Category Archives: Orchestral

In concert – Marcus Roberts Trio, Philadelphia Orchestra / Yannick Nézet-Séguin @ Carnegie Hall: Stravinsky, Weill & Gershwin ‘Rhapsody In Blue’

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Breathtaking music-making for an attentive audience including a sparkling Petrushka.

Marcus Roberts Trio [Marcus Roberts, Martin Jaffe, and Jason Marsalis] Philadelphia Orchestra / Yannick Nézet-Séguin

Stravinsky Petrushka (1910-11 rev.1947)
Weill Symphony No. 2 (1933-34)
Gershwin Rhapsody in Blue (1924)

Carnegie Hall, United States
Tuesday 23 January 2024

Reviewed by Jon Jacob. Photo (c) Jon Jacob

For those of us from the UK more accustomed to perfunctory applause, the enthusiastic response from the audience welcomed conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin to the stage ahead of Stravinsky‘s ballet Petrushka came as a bit of a surprise. The sound of the applause crinkled in the acoustics in a way I don’t remember hearing at the Cleveland concert. The capacity crowd was already psyched. Uplifting stuff before a single note was heard.

The Philadelphia Orchestra’s sound is incredible, generated by a powerful, carefully controlled machine that delivers both weight and delicacy. The band feels incredibly responsive, meaning the smallest of gestures can bring about a range of different colours and textures that illicit all manner of emotional responses. This receptiveness demands players at the top of their game. They are the elite.

There’s also a perceptible self-assurance in the sounds they produce. That promotes a sense of confidence in the listener, in turn elevating listening experience. Put simply if the first sounds you hear aren’t like anything you’ve heard before you’re going to listen more attentively, in the same way you’ll drive an expensive BMW differently simply because of the feel of the steering wheel and the smoothness of the ride. 

In Petrushka the principal flute had a bright sweet sound, flanked by a delicate and precise piccolo. There were beautifully burbling and babbling clarinets. Trumpets sparkled with rapid articulation that was clear but avoided fussy-ness. A virtuosic piano line highlights that the material was originally conceived as a concert piece for piano – the demands Stravinsky makes on the pianist remain high and it’s a dazzling contribution from pianist Kiyoko Takeuti.

Elsewhere, the big string section brings phenomenal weight given the heft (no great surprises perhaps – 17 first violins, 14 seconds, 12 violas, 10 cellos and 8 basses).  When the basses underpinned a sequence, it felt as though we were digging down into the foundations, great jabs slicing into the ground with a sharp-edged spade.

The Weill Second Symphony opened the second half. A smaller number of players on stage but still the same detail, responsiveness and jaw-dropping spirit that elevates this band above so many others. At three movements it is a concise work, packed full of evocative tunes, inventive treatments, and tantalising textures. It undoubtedly entertains but does it move? I’m not entirely convinced, although age has mellowed me, so my conclusions are not as severe as those reported by Weill to a friend after the 1934 premiere who said the work had been dismissed as ‘banal, ‘disjointed’, and ‘empty’.

There were plenty of entertaining thrills and spills conjuring up nail-biting peril and jeopardy in the first movement. The Mahlerian second movement funeral march had some respite from the powerful grandeur on display in the sweet flute and trombone solos. It was a much prompter reading compared to some of the recordings I’ve listened to after the concert. Weill’s trademark melodies are evident in the final raucous movement.

Running to half an hour, Weill’s second symphony isn’t a long work, but given the stage move necessary to bring the piano and drum kit on for the final Rhapsody in Blue, the evening was feeling long. But the payoff was undoubtedly worth it. Hearing the music of New York, written in New York, here in New York was special. So too hearing the Marcus Roberts Trio with Philadelphia Orchestra.

Pianist Marcus Roberts treats the work’s piano sequences with far more improvisational zeal than the more familiar ‘straight’ recordings (you can get a sense of the material from this performance filmed in Geneva’s Victoria Hall

The familiar signpost orchestral sequences remain, but the energy is upped tenfold by the seeming flights of creative fancy the trio embarked upon. Excited applause rippled around the auditorium accordingly. The effect of this ‘directors cut’ was for competition to emerge between orchestra and trio. When the improvisations concluded and the orchestra kicked in, the well-known orchestral score sounded dull in comparison to the spectacle we had been treated to before. Was the kind of ‘Experiment in Modern Music’ Gershwin had in mind when the work was first premiered at the Aoliean Hall down the road a hundred years before?

The energy in the auditorium unexpectedly seemed to come with me as I made a ‘dash’ up the steep balcony steps for the exit. After I’d run for a subway train (conveniently located outside the concert hall), I sat down and immediately yawned. Heads turned.

“It was a long evening, wasn’t it?” said the man sat next to me. “It was. But I loved every single minute of it.” “The Weill was fantastic. I do think they packed in more than they needed to. And I’m sure the ensemble was off in the Petrushka.” He looked across the aisle to a couple who were listening to our exchange. “I thought so too,” said the woman. Then a man stood in the aisle, “No. It was the Weill that was the problem. I can’t stand Weill.” 

I gently protested, jokingly telling them they were all wrong and they should take a long hard look at themselves and listen back to the broadcast when they got home. A surprisingly in-depth conversation ensued amongst the five of us. I missed my stop as a result.

“You know, you’d never have this kind of post-kind of conversation on the Tube in London”, I explained. “Oh we know,” replied the woman, “That’s what we do here.” It’s a lovely thing too.

Get a taste of the Philadelphia Orchestra sound in this recording of Stravinsky’s Petrushka from the early 1980s. For a taste of Yannick with the Philadelphia taking things at a rip-roaring pace, be sure to listen to the last movement of the Philadelphia’s 2023 recording of Rachamaninov’s Second Symphony.

Jon Jacob is a writer, digital content producer and strategist, authors the Thoroughly Good Classical Music Blog, and produces the Thoroughly Good Podcast.

Published post no.2,066 – Wednesday 24 January 2024

In concert – Cleveland Orchestra / Franz Welser-Möst @ Carnegie Hall: Prokofiev & Webern symphonies

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Prokofiev’s trademark technicolour orchestration contrasted with Webern’s sparse score for his Symphony Op.21 performed by the Cleveland Orchestra with Franz Welser-Möst.

Cleveland Orchestra / Franz Welser-Möst

Prokofiev Symphony No. 2 in D Minor Op. 40 (1924-1925)
Webern Symphony, Op. 21 (1927-1928)
Prokofiev Symphony No. 5 in B-flat Major, Op. 100 (1944)

Carnegie Hall, United States
Sunday 21 January 2024

Reviewed by Jon Jacob. Photo (c) Jon Jacob

Most concerts start with some kind of concert opener. An overture, for example, gives the band on stage the opportunity to get accustomed to the acoustic with an audience in it, while giving the audience a chance to settle down before the main event. That the Cleveland Orchestra got underway so deftly with the epic industrial landscape of Prokofiev’s Second Symphony immediately hinted at the kind of concert this would turn out to be. 

Conducted by their music director, Austrian conductor Franz Welser-Most, the Cleveland Orchestra presented three works as part of Carnegie Hall’s ongoing series examining the fall of the Weimar Republic: two symphonies by Russian composer Prokofiev, contrasted with Webern’s Symphony for chamber ensemble. 

Prokofiev’s Second Symphony, written in 1924 and premiered in Paris in 1925, is an epic work brimming with fiendish detail and tantalising textures. The first movement’s brutal industrial landscape is depicted with a gargantuan, lumbering brass section, piercing brass top lines, and occasionally shrill woodwind. The combination did at times cause the person sat next to me at Carnegie Hall to put her fingers in her ears. This was contrasted by a tender oboe solo at the beginning of the short second movement theme, followed by a series of short variations which saw a remarkable range of colours and textures from the strings and woodwind. This was a polished, confident and assertive performance throughout, right from the start.  

In contrast, the material in the Prokofiev’s Fifth Symphony, written in 1944 when the composer had returned to the Soviet Union, is lighter and the treatment of it far more playful, energetic and in places vigorous. In the performance, the orchestra sometimes sounded underpowered meaning things felt overly romantic. The second movement Allegro had spirit and bounce, moving through multiple personalities and moods, cheerful, cheeky and, from to time, just a hint of macabre too, though, like the final movement, it did feel like it lacked a bit of grit. After Franz Welser-Most paused for a police siren to disappear out of earshot down 7th Avenue, the third movement opened with tantalizingly papery strings over which the solo was passed effortlessly between different combinations of woodwind instruments whilst still making everything feel whole. Later we heard rich, warm, heart-tugging string sounds (the leaps in the upper strings got me every single time).

Webern’s ‘miniature’ ten-minute, two-movement Symphony, written three years after Prokofiev’s Second Symphony, could have sounded like an academic curiosity in comparison to the Russian composer’s technicolour orchestration. Yet in this concert, Webern’s Op. 21 acted as a palette cleanser, pivoting us from the epic Second to the more box-office appealing Fifth of Prokofiev’s symphonies.

Special praise to Cleveland’s principal clarinet Afendi Yusuf, whose rounded burgundy tone was simply to die for. A gorgeous sound throughout. Excitable applause also for some fruity queues from bass clarinetist Amy Zoloto and contrabasoonist Jonathan Sherwin.

Further listening

Some recommended recordings to listen to are based simply on the final movement allegro which in the case of Herbert von Karajan’s Berlin Philharmonic recording is a tour-de-force. On the other hand, in Valery Gergiev and the London Symphony’s performance, there’s a crazed sense of menace. In concert, Franz Welser-Most seemed to pull out a more playful character in the final movement and this is also reflected in the Cleveland’s 2023 recording under his direction. I’m always going to prefer the unhinged characterisation, but that probably says more about my character than it does about the performance.

Meanwhile the Cleveland Orchestra recorded Webern’s Symphony as part of an album devoted to the composer’s orchestral music, under their former music director Christoph von Dohnányi in 1998.

Jon Jacob is a writer, digital content producer and strategist, authors the Thoroughly Good Classical Music Blog, and produces the Thoroughly Good Podcast.

Published post no.2,064 – Monday 22 January 2024

In concert – Eugene Tzikindelean, CBSO / Kazuki Yamada: Dai Fujikura, Walton & Berlioz

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Eugene Tzikindelean (violin), City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra / Kazuki Yamada

Fujikura Wavering World (2022) [CBSO co-commission: UK premiere]
Walton Violin Concerto in B minor (1938-9, rev. 1943)
Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique, Op. 14 (1830)

Symphony Hall, Birmingham
Wednesday 17th January 2024

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse. Photos (c) Beki Smith

Tonight’s concert by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra brought a varied trilogy of works, one which started with a first UK hearing (following its premiere in Seattle almost two years ago) of Wavering World by the Japanese-born and British-based composer Dai Fujikura.

In his programme note, Fujikura remarks on how little he knew of his traditional culture until having left Japan, and this piece draws upon the myth surrounding creation for an eventful if always cohesive journey through the emergence of the heavenly world, the human world and the underworld. This is achieved by separating the orchestra into stratified layers that do not succeed each other as merge into diverse and intricate textures where these sizable forces are imaginatively deployed; the music gradually moving away from its earlier austerity toward a luxuriance whose salient motifs are recognizable despite their transformation. Directing with unerring focus, Kazuki Yamada secured a vivid rendition which also served as a reminder that Fujikura is less often heard than might be in his country of residence these past three decades.

The fortunes of Walton’s Violin Concerto have lessened this past quarter-century, so Eugene Tzikindelean’s advocacy was its own justification. He had the measure of the initial Andante’s alternation between languor and agitation, ingenuity of thematic transformation offsetting any lack of originality in its themes, then gave of his best during a central Presto whose technical fireworks are tellingly balanced by yearning lyricism. If the final Vivace was less convincing, this might have reflected on the actual music – Walton putting his ideas through their audibly Prokofievian paces before evoking Elgar in a lengthy accompanied cadenza then gratuitously affirmative coda. The CBSO gave stalwart support, just over 50 years since it accompanied Yehudi Menuhin and the composer in a performance commemorating Walton’s 70th birthday.

After the interval, Yamada (above) presided over a ‘no holds barred’ reading of Berlioz’s Fantastic Symphony. The latter-day tendency is to stress its symphonic cogency, but there was little of this in a Daydreams and Passions veering impulsively, even recklessly, between despondency and elation. The waltz element of A Ball was nudged out of shape, but its darker undertones were well judged, with the lengthy build-up then lingering subsidence of Scene in the Fields enhanced by Rachael Pankhurst’s plangent cor anglais and ominous timpani toward the close.

This was hardly the first performance to head off seemingly at a tangent, but March to the Scaffold (shorn of its first-half repeat, as had been the opening movement) quickly became   a parade-ground romp in which the fateful fall of the guillotine went for relatively little. Nor was Dream of a Witches’ Sabbath without its Disney-like element of overkill, though here Yamada ensured a stealthy accumulation through its reiterations of the Dies irae plainchant and fugal episode to a peroration whose thunderous power seemed nothing if not conclusive.

An Episode in the life of an Artist, indeed, as demonstrably left its mark on the enthusiastic audience. Yamada and the CBSO will be doing it all again on April 10th, but next week sees the more Classical appeal of Mozart and Beethoven in the company of Maxim Emelyanychev.

Click on the link to read more on the current CBSO concert season, and on the names for more on violinist Eugene Tzikindelean, conductor Kazuki Yamada and composer Dai Fujikara

Published post no.2,063 – Sunday 21 January 2024

In concert – Paul Lewis, CBSO / Tabita Berglund: Sibelius, Grieg & Tchaikovsky

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Paul Lewis (piano), City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra / Tabita Berglund

Sibelius Pohjola’s Daughter Op.49 (1906)
Grieg Piano Concerto in A minor Op.16 (1868)
Tchaikovsky Symphony no.5 in E minor Op.64 (1888)

Symphony Hall, Birmingham
Thursday 11th January 2024 [2.15pm]

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse

Entering 2024 with this attractive programme, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra was conducted by Tabita Berglund – the Norwegian who, though unrelated to the late, great Paavo, seems certain to become one of the most significant conductors from her generation.

It was with Sibelius that the programme commenced, Pohjola’s Daughter lying on the cusp between its composer’s nationalistically inclined Romanticism and the relative Classicism that ensued. Pointedly so given the composer derived his inspiration from the Kalevala, in which its totemic figure Väinämöinen is outwitted by the ‘daughter of the North’, as the basis for a symphonic fantasia which critiques as surely as it remodels its underlying sonata design. Other interpreters have ensured a more seamless cohesion, but the acute characterization that Berglund brought to each episode, then the emotional frisson when those main motifs come together for a powerful apotheosis, compelled admiration – as did the closing pages in which Sibelius cannily fragments form and texture so all that remains is an all-enveloping silence.

Its ubiquity across 150 years should not distract attention from the innovative qualities found in Grieg’s Piano Concerto, and if his was not a consciously recreative approach, Paul Lewis gave a performance as appealing as it was insightful. Not least in an opening Allegro whose melodic directness was always balanced by a tangible sense of where this music was headed, and culminating in a take on the lengthy cadenza that infused its rhetoric with an inevitability worthy of Beethoven. There was expressive light and shade aplenty in the central Adagio, as too an unforced progress to the heartfelt restatement of its main theme. The outer sections of the final Allegro had no lack of impetus, as if to emphasize contrast with its rapt flute melody that closes the work in a thrilling peroration where soloist and conductor were rightly as one.

After the interval, Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony emerged as a forceful and combative piece with its occasional longueurs convincingly held in check. Not least in an opening movement, the simmering expectancy of whose introduction intensified throughout what followed. Any short-windedness of phrasing was absent in the Andante cantabile, its indelible horn melody serenely intoned by Elspeth Dutch then its interplay between slow-burning eloquence and violent interjections of the ‘fate’ theme astutely judged on route to a warmly resigned coda.

Ostensibly an interlude, the Valse has a charm and, in its central trio, insouciance as belies its formal ingenuity that Berglund conveyed in full measure. Nor was there any sense of overkill as the Finale pursued a purposeful but never headlong course – its initial restatement of the main theme exuding an expressive focus matched by that of its climactic reappearance, here without risk of bathos in what brought the performance to a decisive and affirmative close. Certainly, the composer’s doubts as to any ‘insincerity’ proved unfounded on this occasion. It also confirmed a rapport between Berglund and the CBSO which will hopefully continue. Next week, however, brings the return of Kazuki Yamada for a wide-ranging programme of Berlioz, Walton and the world premiere of a newly commissioned work from Dai Fujikura.

Click on the link to read more on the current CBSO concert season, and on the artist names for more on Tabita Berglund and Paul Lewis

Published post no.2,054 – Friday 12 January 2024

In concert – Eduardo Vassallo, Chris Yates, CBSO / Kazuki Yamada: Richard Strauss – Don Quixote; Beethoven ‘Eroica’ Symphony

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Eduardo Vassallo (cello), Chris Yates (viola), City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra / Kazuki Yamada

Richard Strauss Don Quixote Op.35 (1897)
Beethoven Symphony no.3 in E flat major Op.55 ‘Eroica’ (1803-4)

Kazuki Yamada and Tom Morris (concept), Rod Maclachlan (video design), Zeynep Kepekli, lighting design), Gustave Doré (illustrations)

Symphony Hall, Birmingham
Wednesday 13 December 2023

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse. Photos (c) Hannah Fathers

Tonight’s concert from the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra was not only the orchestra’s final concert before its Christmas season, but also the first to feature a new concept of presentation with a view to reimagining just what the concertgoing experience might be like in the future.

Not that this concept was uniformly applied to the pair of works in question. In the first half, Richard Strauss’s Don Quixote was accompanied by rehearsal and live footage relayed via screens as placed to the left, above and to the right of the platform. They gave passing insight into cellist Eduardo Vassallo’s preparing to take the stage, then kept a close watch on his interaction with violist Chris Yates – their musical repartee informing much of what follows. Less convincing was the selection from Gustave Doré who, while he died over a decade before Strauss’s work, still anticipated its concerns in his illustrations for an 1863 edition of Cervantes. These were rather generally applied over the work’s course with few references to Dulcinea who, while she does not appear in the novel, is yet a pervasive influence on the latter stages of the score.

The performance was a notable one in terms of Kazuki Yamada’s surveying this piece as a cumulatively unfolding whole – its 10 variations, each keenly characterized, framed by an increasingly ominous introduction and warmly resigned epilogue. Vassallo had the measure of what, for all its virtuosity, is essentially a concertante rather than solo part and, for which reason, tends to come off best when taken by a section-leader. Not all those frequently dense textures emerged with ideal clarity and motivic unity, which ensures formal and expressive focus as the work proceeds, could have been clearer in its climactic stages, but an essential humanity was always to the fore as Yamada perceived it. Those hearing it for the first time could hardly have failed to be impressed with Strauss’s ambition or moved by his response.

Less so, perhaps, by Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony after the interval. Here the visual element centred largely on the musicians as the account took place – except during the first movement, when a photographic roll-call of the CBSO’s ‘heroes’ (musical and otherwise) was laminated onto the music – thus robbing it of the means to transcend time and place as surely as had the composer those of revolution or Bonaparte. Elsewhere, the standing-up of individual players and sections to highlight salient aspects of the piece was rather inconsistently applied – why, for instance, did the horns not do so with their unison statement of the ‘Prometheus’ theme in the finale (Thomas Beecham did this decades ago) – while the emerging photos of orchestral members mid-way through that movement risked seeming an awkwardly sentimental gesture.

All of this might have mattered less had the reading carried consistent conviction. As it was, the opening Allegro stuck doggedly to a tempo that felt more than a little stolid – its climactic moments undermined by pauses that impeded the musical flow, though the coda yielded the right emotional frisson. The highlight was a Funeral March whose fatalism was leavened by acute pathos at its climax, with a coda whose disintegration audibly left its mark. If the outer sections of the Scherzo seemed just a little deadpan, its trio was rousingly despatched by the three horns, and the initial stages of the finale had a welcome spontaneity as the ‘Prometheus’ theme is put through its paces. A pity Yamada slowed right down for its restatement midway through, resulting in a serious loss of momentum that not even an incisive coda could regain.

Tonight’s concert was a concerted and not unsuccessful attempt to confront the issue of how to attract a younger and more inclusive audience to classical music. Where it foundered was on a misguided premise that bombarding those present with images somehow makes them listen more intently. For this to come about, they need to be encouraged to focus collective attention aurally rather than just visually – a challenge such as Symphony Hall, with its all-round excellence and its many acoustical resources, would seem ideally equipped to fulfil.

This is evidently an experimental phase for the CBSO, as various possibilities are tried out, but an emphasis on sonic enhancement, allied to the subtle if pervasive presence of lighting, is arguably one way forward and could ultimately blaze a trail for the concert of the future.

You can read all about the 2023/24 season and book tickets at the CBSO website. Click on the names for more information on conductor Kazuki Yamada, cellist Eduardo Vassallo, violist Chris Yates – and also on the names for more on Tom Morris, Rod Maclachlan, Zeynep Kepekli and Gustave Doré

Published post no.2,044 – Tuesday 19 December 2023