Category Archives: In concert

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 – Janine Jansen and friends play Brahms @ Wigmore Hall

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Janine Jansen (violin), Timothy Ridout (viola), Daniel Blendulf (cello), Denis Kozhukhin (piano)

Brahms
Violin Sonata no.2 in A major Op.100 (1886)
Viola Sonata no.2 in E flat major Op.120/2 (1894)
Piano Quartet no.3 in C minor Op.60 (1855-75)

Wigmore Hall, London
Thursday 21 December 2023

Reviewed by Ben Hogwood. Photos of Janine Jansen & Timothy Ridout (c) Marco Borggreve

After the unfortunate cancellation of a concert in her series the previous week, violinist Janine Jansen and friends returned to health and to a Christmassy Wigmore Hall for another all-Brahms programme.

Jansen (above) and pianist Denis Kozhukhin (below) began with the Violin Sonata no.2, a late substitution for the first sonata but a breath of fresh air on a winter evening. One of Brahms’s best-loved chamber piece, its charming first theme has enough to weaken the hardest heart. So it was here, with Jansen’s affectionate playing. Her creamy tone was complemented by the incisive piano playing of Kozhukhin, who was deceptively relaxed in his body language but very much in tune with Brahms’s intricate rhythms and phrasing. The two excelled in the central section of the second movement, which tripped along with admirable definition of those rhythms, and in the finale, where the two enjoyed a more assertive musical dialogue.

Brahms’s last completed chamber work followed, Kozhukhin joined by violist Timothy Ridout (below) for a performance of the Viola Sonata no.2, arranged by Brahms from the clarinet original. This account exhibited elegance, poise and no little power. Ridout’s burnished tone was ideal for the music, capturing the shadowy outlines of music from a composer in his twilight years, but putting down suitably firm markers in the second movement. Ridout’s high register playing was a treat throughout, his tuning exemplary, and as the two players navigated the theme and five variations of the finale there was an ideal give and take between the part-writing. Particularly memorable was the plaintive stillness of the fourth variation, its mystery dispelled by the affirmative ending.

After the interval we heard the Piano Quartet no.3, competed in 1875 when Brahms was working on the completion of his first symphony. The two works have a good deal in common, beyond sharing the same tonality, for Brahms brings an orchestral dimension to his writing for the four instruments. This grouping needed no invitation to take up the mantle, powering through the first movement with relish, their dramatic account notable for strength of tone and unity of ensemble playing. Jansen and Ridout in particular stood out, their unisons absolutely as one, yet the real hero of the performance was Kozhukhin, elevating the heroic elements of a score closely associated with Goethe’s Werther while keeping the nervousness emanating from Brahms’s syncopated rhythms.

Lest he be forgotten, cellist Daniel Blendulf (above) delivered an understated solo of considerable beauty to begin the Andante, providing respite from the high voltage drama elsewhere but getting to the heart of Brahms’s soulful writing for the instrument. The quartet regrouped for the finale, another show of breathtaking power but with room for reverence in the chorale themes and their development. For all the bravura the air of uneasiness remained as an undercurrent, Brahms never quite at rest even when the quartet reached its emphatic conclusion. This was a truly memorable performance, capping an outstanding evening of music making for which all involved should be immensely proud.

Published post no.2,047 – Friday 22 December 2023

In Concert – Gavin Bryars at 80 @ Barbican Hall & St. Martin-in-the-Fields

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Gavin Bryars Ensemble; David Wordsworth (conductor); Sarah Gabriel (soprano); David James (countertenor); Mahan Esfahani (harpsichord); The Addison Chamber Choir

Barbican Hall, London, 19 December 2023

Gavin Bryars Ensemble; The Choir with No Name; Streetwise Opera

St Martin-in-the-Fields, London, 9 November 2023

by John Earls. Photo credit (c) John Earls

To see Gavin Bryars’ classic Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet performed twice in the space of six weeks is quite special. But this is the composer and double bassist’s 80th birthday year, and both concerts were celebrations of that milestone.

Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet is something of a signature composition for Bryars. Many will be familiar with the story of how he was working on a film documentary about people living rough in London in 1971 and was left with an unused tape of a homeless man singing this religious song. He put the 26-second clip on a loop and composed a slowly evolving and haunting orchestral accompaniment that respected the man’s – to use Bryars’ own words – ‘nobility and faith’.

So it was particularly touching to be at a performance on 9th November at London’s St Martin-in-the-Fields church where the Gavin Bryars Ensemble were accompanied by the Choir With No Name, the choir charity for homeless and marginalised people. Starting with the tape of the unnamed man, the ensemble slowly built its accompaniment around it and the choir joined in the refrain to powerful and moving effect.

I should confess that my 1975 Obscure Records version of Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet has been a long-cherished part of my record collection. It is coupled with The Sinking of the Titanic, a work inspired by the story that the band on the ‘unsinkable’ liner continued to play as it sank in 1912, and was given an absorbing performance in the first half of this concert along with The Open Road, where the ensemble was joined by Streetwise Opera who work with people who have experienced homelessness.

Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet was also at the centre of another concert by a larger GB Ensemble (extra cello and violas plus piano and percussion) at London’s Barbican Hall on 19th December, where they were joined by the Addison Chamber Choir. Here, the choir were somewhat more refined and restrained in harmonic accompaniment but no less affecting. It was a truly beautiful performance which received a deserved standing ovation.

The Barbican concert also featured Duets from Doctor Ox’s Experiment, five revised duets from Bryars’ 1998 opera sung by soprano Sarah Gabriel and countertenor David James. Whilst musically engaging (particularly the fifth duet) it suffered from the all too familiar issue of not being able to hear Blake Morrison’s libretto clearly enough (the words were printed in the digital programme). There was also a lovely Ramble on Cortona and a dramatic After Handel’s Vesper, a solo harpsichord piece played by Mahan Esfahani. Special mention should be made of James Woodrow on electric guitar whose playing throughout was atmospheric and never obtrusive. Both the concerts concluded joyously with Epilogue from Wonderlawn.

In introducing Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet at the St Martin-in-the-Fields concert Bryars spoke sincerely about how much the piece still means to him after all these years. These two performances amply demonstrated not only how that unknown man’s voice can still touch one’s heart, but why the piece of music that came from it remains so relevant and powerful today.

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

For more information click on the names for more on the St Martin-in-the-Fields Charity, Choir With No Name and Streetwise Opera

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

In concert – Lankum @ The Roundhouse

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Lankum

The Roundhouse, Camden, London
Wednesday 13 December 2023

Reviewed by John Earls. Picture (c) John Earls

I first saw Dublin-based folk band Lankum (Radie Peat, Cormac MacDiarmada and brothers Ian and Daragh Lynch) in a small Brighton club in November 2019. I described them at the time as bleak and beautiful and encouraged people to go and see them live.

Four years on, this year has seen their fourth album False Lankum shortlisted for a Mercury Prize and their batch of December 2023 UK concerts conclude at a sold-out Roundhouse in London’s Camden.

There is something about Lankum that is both traditional and utterly contemporary. The scratches, scrapes, clicks and bangs that accompany the drones and airs also give an industrial feel to much of their music which seemed particularly fitting given the history of this fabulous venue (one of my favourites) with its 24 cast-iron Doric columns supporting the roof.   

The set begins with their unique take on The Wild Rover, more plaintive than others’ interpretations not least on account of Radie Peat’s vocals which were also magnificent in the chilling Go Dig My Grave. The latter also features a huge drum augmenting their usual instrumentation (fiddle, acoustic guitars, harmonium, concertina, uilleann pipes, tin whistle).

There’s a lovely rendition of Cyril Tawney’s On a Monday Morning introduced as a song about hangovers and how each generation thinks theirs are the worst. It features some beautiful delicate guitar playing by Daragh Lynch as well as great delivery of the somewhat droll lyrics including the line “too soon to be at this bus queue caper”.

Other highlights include a moving The Young People (introduced in solidarity with the people of Palestine), a fierce and powerful The New York Trader and humorous The Rocky Road to Dublin.

There are a couple of tunes from 2014’s debut album Cold Old Fire. The first is Lullaby dedicated to Sinéad O’Connor who we are told gave the band a “follow that!” moment at a 60th birthday concert for Shane MacGowan (of whom more later).

The second was a beautiful rendition of the title track (composed by Cian Lawless and the Lynch brothers) acknowledging the value of true friends in difficult times. It featured at the start of a three-song encore, the second of which was a cover of The Pogues’ The Old Main Drag and played in tribute to its writer Shane MacGowan. For the London-Irish amongst us it was a particularly poignant moment.

The show ended with a cracking Bear Creek, bringing an element of joy at the close of proceedings.

I have seen quite a few concerts at The Roundhouse and many have been lively affairs, but I don’t think I have seen an audience captivated in such a way as that for Lankum.

John Earls is Director of Research at Unite the Union and tweets at @john_earls

You can listen to the new Lankum album False Lankum on Spotify below: