Category Archives: In concert

In concert – Emmanuel Despax @ Bechstein Hall, London

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Emmanuel Despax (piano)

Ravel Miroirs (1905)
Despax Sounds of Music – Concert Paraphrase on The Sound of Music by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein (unknown)
Fauré arr. Despax Après un rêve Op.7/1 (1877)
Debussy Clair de lune (1905)
Ravel Gaspard de la nuit (1908)

Bechstein Hall, London, 7 March 2025

by John Earls. Photo credit (c) John Earls

The most recognised piece of music by French composer Maurice Ravel is his 1928 large orchestral work Boléro, famously used in the film 10 and by Torvill and Dean when ice dancing their way to a 1984 Winter Olympics gold medal.

But there is also a magnificent repertoire of piano music including for solo piano and this provided the main feature of this recital by Emmanuel Despax, marking the 150th anniversary of Ravel’s birth.

The first set opened with Miroirs (Mirrors), a suite of five short movements Ravel dedicated to his fellow members of the French avant-garde artist group Les Apaches.

Noctuelles (Night Moths) had twinkling moments of calm surfacing through its dark undertones, contemplative birdsong is evoked in Oiseaux tristes (Sad Birds), Une barque sur l’océan (A Boat on the Ocean) captured both the flow and ripple of the waves, Alborada del gracioso (The Jester’s Aubade) had a jittery, Spanish aspect, and the bells of La vallée des cloches (The Valley of Bells) are not peals so much as melancholic, dark flashes.

The set ended with Despax’s Sounds of Music, a ‘Concert Paraphrase’ on Rodgers and Hammerstein’s The Sound of Music. I enjoyed its dark humour and nods to other classical piano composers – “If you hear something you recognise it’s not plagiarism, it’s on purpose” Despax forewarned us.

The second set opened with Despax’s arrangement of Faure’s Après un rêve (After a Dream) which was serious and majestic followed by Debussy’s Clair de lune (Moonlight) which whilst thoughtful and considered was also beautifully delicate and expressive.

But the evening was Ravel’s and it concluded with his epic three part masterpiece Gaspard de la nuit (Gaspard of the Night) derived from the prose poems by Aloysius Bertrand. Described by Despax as a “symphonic work for solo piano” it is notoriously difficult to play.

Ondine’s hypnotic trills are shaken by a short powerful blast towards the end and Despax displayed his virtuosity throughout. Le Gibet presents bells of a different kind to those featured in the earlier set, more disturbing and ominous as the repeating tolls maintained throughout evoke the lone hanged man of its inspiration. The way Despax leaned into his keyboard in rapt concentration reminded me of jazz pianist Brad Mehldau at his most intense. The final piece, Scarbo, depicts a mischievous goblin and was spritely before its dramatic long pause towards the end and a forceful energetic finish. It was as captivating to watch as it was to listen to.

What was clear from this performance is the attachment and affinity that Emmanuel Despax has for the music of Maurice Ravel. This was confirmed by an encore of Pavane pour une infante défunte (Pavane for a Dead Princess) which provided a moving and tender conclusion to the evening.

John Earls is Director of Research at Unite the Union. He posts on Bluesky and tweets / updates his ‘X’ content at @john_earls

Published post no.2,468 – Sunday 9 March 2025

In concert – Quatuor Danel: Shostakovich & Weinberg #9 with François-Frédéric Guy @ Wigmore Hall

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François-Frédéric Guy (piano), Quatuor Danel [Marc Danel & Gilles Millet (violins), Vlad Bogdanas (viola), Yovan Markovitch (cello)]

Weinberg String Quartet no.13 Op.118 (1977)
Shostakovich String Quartet no.13 in B flat minor Op.138 (1970)
Shostakovich Piano Quintet in G minor Op.57 (1940)

Wigmore Hall, London
Thursday 6 March 2025

by Richard Whitehouse Photos (c) Marco Borggreve (Quatuor Danel), Lyodoh Kaneko (François-Frédéric Guy)

Quatuor Danel’s cycle at Wigmore Hall focussing on the string quartets of Shostakovich and Weinberg continued this evening with the Thirteenth Quartets by both composers, alongside the Piano Quintet that has long been among the former’s most representative chamber works.

After his exploratory (while not a little disconcerting) Twelfth Quartet, Weinberg avoided the medium for several years before penning four such pieces in relatively swift succession. Cast in a single movement of barely 15 minutes the Thirteenth Quartet, the shortest of his cycle, is influenced as much by Shostakovich’s late quartets as Weinberg’s own precedents. Facets of sonata form underpin its reticent progress from uncertain inwardness to unwilling animation – a vein of equivocation pervading the whole so that its eventual culmination does little more than lead back towards the initial stasis. Its progress enroute is similarly reticent, though this was hardly the fault of the Danel who unfolded the overall design with unforced conviction. Nor did they underplay the plangency of the ending, with its anguished crying into the void.

Seven years earlier, Shostakovich had essayed an altogether more radical take on the single-movement format with his own Thirteenth Quartet. It is dedicated to Vadim Borisovsky, then violist of the Beethoven Quartet, and the viola is audibly ‘first among equals’ over almost its entirety. Nominally the darkest and most forbidding of this cycle, the hymnic lamentation of its outer Adagio sections is thrown into relief by the Doppio movimento central span whose jazz-inflected impetus is but its most fascinating aspect; added to which, those frequent taps onto the body of each instrument (which evoke a death-rattle or a rhythm-stick according to preference) readily accentuate a sense of time running out. Vlad Bogdanas made the most of his time in the spotlight, not least at the close as viola joins with violins to unnerving effect.

After the interval it was a relief to encounter the younger, resilient Shostakovich of his Piano Quintet. Its piano part conceived as a vehicle for himself, this marked the onset of a creative association with the Beethoven Quartet as lasted almost until the end of his life. It also finds the composer immersed in Bachian precedent – witness the powerfully rhetorical dialogue of piano and strings in its Prelude, then the severe yet never inflexible unfolding of form and texture in a Fugue whose abstraction is informed by a pathos the more acute in its restraint.

Playful and capricious by turns, the Scherzo makes for a striking centrepiece in spite (even because?) of its technical challenge. Suffice to add that François-Frédéric-Guy (above) and the Danel met this head on – after which, the Intermezzo mined a vein of soulfulness as was never less then affecting, while the Finale sounded more than unusually conclusive in the way it drew together aspects from the earlier movements towards a whimsical and even nonchalant close. At this stage, Shostakovich could still afford a measure of levity in his emotional response.

Thanks to Marc Danel’s acrobatics with a flying bow, the third movement stayed on course but it was no hardship to have this movement given even more scintillatingly as an encore. May 6th brings the penultimate recital in what has been an absorbing and revelatory series.

You can hear the music from the concert below, in recordings made by Quatuor Danel -including their most recent cycle of the Shostakovich quartets on Accentus:

For more information on the next concert in the series, visit the Wigmore Hall website. You can click on the names for more on composer Mieczysław Weinberg, Quatuor Danel and pianist François-Frédéric Guy

Published post no.2,467 – Saturday 8 March 2025

In concert – Westminster Philharmonic Orchestra / Jonathan Butcher: Bliss: A Colour Symphony

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Westminster Philharmonic Orchestra / Jonathan Butcher (below)

Elgar In the South (Alassio) Op.50 (1903-4)
Bernstein On the Waterfront – Suite (1954-5)
Bliss A Colour Symphony (1921-2, rev. 1932)

St John’s Church, Waterloo, London
Saturday 1 March 2025

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse

The Westminster Philharmonic Orchestra has given any number of well programmed concerts over the 53 years of its existence and tonight’s was no exception, featuring as it did a welcome revival of A Colour Symphony with which Arthur Bliss nonplussed first-night listeners 102 years ago.

Much has been written about the relationship between the colours as referenced in each of the movement headings with the music in question. In fact, the heraldic source from which these are derived was the means to focussing what could otherwise have remained the ‘Symphony in B’ of its working-title. The Purple of its opening movement evokes a processional whose emergence then retreat sets out the salient ideas in its wake, while that of Red is a scherzo with its two trios drawn into a sonata form whose unwavering impetus makes contrast with Blue more potent. Nor is this latter an archetypal slow movement – its expressive eddying an anticipation of that inexorable momentum with which Green traverses its double fugue, towards an apotheosis that sets the seal on the overall design with unmistakable conviction.

A Colour Symphony is not an easy work to make cohere – in which respect, this performance succeeded admirably. Jonathan Butcher ensured that Purple fulfilled its preludial function with sufficient gravitas to launch Red with an energy as amply underpinned its productive thematic elaboration; the work effectively becoming a tale of two halves, with the latter an extended and varied take on the ideas already established. The nervous energy that informs Blue was admirably conveyed, with the WPO giving of its collective best, while Butcher (rightly) did not rush the unfolding of Green – its respectively methodical then impetuous fugal subjects persuasively fused into a coda whose affirmation is far from that of a ‘‘mere paragraphist’’, as Elgar lamented, but of one able to refashion symphonic principals at will.

In the first half, Leonard Bernstein demonstrated a symphonic cohesion far greater than that of his actual symphonies in the suite from his score to Elia Kazan’s film On the Waterfront. For all its violent energy (and lessons well learned from Copland’s ballet Billy the Kid), this is music defined by its wind solos and it was to the credit of horn player Adrian Wheeler, oboist Tony Freer or alto saxophonist Bernie Hunt they were never less than plangently emotional. Whether or not Bernstein’s most ambitious orchestral work, this is by some way his finest.

Music by Elgar had opened the concert. His In the South might be as much a tone poem as a concert overture, but its effective overall design – anticipating those first movements of the symphonies to come – is its own justification. While he eschewed something of this music’s often scenic opulence, Butcher certainly had the measure of its formal ingenuity – with only the final peroration failing to deliver that necessary emotional frisson. Earlier on, Jonathan Welch’s viola playing brought pathos as well as tenderness to its exquisite ‘canto populare’.

Overall, a concert such as matched in execution what it had in ambition and which should equally be the case with the WPO’s next concert, where highly contrasted works by Barber and Tchaikovsky are to be followed by the mighty edifice of Bruckner’s Ninth Symphony.

For more information on the orchestra’s 2024-25 season, head to the Westminster Philharmonic Orchestra website Click on the names to read more about conductor Jonathan Butcher, and about Sir Arthur Bliss himself. You can also find out more about The Bliss Trust

Published post no.2,464 – Wednesday 5 March 2025

In concert – BBC Philharmonic Orchestra / Michael Seal: Discovering Bliss

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BBC Philharmonic Orchestra / Michael Seal (above)

Sir Arthur Bliss
Miracle in the Gorbals (1944) – Overture
Things to Come (1934) – March
Metamorphic Variations (1972)

Royal Concert Hall, Nottingham
Wednesday 26 February 2025

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse

2025 promises no mean retrospective of Arthur Bliss’s music in this 50th anniversary year of his death but no more significant revival than that of Metamorphic Variations, the composer’s late masterpiece that was heard live this evening for the first time in more than three decades.

Completed in December 1972 and premiered at Croydon’s Fairfield Halls the following April, Metamorphic Variations was the last while also the longest of Bliss’s purely orchestral works. Shorter than might have been, even so, as two of its sections were omitted at that first hearing (Leopold Stokowski having requested more rehearsal time for Tchaikovsky’s Pathétique after the interval) and given as an appendix in the published score; being excluded at later hearings as on the two commercial recordings. Tonight brought their reinstatement almost 52 years on.

First performed as ‘Variations for Orchestra’, this work only acquired its definitive title after considerable soul-searching on the composer’s part, though Metamorphic Variations is more accurate in terms of those ideas outlined in the initial Elements: an oboe cantilena, a phrase for horns then strings, and a cluster on woodwind – thereby setting up melodic, rhythmic and harmonic possibilities to be explored intensively over the ensuing 15 sections. The first five comprise a lively Ballet, a brusque Assertion and atmospheric Contrasts whose absence hitherto has been to the detriment of overall balance. Less crucial formally, Children’s March is of considerable fascination for its deft pivoting between innocence and experience, while Speculation marks a crucial expressive juncture through its renewed sense of anticipation.

Such anticipation is fulfilled by the starkness of Interjections then incisiveness of Scherzo I, before Contemplation yields further repose. Next come the two most elaborate sections – an increasingly energetic Polonaise being followed by Funeral Processions which builds to a wrenching, even anguished culmination. A lighter sequence moves from the dextrous Cool Interlude, via the angular Scherzo II, to the ingratiating Duet – an intermezzo prior to the final two sections. A brief yet potent Dedication makes explicit the work’s inscription to the artist George Dannatt and his wide Ann, then Affirmation draws each of the main elements into a sustained peroration thrown into relief through its ultimate subsiding into a return of the oboe cantilena from the opening and which, in its turn, brings a withdrawal into silence.

Scored with real virtuosity for sizable forces, Metamorphic Variations proves no less testing for the players as it is conceptually for the listener, though the BBC Philharmonic responded with assurance to Michael Seal who (given the unavailability of John Wilson) had not merely learnt the score in around 10 days but ensured an interpretation that was distinctively his own. Hopefully a recording from this source (how about it, Chandos?) will follow before too long: meanwhile, however, this performance is being broadcast by BBC Radio 3 in the near future.

Having provided the musical illustrations in Stephen Johnson’s introductory talk, Seal and the BBCPO had framed the first half with the fateful ‘Overture’ to Bliss’s wartime ballet Miracle in the Gorbals then the rousing ‘March’ from his inter-war score to the film Things to Come.

For more information on the orchestra’s 2024-25 season, head to the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra website Click on the names to read more about conductor Michael Seal, and about Sir Arthur Bliss himself. You can also find out more about The Bliss Trust

Published post no.2,463 – Tuesday 4 March 2025

In concert – Maria Schneider and Oslo Jazz Ensemble present ‘Data Lords’ @ The Barbican

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Maria Schneider and Oslo Jazz Ensemble

Barbican Hall, London, 2 March 2025

by John Earls. Photo credits (c) John Earls

Maria Schneider is a distinct force. A passionate advocate of musicians’ ownership rights (she releases her work on the crowd-funded ArtistShare label), a campaigner on the threats of unchecked technology and an enthusiast for the power of nature. She is also an outstanding jazz big band composer and arranger, recording a number of superb albums with her own orchestra.

Much of this came together in this performance with the Oslo Jazz Ensemble of pieces from her remarkable 2020 Grammy award winning album Data Lords (also a Pulitzer Prize for Music finalist).

The double album (below) presents a suite of 11 pieces as two distinct discs, The Digital World (reflecting the dangers and threats it entails) and the more redemptive Our Natural World and it is sequenced in that order, reflecting a potentially optimistic outcome.

Incidentally it is also worth making the point that her releases are amazing artifacts in themselves, beautifully packaged with stunning artwork and photos as well as invaluable sleeve notes by the composer (almost like mini essays). They are not available for streaming.

However, for this performance the order of the selected pieces flipped between both worlds. At first this seemed somewhat counter to the narrative of the album. Ultimately, I think it reflects the constant battle between the two worlds which is arguably a better representation of reality.

Consequently, rather than starting with an introduction to a dystopic digital world, the set opened with a beautiful Bluebird with gorgeous solos on alto saxophone and accordion. Schneider’s use of and writing for the accordion is one of her most distinguishing and moving musical features.

However, darkness beckons, as we go into Don’t Be Evil, a takedown of Google’s now abandoned motto – “I guess they couldn’t reach that high bar” mocks Schneider. The sometimes sinister brass was reminiscent of Charles Mingus.

The worrying digital world continued in Sputnik, an “imagining of the digital exoskeleton” of stellar satellites representing humanity. It was sombre, eerie and contemplative, and featured some wonderful solo baritone saxophone playing by Tina Lægreid Olsen. The gently flashing stage and auditorium lights added to the atmosphere.

A mood of a different kind came with Look Up featuring mellow solo trombone, another instrument that Schneider writes brilliantly for. In the album notes she explains that she wrote the piece to feature trombonist Marshall Gilkes (who performs it on the album) inspired after thinking about his “sound, expression, range and facility”. Magnus Murphy Joelson played the piece admirably here.

Next up is CQ CQ, Is Anybody There?, inspired by Schneider’s avid radio ham father. The title is a reference to his ‘callsign’ and the piece uses Morse code for its rhythms (except for a recurring saxophone line). The album notes include a great story about her Dad’s radio ham QSL card: “The internet when used for honest human connection, is indeed incredible”. There was that ominous brass again with Magnus Murphy Joelson on tenor saxophone desperately seeking meaningful connection only to find AI represented by Richard Köster on trumpet (with electronics).

This was followed by The Sun Waited for Me. Inspired by a poem from Ted Kooser’s collection Winter Morning Walks: One Hundred Postcards to Jim Harrison, the music and saxophone solo (Atle Nymo) reflect an optimism and opportunity that provides the conclusion to the album. However, this particular set finishes with the darker Data Lords – “At the end of this piece we no longer exist” says Schneider – the trumpet heralding, well, who knows what?

Except, of course, Schneider returns for an encore – “I don’t want to leave on annihilation”. Braided Together is another piece inspired by a Ted Kooser poem and Schneider dedicates it to a number of couples in the audience celebrating wedding anniversaries and long marriages. Its warm tone and mellow alto saxophone ensure the audience leaves on a more comforting note. But only after giving a well-deserved ovation to this exceptional composer, arranger and conductor, and an orchestra completely in tune with her unique talent.

The full line-up for the Oslo Jazz Ensemble, directed by Maria Schneider, is as follows:

Børge-Are Halvorsen (alto saxophone, flutes), Joakim Bergsrønning (alto saxophone, flutes and clarinet), Atle Nymo and Martin Myhre Olsen (tenor saxophone), Tina Lægreid Olsen (baritone saxophone, bass clarinet), Frank Brodahl, Marius Haltli, Richard Köster and Anders Eriksson (trumpet and flugelhorn), Even Skatrud, Nils Andreas Granseth and Magnus Murphy Joelson (trombone), Ingrid Utne (bass trombone), Jørn Oien (piano), Kalle Moberg (accordion), Jens Thoresen (guitar), Trygve Waldemar Fiske (bass), Håkon Mjåset Johansen (drums), Thor-Ivar Lund (sound engineer)

John Earls is Director of Research at Unite the Union. He posts on Bluesky and tweets / updates his ‘X’ content at @john_earls

To read more about Maria Schneider, click to visit her website, and click on the name to read more about the Oslo Jazz Ensemble

Published post no.2,462 – Monday 3 March 2025