launched the second half. Solemn Prelude is a characteristic statement by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor that did not merit the total neglect after its premiere at Worcester Cathedral; further hearings only made possible with the score’s belated relocation at the British Library so new parts could be made. Fusing Elgarian nobility with Brucknerian grandeur, any risk of portentousness was countered with an expressive immediacy abetted by Fetherstonhaugh’s flexible control over pace so that a welcome spontaneity came to the fore.

It certainly made an ideal entrée into the ‘Enigma’ Variations. Performances of Elgar’s earliest masterpiece now seem more frequent than ever, and tonight’s had much to commend it. Never fazed by the expansiveness of this acoustic, Fetherstonhaugh opted for mainly swift tempi as might easily have caused blurring in those faster variations had it not been for his scrupulous balance of detail. Elsewhere there was no lack of emotional input, not least during variations VIII-X with the wistfulness of ‘W.N.’ then deftness of ‘Dorabella’ framing a ‘Nimrod’ whose fervour was the greater for its relative urgency. Nor was the ‘E.D.U.’ finale lacking in panache as it brought the whole sequence to a conclusion of ringing affirmation, though it was maybe a pity that this building’s impressive organ could not have been utilized for the closing bars.

What was hardly in doubt was the response that this account received from the near-capacity audience, making one anticipate more such events at Ripon Cathedral in future editions of the Ryedale Festival, as it continues assiduously to promote the cultural life of North Yorkshire.

For more on the festival, visit the Ryedale Festival website, and click on the artist names to read more about violist Timothy Ridout, the Orchestra of Opera North and their conductor Tom Fetherstonhaugh. Meanwhile click to read more on the Arthur Bliss Society and the Samuel Coleridge-Taylor Foundation

Published post no.2,602 – Monday 21 July 2025

In concert – Sheku Kanneh-Mason, CBSO / Kazuki Yamada: Elgar Cello Concerto & Tchaikovsky Symphony no.5

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Sheku Kanneh-Mason (cello), City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra / Kazuki Yamada

Elgar Cello Concerto in E minor Op.85 (1919)
Tchaikovsky Symphony no.5 in E minor Op.64 (1888)

Symphony Hall, Birmingham
Thursday 19 June 2025 2:15pm

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse Picture of Sheku Kanneh-Mason (c) Andrew Fox

The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra’s ‘Season of Joy’ ended (at least at its home base) this afternoon with this concert in E minor, featuring major works by two composers whose wresting triumph from out of adversity was by no means always their strongest suit.

It is all too prevalent these days to talk of Elgar’s Cello Concerto as being the ‘end of an era’ statement, so credit to Sheku Kanneh-Mason for leavening any overt fatalism with a lyrical intensity which paid dividends in the musing restiveness of the first movement – its indelible opening gesture rendered with an understated defiance that set the course for what followed. Nor was the Scherzo’s glancing irony at all undersold, its tensile energy seamlessly absorbing the mock nobility of its secondary theme on the way to a conclusion of throwaway deftness.

Others may have summoned greater fervency from the Adagio, yet Kanneh-Mason’s unforced poise in this ‘song without words’ was its own justification and an ideal entrée into the more complex finale. Especially impressive was his methodical while never calculated building of tension towards a climax of tangible emotional intensity, capped with the terse stoicism of its coda. Kazuki Yamada and the CBSO were unfailingly responsive in support. Kanneh-Mason returned with the 18th (Sarabande) of Mieczysław Weinberg’s 24 Preludes (1969) as a sombre encore.

If to imply that by being his most ‘classical’ such piece, Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony may also be his most predictable, Yamada evidently had other ideas. Certainly, there was nothing passive about the first movement’s scene-setting Andante, Oliver Janes palpably ominous in its ruminative clarinet theme. A smattering of over-emphases in phrasing just occasionally impeded the Allegro’s rhythmic flow but was outweighed by the gripping spontaneity of the whole. Even finer was the Andante cantabile, as undulating lower strings launched french horn player Elspeth Dutch’s eloquent take on its ineffable main melody. The eventual climax was curtailed by a brutal intrusion of the ‘fate’ motto, before the music subsided into its calmly regretful close. Whether or not Tchaikovsky’s greatest slow movement, Yamada’s reading made it seem so.

Interesting this conductor made an attacca to the ensuing Valse, which proved effective even if one between the first two movements would have been even more so. Whatever its laissez-faire elegance, this cannily structured movement is more than a mere interlude – not least for the way the motto steals in at its close. Yamada ensured it connected directly into the Finale’s slow introduction, its fervency reined-in so as not to pre-empt the energy of the main Allegro as it surged toward one of the most theatrical ‘grand pauses’ in music. Taking this confidently in its stride, the CBSO was equally in control of an apotheosis whose grandiloquence never risked overkill. The charge of insincerity that its composer found hard to refute might never have gone away, yet heard as an inevitable outcome, this was pretty convincing all the same.

It found the CBSO in formidable shape as it embarks on a two-week tour of Japan under its music director. A handful of UK concerts (including an annual appearance at the Proms) then precedes next season which begins with more Elgar in the guise of The Dream of Gerontius.

For details on the 2025-26 season, Orchestral music that’s right up your street!, head to the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra website. Click on the names to read more about soloist Sheku Kanneh-Mason and conductor Kazuki Yamada

Published post no.2,571 – Saturday 21 June 2025

In concert – Stephen Waarts, CBSO / Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla: Brahms Violin Concerto & Weinberg Symphony no.5

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Stephen Waarts (violin), City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra / Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla

Brahms Violin Concerto in D major Op.77 (1878)
Weinberg Symphony no.5 in F minor Op.76 (1962)

Symphony Hall, Birmingham
Wednesday 11 June 2025

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse Picture of Stephen Waarts (c) Maarten Kools

Seriously disrupted as it was by the pandemic and attendant lockdowns, the period of Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla as music director of the City of the Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (2016-22) was a successful one, especially in terms of bringing unfamiliar music to the orchestra’s repertoire.

Not least that by Mieczysław Weinberg, his Fifth Symphony tonight receiving only its second UK hearing, almost 63 years after Kiril Kondrashin and the Moscow Philharmonic had given it at the Royal Festival Hall while on tour. Weinberg was unable to attend and the performance attracted minimal comment, but the Fifth is arguably the greatest among his purely orchestral symphonies – a work whose size and scope had merely been hinted at by its predecessors. Six decades on and those qualities confirming its significance then still ensure its relevance today.

The influence of Shostakovich’s Fourth Symphony, written over a quarter century earlier but premiered just months before, has often been noted but whereas this piece is inclusive to the point of overkill, Weinberg’s Fifth has a formal rigour and expressive focus as could only be that of full maturity. Not least in the moderately-paced opening Allegro, its content deriving from the pithy motifs on lower strings and trumpet heard against oscillating chords on upper strings at the outset, and which builds to a febrile culmination before retreating into agitated uncertainty. MGT has its measure as surely as that of the ensuing Adagio, its threnodic string writing palpably sustained prior to a heartfelt climax; either side of which, woodwind comes into its own in a slow movement comparable to that of Shostakovich’s own Fifth Symphony.

Playing without a pause, the latter two movements consolidate the overall design accordingly. Thus, the scherzo-like Allegro alternates furtive anticipation and barbed anger with a dextrous virtuosity that found the CBSO at its collective best – subsiding into a finale whose Andantino marking rather belies the purposefulness with which it elaborates on earlier ideas as it builds towards a searingly emotional apex. Once again, however, the music winds down into a coda whose rhythmic pulsing underpins resigned solo gestures at the close of this eventful journey.

Whether or not Brahms’s Violin Concerto was an ideal coupling, it certainly received a most impressive reading by Stephen Waarts (above). Winner of the 2014 Yehudi Menuhin International and 2015 Queen Elizabeth competitions, this was his debut with the CBSO but there was no lack of rapport – not least an imposing first movement whose technical challenges were assuredly negotiated and with a rendering of the Joachim cadenza that integrated it seamlessly into the overall design. Waarts’ interplay with woodwind in the Adagio was never less than felicitous, then the finale pivoted deftly between panache and insouciance on its way to a decisive close. MGT was as perceptive an accompanist as always, with an encore of the opening ‘L’Aurore’ movement from Eugène Ysaÿe’s Fifth Solo Sonata an appropriate entrée into the second half.

Ultimately, though, this concert was about MGT’s continued advocacy of Weinberg as of her association with the CBSO. Good news that the Fifth Symphony has been recorded for future release by Deutsche Grammophon, so enabling this fine performance to be savoured at length.

For details on the 2025-26 season, Orchestral music that’s right up your street!, head to the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra website. Click on the names to read more about soloist Stephen Waarts and conductor Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla, or composer Mieczysław Weinberg

Published post no.2,564 – Saturday 14 June 2025