Category Archives: Orchestral

In concert – Jess Gillam, CBSO / Eduardo Strausser: Villa-Lobos, John Williams, Rimsky-Korsakov & Stravinsky

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Jess Gillam (soprano & alto saxophone, above), City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra / Eduardo Strausser

Rossini La Cenerentola (1817) – Overture
Villa-Lobos Fantasia for Saxophone, W490 (1948)
Rimsky-Korsakov arr. Glazunov/Steinberg Le Coq d’or – Suite (1908, arr. 1909)
Williams Escapades (2002)
Stravinsky L’Oiseau de feu – Suite (1910, arr. 1919)

Symphony Hall, Birmingham
Wednesday 31 January 2024

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse. Photo (c) Robin Clewley

Brazilian conductor Eduardo Strausser made his welcome return to the City of Birmingham Symphony with a programme where three orchestral showpieces were heard alongside two pieces that gave full rein to the charismatic playing and persona of saxophonist Jess Gillam.

Although he featured the saxophone on numerous occasions, Heitor Villa-Lobos wrote just one concertante piece. His Fantasia makes a virtue out of brevity in the lively declamation of its opening movement then the motoric impetus of its finale. No slouch in either, Gillam sounded most involved (understandably so) in the central Lent – its initial melody for viola, soulfully rendered by Adam Römer, soon giving rise to an eloquent dialogue which (hardly for the first time) inferred, that in this most productive of composers, less can often be more.

More compelling overall was Escapades, a concerto drawn from his soundtrack to the Steven Spielberg film Catch Me if You Can by John Williams. A movie as promises rather more than it delivers, this features one of the most appealing of its composer’s latter-day scores with its evoking US culture in the early 1960s that the present work encapsulates to perfection. From the ominous while humorous expectancy as conjured by Closing In, via the lightly applied pathos of Reflections to the coursing energy of Joy Ride – this is Williams at something near his best and Gillam responded accordingly. A pity the contributions of double bass and vibraphone was not as prominent aurally as it was visually (maybe they should have been given more to do?), but this hardly affected the scintillating immediacy of what was heard.

Having opened proceedings with an account of the overture to Rossini’s Cinderella as deft and as scintillating as could be wished, Strausser ended the first half with a (surprisingly?) rare outing for the whole suite from Rimsky-Korsakov’s final opera The Golden Cockerel. For all the controversy aroused by its scenario, this is otherwise an archetypal example of its composer relying on technique rather than inspiration. Most of the best music can be found   in a suite made posthumously by Glazunov and Maximilian Steinberg that provides a telling portrait of Tsar Dodon – whether mired in the superstitious inertia of his palace, hapless (and helpless) on the battlefield, serenaded by the alluring Queen of Shemakha, or exuberant at his intended wedding before meeting his ‘lamentable end’ to the crowing of that pesky cockerel.

The CBSO despatched what is effectively a ‘concerto for orchestra’ before its time with real aplomb, then sounded no less committed in the second of those suites Stravinsky drew from his highly Rimskian ballet The Firebird. Here the sombre aura of its Introduction segued effortlessly into Appearance… and Dance of the Firebird, the latter exuding an infectious lilt, before a plaintive take on the Princesses’ Khorovod. Others have found greater abandon in the Infernal Dance, but the clarity and articulation conveyed here were beyond reproach. Strausser then steered a secure course through the Lullaby, its folk-derived bassoon melody plaintively intoned by Nikolaj Henriques, into a Finale whose hymnic jubilation set the seal on an evening where the absence of any Austro-German element proved its own justification.

Click on the link to read more on the current CBSO concert season, and on the names for more on saxophonist Jess Gillam, conductor Eduard Strausser and composer John Williams

Published post no.2,075 – Friday 2 February 2024

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