Category Archives: In concert

In concert – City of London Sinfonia @ Southwark Cathedral: Origin: This is CLS

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Monteverdi arr. Wick Toccata from ‘L’Orfeo’ (1607)
Vaughan Williams Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis (1910)
Tabakova Frozen River Flows (2005)
Finnis The Centre is Everywhere (2019)
Vasks Music for the fleeting birds (1977)
Tabakova Origin (2022) (world premiere)
Carter A Fantasy about Purcell’s ‘Fantasia on one note’ (1975)
Tavener The Hidden Face (1996)

Hugh Cutting (countertenor), Dan Bates (oboe), City of London Sinfonia / Alexandra Wood (violin)

Southwark Cathedral, London
Thursday 3 March 2022

Written by Ben Hogwood

When the young Richard Hickox assembled a performing group in 1971, his vision was an extended family of talented musicians coming together to project the enjoyment of their art onto their audience.

Just over 50 years on, Hickox may sadly no longer be with us but his vision, realised by the City of London Sinfonia, burns with an ever brighter flame. This celebration in Southwark Cathedral may have been a year late, due to the consequences of the pandemic, but it brought everything together in a programme blending the old with the new.

Great credit should go to the orchestra’s creative director and leader, Alexandra Wood, for choosing music that looked simultaneously forwards and backwards, while utilising the vast spaces offered by the cathedral in inspiring and imaginative ways.

The audience were free to roam around during the concert, which was a considerable plus, for acoustic hotspots could be found and exploited, while it was also possible to stand to one side in contemplation. The mood was relaxed but focused, with audience members chosing a mixture of both options. The only danger of this was unexpectedly finding yourself in front of a group of instrumentalists when they were about to play, meaning the focus would suddenly shift in your direction! This was a risk well worth taking, for the rewards were many.

Before the concert, the Dean of Southwark Cathedral, Andrew Nunn, spoke warmly of the power of music to soothe the fevered mind, giving the pertinent Biblical example of David’s harp curing Saul’s war-torn temper, illustrated vividly by a stained-glass window depiction at the back of the church. The parallels with Russia and Ukraine were unmistakeable, and before the programme started everyone stood for the Ukraine national anthem.

The programme itself began under that very window, with Stephen Wick’s excellent arrangement of the Toccata from Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo, the brass filling the cathedral from back to front with sonorous colours.

The baton then passed to the strings for an unforgettable account of Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis. This work was written for performance in Gloucester Cathedral in 1910, utilising the space in imaginative ways – and the City of London Sinfonia responded in kind, with the work’s solo group in the round in the nave, and the main body of the strings in the centre of the church. This was a deeply emotive performance, finding the intersection between the old of Tallis and Vaughan Williams’ own sweeping melodies and added-note harmonies. In doing so a composition that is often overplayed gained fresh insight, and, for your reviewer standing at the back of the church, a magical experience.

British-Bulgarian composer Dobrinka Tabakova has a close association with the Sinfonia. Frozen River Flows, an earlier work from 2005, appeared here in an arrangement for clarinet and percussion which was played in the south transept. This brightly coloured piece found Katherine Spencer’s clarinet evoking graceful lines not dissimilar to Poulenc, complemented by the richness of the vibraphone and crotales (antique cymbals), expertly managed by Chris Blundell.

We also heard Tabakova’s music in the world premiere of Origin, written for this concert. It was a brief but meaningful celebration placing violin soloist Alexandra Wood in the nave, with the accompanying musicians under the tower. Wood’s role was that of virtuoso, but she managed it carefully so that slower contributions from the strings and vibraphone were ideally balanced. Tabakova has a talent for the immediate creation of an atmosphere, and this may have been a relatively minimal piece but it left a lasting impression.

Complementing this was another work in the round of the nave, as 12 string players assembled for Edmund Finnis’s The Centre is Everywhere. This was a wholly appropriate choice, the soloists creating unusual and original sounds. On occasion the music swelled like the bellows of an accordion, then subsided to a barely audible whisper, then appeared to be reaching beyond the cathedral for the skies above. Finnis has an unusual and remarkable habit of writing music that becomes an out of body experience, and The Centre is Everywhere shows there is still so much more to achieve when writing for stringed instruments.

The programme turned to wind instruments for a timely reference to the troubles in Ukraine. Latvian composer Pēteris Vasks wrote Fleeting Birds in 1977 as an expression of his need for freedom. Restricted from travelling by the Soviet authorities, he made his feelings known through music. The City of London Sinfonia winds walked the length of the cathedral as they played, turning from joyous expressions of freedom and release to statements soured by compression, reflecting the composer’s earthbound plight.

Freedom lay in Elliott Carter’s Purcell Fantasy, richly expressed by the brass around a persistent middle C, before cutting without a break to John Tavener’s Hidden Face for a final contemplation. The stillness of this work is deceptive, achieved through great virtuosity from solo oboe and a countertenor, singing text written by Mother Maria. Oboist Dan Bates and singer Hugh Cutting were superb throughout, the latter floating his words effortlessly above the prayerful strings, whose sonorous tones were the ideal match for Bates’s keening oboe, which also scaled unfathomable heights with impressive ease.

It was a fitting way to finish a deeply felt concert and celebration, that of a performing group who continue to do their founder proud. Like their musical choices, the City of London Sinfonia look to the future, embracing new advances as well as nurturing past achievements while they do so. They deserve to continue as a treasured feature of the capital’s music making.

To read more about the City of London Sinfonia, visit their website – and for more on composers Dobrinka Tabakova and Edmund Finnis, click on their names

In concert – Patricia Kopatchinskaja, CBSO / Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla: Tchaikovsky & Stravinsky

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Tchaikovsky Romeo and Juliet (1869, rev. 1880)
Stravinsky Violin Concerto in D (1931)
Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 4 in F minor Op. 36 (1877-8)

Patricia Kopatchinskaja (violin), City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra / Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla

Symphony Hall, Birmingham
Wednesday 2 March 2022

Written by Richard Whitehouse

Coming toward the end of her tenure as music director of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla presided over this orthodox programme of Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky given additional resonance by the geopolitical context against which it was heard.

At its centre was the Violin Concerto which Stravinsky wrote for his then duo partner Samuel Dushkin, whose four succinct movements nominally correspond to what is frequently thought a typical work from his neo-classical years, but with Patricia Kopatchinskaja involved this was anything but a straightforward rendering. From the start, a theatrical burlesque undercut any notions of Classical or even Baroque poise – those acerbic contrasts of its opening Toccata complemented by the speculative ambivalence of its First Aria or plangent eloquence of its Second Aria; the final Capriccio no less provocative in its constantly changing harmonic and rhythmic emphases. Regretting the absence of a cadenza, Kopatchinskaja instead gave Ligeti’s early Ballad and Dance – the latter in partnership with leader Eugene Tzikindelean.

Ambivalence in Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet is more to do with what sort of piece it is – the composer taking over a decade to get the formal balance of this ‘fantasy overture’ right. While there was no lack of evocative immediacy, MG-T was more concerned with bringing out its symphonic logic; not least in a sombre introduction and notably circumspect take on the ‘love theme’. For all the ensuing cumulative impetus, it was the woodwind chorale near the end – Tchaikovsky’s empathy with his subjects made explicit – as proved most affecting.

It was with Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony that MG-T concluded her first concert in charge of the CBSO at the 2016 Proms, which memory recalls as similar in approach to that heard this afternoon. The complex formal trajectory of the first movement (tempo markings given inadvertently in the programme as being those for the whole piece) was adroitly negotiated – audibly intensifying when the pervasive ‘fate’ motto emerges at the start of the development and reprise, then a coda whose ultimate implacability never descended into mere histrionics.

Its oboe melody limpidly rendered by Steve Hudson, the Andantino unfolded audibly as ‘in modo di canzona’ – the emotional surge of its central section (rightly) held in check and the closing pages suffused with pathos. Neither was the Scherzo treated as an excuse for empty virtuosity – strings articulating its ‘pizzicato ostinato’ outer sections with delectable humour, and woodwind relishing the ‘harmonien’ writing of its Allegro trio. Following on apace, the Allegro con fuoco found viable balance between untrammelled exuberance and a methodical progress such as makes the climactic return of the ‘motto’ structurally as well as emotionally inevitable. If MG-T (purposely?) underplayed this crucial episode, then there was no lack of resolve in her handling of a peroration which brought a defiant rather than triumphal close. Ukrainian flags on and above the platform were ample evidence of just where the thoughts of musicians and audience alike were directed. As postscript to this concert, MGT’s choice of a soulful Melody in A minor by the late Myroslav Skoryk could hardly have been more apposite.

This concert is repeated on Thursday 3 March at 7.30pm. For details and tickets click here

Meanwhile for more information on the artists, click on the names to access the websites of Patricia Kopatchinskaja and Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla – and for more information on Myroslav Skoryk, click here

In concert – Dr Samantha Ege, CBSO Youth Orchestra / Joshua Weilerstein: Korngold, Tchaikovsky & Price

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Korngold Schauspiel-Ouvertüre, Op. 4 (1911)
Price Piano Concerto in D minor (1932-4)
Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 5 in E minor, Op. 64 (1888)

Dr Samantha Ege (piano, above), CBSO Youth Orchestra / Joshua Weilerstein (below)

Symphony Hall, Birmingham
Sunday 27 February 2022

Written by Richard Whitehouse. Picture of Joshua Weilerstein (c) Sim Canetty-Clark

The year’s first concert by the CBSO Youth Orchestra programmed a staple of the symphonic repertoire with two works by composers whose success in their lifetimes subsequently faded almost to oblivion, only to meet with renewed acceptance in a very different cultural climate.

It might have been the first such piece he himself orchestrated, but Overture to a Drama finds the 14-year-old Erich Korngold in command of late-Romantic forces with a tonal opulence to match. Best here are the ominously modal introduction which returns transformed in a defiant peroration, and while the main sonata design rather goes through the motions – not least a ‘by numbers’ development – it engaged due to Joshua Weilerstein’s astute direction, not least his bringing out the wistful charm of its second theme (eloquently played by oboist Elly Barlow).

Florence Price’s Piano Concerto was met with a distinctly equivocal response when given at last year’s Proms, and it made a comparable impression today. The introduction – soloist in ruminative dialogue with trumpet and woodwind – promises much, but the actual Andantino proceeds rather dutifully to a half-hearted climax. This heads into a central Adagio where the piano arabesques elegantly dovetail with instrumental solos (notably cellist Eryna Kisumba) in a manner redolent of Edward MacDowell’s once-ubiquitous D minor Concerto. The final Allegretto unfolds to the rhythm of the Juba (precursor of Ragtime), but the overall effect is tepid compared to its use in Price’s symphonies, even if Samantha Ege (replacing an injured Jeneba Kanneh-Mason) might have made more of its vivacity on the way to a forceful close.

A prominent academic as well as pianist, Dr Ege recently met with considerable acclaim for her album of Price’s piano music Fantasie Nègre (Lorelt), and it would be well worth hearing her in a concerto of greater substance such as those by Adolphus Hailstork or George Walker.

Weilerstein (above) works extensively with youth orchestras, and there was doubting his rapport with these players in Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony. Pensive if never turgid, the first movement’s introduction passed seamlessly into an Allegro whose rhythmic tensility held its expressive fervour in check. The coda’s march-past then found meaningful contrast with the sepulchral start of the Andante, its indelible horn theme (lucidly rendered by Alex Hocknull) part of an inevitable unfolding capped by a stormy return of the ‘fate’ motto and coda of gentle pathos.

Segueing unexpectedly but effectively into the Valse, Weilerstein duly made the most of this music’s elegance and insouciance. Nor did he lose focus in the Finale’s opening restatement of the motto-theme, whose appearance can all too easily pre-empt what follows. There was no lack of impetus as the music built purposefully towards an apotheosis whose affirmation was shorn of bombast, nor any risk of hectoring with the triumphal surge to the close. This is never an easy piece to bring off, and the present performance was rarely less then convincing.

For more information on this concert, click here – and for information on the artists click on the names Samantha Ege and Joshua Weilerstein. Websites dedicated to Korngold and Florence Price can be accessed by clicking on the composer names.

In concert – Black Mirrors / BCMG NEXT @ Royal Birmingham Conservatoire

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Pattar La Nuit Remue (2002) (a), Acte (1999) (b), Miroir Noir III (2009) (c), Miroir Noir II (2009) (d)

BCMG:NEXT (a, b, c) (Rebecca Speller (flute, a), Emily Wilson (a), Heather Ryall (b) (clarinets), Raddon Stephenson (trombone, b), Maja Pluta (a), Olivia Jago (c) (violins), Cameron Howe (viola) (a, c); Rosie Spinks (cello) (a, c); Michaella Livadiotis (piano (a, b), (celesta) (c), Joe Howson (toy piano) (c) / Melvin Tay (a, c)

L’Instant Donné (d) (Mathieu Steffanus (clarinet), Saori Furukawa (violin), Elsa Balas (viola), Nicolas Carpentier (cello)

Recital Hall, Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, Birmingham
Friday 25 Febuary 2022

Written by Richard Whitehouse

The second half of Birmingham Contemporary Music Group’s current season got off to an intriguing start with this collaboration between BCMG:NEXT and the Paris-based L’Instant Donné. All four of the pieces were by Frédéric Pattar (b1969), the Dijon-born composer who studied in Lyon with Gilbert Amy and who has worked extensively with this latter ensemble – building an extensive output over the past three decades which is audibly in the lineage of French post-war modernism, not least through its emphasis on timbral and colouristic facets.

Such qualities were uppermost in La Nuit Remue, a homage to surrealist poet Henri Michaux whose traversal from Boulezian fastidiousness to Lachenmann-like ‘concrète instrumentale’ was accomplished elegantly if anonymously. Melvin Tay drew a committed response from NEXT, who made a similarly fine impression with Acte. Inspired by a late poem of typically studied fatalism from Arthur Rimbaud, the interplay of its three wind instruments made for stark tonal contrasts such as were variously abetted and mediated by dextrous piano writing.

The remaining works were the latter two instalments from the trilogy Miroirs Noirs, each of which offered a striking take on its chamber format. In Miroir Noir III, the stealthy dialogue between string trio was pointedly offset by interjections from celesta and toy piano in a stern test of coordination the NEXT players met head-on. Members of L’Instant Donné then took the stage for Miroir Noir II, a more extended piece which teased out the possibilities of the ‘clarinet quartet’ with a keen sense of momentum sustained through to its deadpan ending.

A fine performance, then, from a group whose appearance this evening (as at the lunchtime recital in Symphony Hall) was made possible through Diaphonique, a funding body whose support is the more necessary in these post-Brexit times. Hopefully more of Pattar’s music will make its way to the UK (his Second String Quartet is well worth hearing on YouTube), but this collaboration was a worthy means of introducing it to Birmingham listeners in skilful and sympathetic performances.

Further information on BCMG events can be found at their website. To read an interview with Frédéric Pattar click here, while his biography can be found here). For more on L’Instant Donné click here, and for Diaphonique here

In concert – Soloists, CBSO Chorus, CBSO / Joshua Weilerstein: Robert Nathaniel Dett – The Ordering of Moses

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Ives (orch. Schuman) Variations on ‘America’ (1891/1962)
Bernstein (orch. Ramin & Kostal) Symphonic Dances from ‘West Side Story’ (1957/61)
Dett The Ordering of Moses (1937) [UK premiere]

Nadine Benjamin (soprano), Chrystal E Williams (mezzo-soprano), Rodrick Dixon (tenor), Eric Greene (baritone), CBSO Chorus, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra / Joshua Weilerstein

Symphony Hall, Birmingham
Wednesday 23 February 2022

Written by Richard Whitehouse

This evening’s concert by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra was an all-American programme, centred as it was upon the first performance in this country for what is likely the most ambitious work by the African/American composer Robert Nathaniel Dett (1882-1943).

Although he gained prominence as a choral conductor (his Hampton Choir having performed for President Hoover and Britain’s Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald), Canadian-born Dett failed to make a lasting breakthrough as composer – his death when barely 61 confining him to a footnote in American cultural history. The ‘sacred cantata’ The Ordering of Moses was a statement of intent when submitted for his MMus in June 1932. Adapted from Exodus and Lamentations, its text describes the Hebrews escaping slavery in Egypt by the parting of the Red Sea over the course of 55 eventful minutes. The brooding prelude is rich in atmospheric writing for lower woodwind and brass, while the climactic sequence draws wordless chorus and orchestra into a graphic depiction of the ‘crossing’; after which, thanks is rendered unto God in suitably festive terms – Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast an audible precedent. Much has been made of the use of spirituals but, apart from the rallying presence of ‘Go down, Moses’, they serve more a textural and harmonic role in heightening the music’s expressive potency.

A potency owing in no small part to its vocal and choral forces. Eric Greene was predictably sonorous in his eloquence when setting the scene as ‘The Word’, while Chrystal E Williams made the most of her small if crucial part as ‘The Voice of Israel’. Most memorable, though, were those contributions of Rodrick Dixon as the impulsive and ardent Moses, then Nadine Benjamin whose Miriam exuded poignancy and fervour in equal measure. The CBSO Chorus represented ‘The Children of Israel’ in suitably implacable and ultimately affirmative terms.

The whole performance was ably handled by Joshua Weilerstein, who ensured certain more discursive episodes in the cantata’s earlier stages never hung fire and drew a lusty response from the CBSO. Astute programming, moreover, in preceding a still little-known work with staples from the American repertoire. It might not encapsulate the whole of the musical, but Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances from ‘West Side Story’ captures its essence via orchestration (with judicious assistance from Sid Ramin and Irwin Kostal) as made a suitable impact here.

Surprising that William Schuman’s bracing orchestration of the teenage Charles Ives’s bravura organ piece Variations on ‘America’ does not enjoy more regular performance this side of the pond, or perhaps the quirky and increasingly uproarious incarnations of what Weilerstein pointedly referred to as the National Anthem of Lichtenstein still rankles with home-grown listeners? Whatever the case, the conductor made a persuasive case for this engaging and effervescent music to be heard more frequently – the CBSO players remaining straight-faced throughout.

It certainly provided an irreverent curtain-raiser to an engrossing programme as may yet have blazed a trail. More little-known American music on Sunday when Weilerstein directs only a second UK outing for Florence Price’s Piano Concerto, alongside Korngold and Tchaikovsky.

For more information on the next CBSO Youth Orchestra concert, click here. For more on the composer Robert Nathaniel Dett, head to a website devoted to his work. Meanwhile click on the links for information on the artsts – Joshua Weilerstein, Nadine Benjamin, Chrystal E Williams, Roderick Dixon and Eric Greene