Category Archives: In concert

In concert – Elena Urioste, Ben Goldscheider, CBSO / Kazuki Yamada: Glinka, Ethel Smyth & Rachmaninoff

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Glinka Ruslan and Lyudmila (1842) – Overture
Smyth Concerto for Violin and Horn (1926-7)
Rachmaninoff Symphony No. 2 in E minor, Op. 27 (1906-7)

Elena Urioste (violin), Ben Goldscheider (horn), City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra / Kazuki Yamada

Symphony Hall, Birmingham
Sunday 24 July 2022

Written by Richard Whitehouse

It might have been a ‘warm up’ for tomorrow night’s Proms appearance, but this afternoon’s concert by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra with its Chief Conductor designate Kazuki Yamada gave ample indication of what to expect of this partnership during 2022/23.

On one level, this was an appealingly old-fashioned programme in consisting of an overture, concerto and symphony. The former was that to Glinka’s opera Ruslan and Lyudmila, always an effervescent curtain-raiser which here unfolded at a lively but never headlong tempo that brought out the formal precision of this piece with its deft sonata design. Neither did Yamada under-characterize the amiable second theme, while the strangely ominous atmosphere of the development was made more so through a telling contribution by timpanist Matthew Hardy.

Ethel Smyth is a notable presence at this year’s Proms, the CBSO tackling her Concerto for Violin and Horn. Among her last major works (encroaching deafness saw her write little over the next 18 years), its nominally Classical trajectory belies a formal freedom as extends to an orchestration evoking her French contemporaries as much as her German forebears. Not least the initial Allegro with its trenchant and stealthily imitative writing for the soloists against an orchestral texture at once intricate and luminous. Yamada marshalled his forces accordingly, before giving Elena Urioste and Ben Goldscheider the stage for the ensuing Elegy whose ‘In memoriam’ marking encouraged a response of real eloquence. Robust yet never unyielding, the final Allegro took in a combative cadenza before striding forth to its decisive peroration.

Rachmaninoff’s Second Symphony has moved to the very centre of the repertoire in the four decades since Simon Rattle made it a signature piece with this orchestra. Yamada holds it in equally high esteem – witness the finesse with which he built the first movement introduction to its impassioned apex, before subsiding into an Allegro which drew anxiety and grace into a purposeful accord heightened by the development’s surging inevitability then a coda of terse finality. Unfolding at an animated while not unduly hectic tempo, the scherzo was marginally over-indulged in its lilting second theme, but this did not pre-empt an incisive response in the central fugato – the CBSO strings at their collective best – nor a transition back into the main theme of irresistible verve. The coda exuded a fugitive inwardness that was no less arresting.

Ubiquitous these days as a radio staple, the Adagio needs astute handling if its rapture is not to become cloying and Yamada responded accordingly – not least in his attentive pacing of the main theme with a contribution from clarinettist Oliver Janes of melting poignancy, then a climax whose emotional intensity never became hectoring. The slightly too flaccid tempo for its easeful central span meant that the finale lacked the ultimate in cohesion, but Yamada balanced this elsewhere with an energy which carried through into a scintillating apotheosis.

So, an eminently worthwhile concert beyond merely enabling those who are unable to attend that Royal Albert Hall performance to hear Yamada with the CBSO in a programme such as played to both their strengths. Much to look forward to, then, over the course of next season.

For more information on the CBSO Prom, click on the link on their website. Meanwhile click on the artist names for more on Elena Urioste, Ben Goldscheider and Kazuki Yamada – and for a website dedicated to Dame Ethel Smyth

In concert – CBSO Youth Orchestra Academy: A Fist Full of Fives

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cbso-youth

Sutton A Fist Full of Fives (2016)
Mozart Violin Concerto no.5 in A major K219 ‘Turkish’ (1775)
Skalkottas Five Greek Dances (1931-6, arr. 1936)
Beethoven Symphony no.5 in C minor Op.67 (1804-8)

Irène Duval (violin), CBSO Youth Orchestra / Michael Seal

Royal Birmingham Conservatoire
Saturday 23 July 2022

Written by Richard Whitehouse

It may be the end of the main season, but that is no reason why the CBSO Youth Orchestra should not have had a concert scheduled for mid-July, with this judiciously contrasted and well-balanced programme assuredly playing to the collective strengths of its present line-up.

Although three of the works had a numerical connection with ‘five’, only the opening piece featured that number in its title. Written for an event featuring Beethoven’s Fifth and scored for similar forces, A Fist Full of Fives finds Adrian Sutton essaying a concert-opener whose interplay of vigorous (even a little martial) and more lyrical ideas evokes a mid-20th century American music evoking Piston or early Carter. Fluent and appealing if far from memorable, it duly put the orchestra through its paces to a degree which the CBSOYO met with alacrity.

Rather more memorable was the Five Greek Dances by Skalkottas which opened the second half. Admittedly the programme note led one to expect a selection from the overall 36 in the versions for full orchestra, rather than the present selection – from a set of seven – for strings. Yet the distinctive character of each dance is hardly diminished in these arrangements by the composer (a proficient violinist), and Michael Seal secured notably characterful playing in a sequence that proceeded from the swaggering Epirotikos, through the stealthy interplay of Kretikos and the bracingly astringent Tsamikos, to the gentle pathos of Arkadikos then the dashing Kleftikos. Fifty years after the CBSO’s world premiere of his First Symphonic Suite, it was good to hear these likely successors tackling Skalkottas with evident enjoyment.

In between those two pieces, Irène Duval gave Mozart’s Fifth Violin Concerto – not exactly underplayed these days, but worth hearing when rendered with such commitment. Not least an opening Allegro whose aperto marking (rightly) encouraged a deftness of phrasing that carried through to the closing bars. The Adagio was ingratiating without any hint of cloying, then the outer sections of the Rondeau an insouciance for which the lively Turkish music at its centre provided a bracing foil. The cadenzas (Duval’s own?) proved unfailingly apposite.

Closing the concert, Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony made a suitably unequivocal impression – not least an opening movement whose rhythmic trenchancy and purposeful rhetoric carried through to a forceful if never hectoring coda. Neither was there any hint of false grandeur in the Andante, its ruminative theme yielding subtlety and not a little humour as it wended its methodical yet never predictable course. Ensemble was a little ragged near the outset of the scherzo, but the transition into the finale had a simmering expectancy that made the latter’s blazing onset more visceral. This music’s familiarity tends to detract from its innovation of form and orchestration, but Seal pointed up such aspects in a reading that never risked losing focus as it headed to a coda whose reiterations of the home key made for a triumphal QED.

A worthwhile programme, then, with performances to match and exactly the sort of concert needed to inject needed impetus into the indolence of summer. The CBSOYO makes its first appearance next season with a programme of Verdi, Bruch and Lutosławski on October 30th.

For more information on the CBSO Youth Orchestra and their next concert, visit the dedicated page on their website. Click on the names for more information on Irène Duval and Michael Seal

BBC Proms #7 – Soloists, La Nuova Musica / David Bates: Purcell Dido and Aeneas

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Purcell Dido and Aeneas (c1689)

Dido – Alice Coote (mezzo-soprano)
Aeneas – James Newby (baritone)
Belinda – Gemma Summerfield (soprano)
Sorceress – Madeleine Shaw (mezzo-soprano)
Second Woman – Nardus Williams (soprano)
Sailor – Nicky Spence (tenor)
Spirit – Tim Mead (countertenor)
First Witch – Helen Charleston (mezzo-soprano)
Second Witch – Martha McLorinan (mezzo-soprano)

La Nuova Musica / David Bates (harpsichord)

Royal Albert Hall, London
Tuesday 19 July 2022 (late night)

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse Photo (c) Chris Christodoulou

After the existential confrontations of Vaughan Williams and Tippett earlier this evening, the more restrained yet no less acute expression of Dido and Aeneas came as a necessary tonic – with Purcell’s only through-composed work for the stage leaving a memorable impression.

The nature of its conception might remain as conjectural as the circumstances of its premiere, but there can be no doubt that this opera’s blazed a trail over the centuries that followed. Not the least of its attributes is a formal economy and a tensile dramatic trajectory whose ‘less is more’ aspect could scarcely be more evident. Neither is there any lack of expressive diversity in a score where elements of levity, even slapstick are aligned with a dramatic acuity which draws the three short but judiciously balanced acts into a cohesive and inevitable continuity.

Tonight’s concert performance manifestly played to these strengths. For the title-roles, Alice Coote brought gravitas and nobility of spirit to that of Dido, with James Newby an impulsive while knowingly fickle Aeneas. It was, however, Gemma Summerfield who stole the show as Belinda in rendering this most dramatically fluid of the opera’s parts with an emotional force, latterly foreboding, that was never less than captivating. Madeleine Shaw was larger than life if never overly parodic as the Sorceress, with Tim Mead a plangent Spirit whose intervention (from the organ console) seals the fate of the main protagonists. Credit, too, to Nicky Spence for an uproarious yet winning cameo as the Sailor in a scene whose Village People campery seemed entirely apposite in context and hence made this opera’s outcome the more affecting.

Directing La Nova Musica from the harpsichord, David Bates never lost sight of the dramatic continuity while ensuring an exemplary balance between chorus and ensemble. The former responded with a judicious combination of eloquence and discipline, whereas the emphasis on a continuo section of theorbos, harps and even guitar opened out but never obliterated the bracing string sonorities. Tempos were almost invariably well chosen, and though the final chorus was undeniably drawn out, this reinforced its postludial function to the work overall.

The past 58 seasons have since Dido and Aeneas given complete on four previous occasions, each time reflecting on how the opera was perceived at the time. Tonight’s performance was such a statement, and one as reaffirmed its greatness some 333 years after the first staging.

For more information on the 2022 BBC Proms season, you can visit the festival website. For more on the artists, click on the names for La Nuova Musica and David Bates.

BBC Proms #6 – BBC Philharmonic Orchestra / Sir Andrew Davis: Vaughan Williams & Tippett Fourth Symphonies

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Prom 6 – BBC Philharmonic Orchestra / Sir Andrew Davis

Vaughan Williams Symphony no.4 in F minor (1931-4)
Tippett Symphony no.4 (1976-7)

Royal Albert Hall, London
Tuesday 19 July 2022

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse Photo (c) Chris Christodoulou

Whether or not the Fourth Symphonies by Vaughan Williams and Tippett had previously been scheduled together, they made for a striking and provocative programme such as was its own justification. Omer Meir Wellber clearly thought so when this concert was planned and, even though indisposition had led to withdrawing from this year’s Proms, the presence of Sir Andrew Davis on the podium could hardly have been more conducive to the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra giving performances of the interpretive insight and technical conviction as were evident this evening.

Admittedly the Albert Hall’s opulent acoustic is never the best setting for VW4, the visceral impact of whose opening was inevitably diluted. Allowing for rather more expressive leeway than he might otherwise have done, Davis paced this explosive movement securely with just a slightly listless take on its coda detracting from the whole. The Andante was the highlight here – its fatalistic course exuding gravitas but never dragging, with the tritonal plangency of its main climaxes palpably in evidence and pathos of its final bars enhanced by an affecting contribution from flautist Alex Jakeman. This acoustic may have obscured something of the Scherzo’s contrapuntal ingenuity but not its sardonic humour or, in the trio, didactic coyness. The stealthy transition into the Finale could have had even greater cumulative focus, but what followed had all the requisite impetus – its central interlude raptly delineated, then the drama of its ‘epilogo fugato’ conveying increasing velocity through to the starkly inevitable return of the opening gesture and what is the most unequivocal four-letter ending of any symphony.

Interesting to recall the temporal distance between these pieces is now less than that between the Tippett and the present. Enthusiastically received at its Chicago premiere and one among a handful of his works still revived following his death, Tippett’s Fourth Symphony evinces  a ‘birth to death’ trajectory that differs – crucially so – from its assumed model of Sibelius’s Seventh in not being a cumulative design; its climax being rather the kinetic developmental paragraph at its centre and from where the piece fans out, in a sequence of evolving episodes, back to the launching of its introduction and onward to the passing of its coda. Although he may have directed performances of greater tautness, Davis here secured a persuasive balance between unity and diversity – bringing a metaphysical poise to its ‘slow movement’ then a deft whimsicality to its ‘scherzo’, whose respective qualities underlined the confrontational drama elsewhere. Lavish writing for brass and percussion helps makes this Tippett’s most virtuosic such statement, in which the BBC Philharmonic was rarely to be found wanting.

A less successful component of this reading was the latest attempt to represent the ‘breathing effect’ specified by the score, in which the real-time voice of CJ Neale seemed hardly more successful than those attempts of wind machine, sampler et al to realize Tippett’s speculative imagery. No matter – any such overreaching was part and parcel of this composer’s inherent ambition; an ambition, moreover, which his present-day successors would do well to emulate. Almost a century and half-century on, both these works pose challenges constantly to be met.

In concert – CBSO / Edward Gardner: Simply Schubert – Symphonies 1 & 4

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Schubert

Fierrabras D796 – Overture (1823); Symphony no.1 in D major D82 (1813); Symphony no.4 in C minor D417 ‘Tragic’ (1816)

City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra / Edward Gardner

Town Hall, Birmingham
Thursday 14 July 2022

Written by Richard Whitehouse

One of many projects left in abeyance by the pandemic, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra’s Schubert cycle with its former principal guest conductor Edward Gardner duly continued this evening with a programme of that composer’s First and Fourth Symphonies.

Schubert may have been barely 16 when he essayed his First Symphony, but its confident if quirky assimilation of traits as derived from Haydn and Beethoven is more than a statement of intent – not least with an opening Allegro whose imposing introduction returns after the development to broaden the movement’s emotional scope. Gardner realized this unerringly, while drawing an incisive response from the CBSO in the first theme and winsome elegance in its successor as subsequently headed into a coda of bracing if not overly insistent finality.

For all its Mozartian gracefulness, the Andante yields an emotional ambivalence most notable in the plangent exchanges of woodwind and string towards its centre. These were enticingly conveyed, as was that contrast between rhythmic trenchancy in the Menuetto’s outer sections with its trio’s more affable demeanour. Precision of ensemble meant the final Allegro never risked seeming repetitious, Gardner steering it with assurance and not a little flexibility to a coda that emerged as never less than entertaining in its forceful reiterations of the home key.

Three years on, the Fourth Symphony confirms a greater formal and expressive breadth – not least in the first movement’s introductory Adagio whose underlying portentousness makes its contrast with an impulsive and often anxious Allegro more acute. Gardner and the CBSO had its measure, as they did the ensuing Andante in which Schubert’s woodwind writing is heard at its most felicitous. Any contrived distinction between the hymnic main theme and its more volatile alternate episodes was hardly in evidence as this movement drew to its easeful close.

For all its brevity, the Menuetto (a scherzo in all but name) can be rhythmically treacherous in its syncopation, but there was no lack of focus here or in the trio’s folk-like lyricism. Nor did the moto perpetuo underpinning the final Allegro run out of steam – Gardner sustaining   a cumulative momentum across the exposition’s repeat then into an intensive development which brought an opening-out of mood through to those decisive closing chords. Its ‘tragic’ connotations may be tangential, but the teenager’s seriousness of purpose cannot be denied.

Opening the programme was a relatively rare revival of the overture to Fierrabras, the last of Schubert’s ill-fated attempts at grand opera – even though time and subsequent stagings have largely vindicated his efforts. Gardner drew palpable expectation from its introduction, and if what ensues seemed a little stolid rhythmically, the dramatic flair of the composer’s orchestral writing was not in doubt. A pity the even less often heard Overture in E minor (1819) did not open the second half, as its abstract drama would have prefaced the Fourth Symphony ideally.

In any case, this was a welcome addendum to the CBSO’s current season and not least for an opportunity to hear the orchestra playing at its former venue of Town Hall. Hopefully another such concert, featuring Schubert’s Great Symphony, can be scheduled sometime next year.

For more information on the CBSO and their 2022-23 season, visit the dedicated page on their website. Meanwhile click here for more on conductor Edward Gardner.