Category Archives: In concert

In concert – Mischa & Lily Maisky play Beethoven, Britten & Piazzolla @ Wigmore Hall

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Beethoven 7 Variations on ‘Bei Männern, welche Liebe fühlen’ from Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte WoO 46 (1796)
Britten Cello Sonata in C major Op.65 (1961)
Piazzolla Le grand tango (1982)

Mischa Maisky (cello), Lily Maisky (piano)

Wigmore Hall, London
Monday 1 November 2021

Written by Ben Hogwood

Father and daughter duo Mischa and Lily Maisky presented an imaginative program of works for cello and piano in this BBC Radio 3 Lunchtime Concert, where it was gratifying to note a full attendance at the Wigmore Hall.

They immediately found the light-hearted spirit of Beethoven’s 7 Variations on Bei Männern, welche Liebe fühlen, an aria from Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte. The piano takes the lead for much of this work, and Lily’s phrasing was subtle yet nicely shaped. The burnished tone of Mischa’s cello was a feature in the minor-key fourth variation, while Lily’s sensitive ornamentation at the start of the sixth was especially attractive.

A compelling performance of Britten’s Cello Sonata followed. As a former pupil of Mstislav Rostropovich, Mischa Maisky effectively has a direct line to a work that started the beginning of an extremely fruitful musical friendship between Britten and Rostropovich that lasted up to the composer’s death 15 years later. This performance inhabited the spirit of the work from first note to last, with the feeling in the first movement Dialogo that we were eavesdropping on a private conversation. Britten’s frequent but subtle references to Shostakovich were nicely highlighted here, with a few witty asides.

In the second movement Scherzo the Maiskys were dancing a balletic routine, Mischa’s pizzicato questions finished off by Lily’s featherweight answers. The tempo was slightly slower than is often used here, but in this way the pair effectively pointed out the work’s proximity in Britten’s output to the opera A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The sombre third movement Elegie had a silvery tone from the cello, while the following Marcia dealt in sardonic humour. The finale was a tour de force, featuring low notes from Mischa’s cello capable of rattling the windows, before powering through to an emphatic finish.

Piazzolla’s Le Grand Tango celebrates the dance form with which the Argentinian composer became obsessed, though as he stated the preoccupation was in his mind rather than the dancing feet. This was a passionate performance, the Maiskys in hold throughout as they maintained their close musical chemistry, right from the full bodied notes with which the cello began to a red-blooded dance for the closing pages. In between we had music of great tenderness and affection, not to mention rhythmic persuasion.

The duo gave us two encores, the first of which was a heartfelt tribute to the recent passing of Nelson Freire, clearly a dear friend. Bloch’s Prayer, from the short suite From Jewish Life, was an ideal choice, reverently played and with a searing tone quality to the highest register. It was a moving tribute that could hardly be bettered. There was also an ideal response in the form of Mischa’s own transcription of Brahms’s Lerchengesang Op.70/2, where Lily’s piano took the expressive lead.

You can hear the music played by Mischa and Lily on the Spotify playlist below, compiling Mischa’s recordings for Deutsche Grammophon of all the repertoire:

For more information on Mischa Maisky you can visit his artist page

In concert – CBSO Youth Orchestra plays Shostakovich with Michael Seal

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Howard Argentum (2017)
Britten Diversions Op.21 (1940, rev. 1954)
Shostakovich Symphony no.10 in E minor Op.93 (1953)

Nicholas McCarthy (piano, below), CBSO Youth Orchestra / Michael Seal (above)

Symphony Hall, Birmingham
Sunday 31 October 2021 (3pm)

Written by Richard Whitehouse

It seems quite a while since the CBSO Youth Orchestra was last in action – this afternoon’s concert playing to its strengths with a programme as featured respectively early and mature works from Britten and Shostakovich, while beginning with a recent piece by Dani Howard.

Now in her late twenties, Howard is one among several British composers who have come to prominence in the past five years. Written to commemorate the silver-wedding anniversary of two close friends, the appropriately named Argentum is in a lineage of curtain-raisers by such as John Adams or Michael Torke – drawing audibly yet productively on such post-minimalist traits in music whose unbridled animation subsides towards a mid-point stasis, before rapidly regaining its previous energy over the course of a build-up to the pointedly affirmative close.

The CBSOYO evidently enjoyed making its acquaintance, then seemed no less attuned to the eclecticism pursued by Britten in his Diversions. Written for Paul Wittgenstein, who had lost his right-arm in the First World War, it takes the form of 12 variations on a theme announced by the orchestra whose faux-portentousness determines what follows. Prokofiev is the main influence (Britten could not have known his left-hand Fourth Concerto, written for but never played by Wittgenstein and unheard until the 1950s) on music of an inventiveness and verve admirably conveyed here by Nicholas McCarthy; his characterizing of each variation astutely gauged through to a scintillating ‘Toccata’ cadenza, with Michael Seal similarly judicious in the mock-solemnity of the ‘Adagio’ then a final ‘Tarantella’ of suitably uproarious humour.

Over his years as Associate Conductor of the CBSO, Seal has gained a formidable reputation in symphonic repertoire, with his account of Shostakovich’s Tenth Symphony never less than satisfying in its long-term cohesion. Not least the opening Moderato, unfolding at an almost unbroken pulse with the stark main theme powerfully wrought and its successor lacking only a degree of irony. The central development exuded palpable impetus and while the climactic arrival of the reprise could have been even more shattering, the wind-down into the musing coda was ideally judged. Taken at a swift if never headlong tempo, the Scherzo was suitably graphic in its evoking of violence (whether, or not, a ‘portrait’ of Stalin is beside the point), then the ensuing Allegretto was poised unerringly between slow movement and intermezzo.

This most intriguing portion of the work again lacked little in insight – with due credit to first horn Alex Hocknull for coming through, almost unscathed, in one of the lengthiest and most testing solos of the orchestral literature. A pity that Seal did not head straight into the finale, but his handling of its Andante introduction astutely mingled pathos with anticipation – the main Allegro itself pivoting between nonchalance and defiance through to a conclusion in which any thought of triumph over adversity was – rightly- withheld until the closing bars.

All in all, a gripping performance of a symphonic masterpiece and a fine demonstration of the CBSO Youth Orchestra’s collective prowess. The CBSO returns this Wednesday for Mozart and Mendelssohn frère et soeur, with Benjamin Grosvenor in Beethoven’s First Concerto.

Further information on the CBSO’s current season can be found at the orchestra’s website. For more on Michael Seal, click here – and for more on pianist Nicholas McCarthy, click here

In concert – Guildhall Chamber Orchestra / Joshua Weilerstein: Music by Andrzej & Roxanna Panufnik, Still & Copland

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Heather Brooks (harp), Guildhall Chamber Orchestra / Joshua Weilerstein

Andrzej Panufnik Harmony (1989)
Roxanna Panufnik Powers & Dominions (2001)
Still Mother and Child (1943) [UK premiere]
Copland Appalachian Spring: Suite (1943/5)

Milton Hall, London
Wednesday 27 October 2021

Written by Richard Whitehouse; picture of Joshua Weilerstein by Sam Canetty-Clarke

The Guildhall Chamber Orchestra was heard this evening at its regular base in a programme where works by father and daughter either side of the Millennium complemented music from American composers enjoying their greatest success in the run-up to the Second World War.

A pity that Harmony has remained among the lesser known of Andrzej Panufnik’s works, as this ‘Poem for Chamber Orchestra’ encapsulates traits that define his mature output. Scored for pairs of woodwinds and a group of strings (the size variable according to forces available) placed stereophonically, its 18 minutes effect the gradual coming-together of various textural, harmonic, rhythmic and melodic possibilities in what – unusually for this composer – is less a symmetrical (let alone palindromic) form than a cumulative design unfolding from the most speculative exchanges to sustained outpouring. Commemorating both the 75th anniversary of the composer’s birth and the 25th anniversary of his marriage, it exemplifies those concerns for long-term formal and expressive integration as are achieved here with seamless cohesion.

It received a reading of real commitment by the Guildhall CO under the attentive direction of Joshua Weilerstein (who will hopefully tackle some of the Panufnik symphonies in future), joined by Heather Brooks for Powers & Dominions by Roxanna Panufnik. A composer who has often expressed a love for the instrument, this ‘Concertino for Harp and Orchestra’ falls into two contrasted parts. Enigmatically duly emerges from speculative gestures to take on increasing emotional intensity as melodic elements derived from two of the Psalms come to the fore, while Sinisterly brings a bracing confrontation with the vibraphone and orchestral harp that climaxes in a wide-ranging cadenza then heads into a haunting recessional. Heather Brooks proved an adept and sensitive soloist for one of this composer’s more durable works.

Weilerstein was surely right in his introductory remarks to suggest that William Grant Still’s Mother and Child was tonight receiving its first hearing in the UK. Arranged from the second movement of this composer’s Suite for Violin and Piano and taking inspiration from Sargent Johnson’s eponymous sculpture, its 10 minutes weave diaphanous textures around a melody with overtones of a spiritual and which – as often with this composer – yields an appealing profile. It could yet prove a worthwhile addition to the roster of American works for strings.

The Suite from Copland’s ballet Appalachian Spring may need no such introduction, but it remains a testing assignment which the Guildhall CO tackled with increasing confidence. As a rule it was the more animated episodes that came off best, Weilerstein securing playing of no mean verve and rhythmic definition such as propelled the music forward as a cumulative entity. If the culminating Variations on a Shaker Hymn seemed a little too blatant in overall expression, the ensuing postlude struck a resonance through the sensitivity of its realization.

It certainly made for a fitting conclusion to this concert, and one in which the qualities of the Guildhall CO’s playing were enhanced by the consistency of Weilerstein’s insights across a varied and demanding programme. Hopefully they will be back working together before long.

For further information on the Guildhall current season head to their website. For more Joshua Weilerstein head here

In concert – Sarah Beth Briggs, English Symphony Orchestra / Kenneth Woods: Mozart in Cheltenham

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Sarah Beth Briggs (piano, above), English Symphony Orchestra / Kenneth Woods

Sawyers The Valley of Vision (2017)
Mozart Piano Concerto no.22 in E flat major K482 (1785)
Beethoven Symphony no.6 in F major Op.68 ‘Pastoral’ (1808)

Town Hall, Cheltenham
Monday 25 October 2021

Written by Richard Whitehouse; picture of Sarah Beth Briggs by Carolyn Mendelsohn

Tonight’s concert found the English Symphony Orchestra at the Town Hall in Cheltenham, a building of Victorian opulence with an expansive while (surprisingly?) immediate acoustic to match, in a programme featuring classics of their respective media by Mozart and Beethoven.

First, though, a welcome revival for The Valley of Vision – the tone poem by Philip Sawyers that surveys the environs around Shoreham, Kent as were immortalized in the visionary early landscapes of Samuel Palmer. Although the composer had identified five continuous sections, the probing intensity of this music makes for a seamless unfolding which was to the fore in a superbly focussed account as directed by Kenneth Woods (who recently premiered Sawyers’ Fifth Symphony at the Colorado Mahler Festival). No less tangible was the control over this music’s momentum, extending through to a climactic faster section before soon regaining its initial pensiveness. In its subtly evocative aura and persuasive handling of tonality, moreover, this piece can rank with the most significant British orchestral works of the past two decades.

From the six piano concertos that Mozart wrote for his subscription concerts during the mid-1780s, the Twenty-Second is likely the least often heard. A pity, when its relatively expansive form and unpredictability of content are striking even in the context of this most exploratory phase from the composer’s output. Certainly, it is a piece of which Sarah Beth Briggs had the measure – whether in the forceful impetus of its opening Allegro, winsome interplay between soloist and woodwind in the central Andante (arguably the most eloquent among Mozart’s sets of variations) or blithe unfolding of a final Rondo afforded greater pathos by the ‘harmonien’ episode whose interposing was an inspired departure. Nor were Dennis Matthews’s succinct and artfully integrated cadenzas other than an enhancement of what was a fine performance.

Not that there was there anything routine about Beethoven’s Pastoral following the interval, a worthy successor to those performances of the Fifth and Seventh Symphonies that Woods and the ESO have given in recent concerts. Thus, a purposeful though never inflexible take on the opening movement left sufficient room to characterize its reflective asides, with the ‘Scene by the brook’ even more engrossing through its homogeneity of texture and seamless continuity; the closing bird-calls elegantly phrased and enticingly integrated into the whole.

Too rapid a tempo for the scherzo left Woods with insufficient room to point up contrasts in motion with its trio sections, but the Thunderstorm was finely rendered as an extended introduction into the finale – this Shepherd’s Song emerging as the formal and emotional culmination in all respects. Not the least of these strengths was an inevitability of progress – here maintained right through to a coda of serene poise and, in the process, underlining the degree to which any vestige of self has been sublimated into the enveloping cosmic dance.

An absorbing performance as made one look forward to further Beethoven symphonies from this source. Woods and ESO are in Worcester at the weekend with two concerts as part of the Autumn Elgar Festival, the first featuring the masterly Elegy for Strings by Harold Truscott.

Further information on the ESO’s current season can be found at their website. For more on composer Philip Sawyers, visit his website here, while more on pianist Sarah Beth Briggs can be found at her website

In concert – Sol & Pat (Sol Gabetta & Patricia Kopatchinskaja) @ Queen Elizabeth Hall

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Leclair Violin Sonata in C major Op.5/10: Tambourin (c1734)
Widmann 24 Duos: Valse bavaroise; Toccatina all’inglese (2008)
J.S. Bach Prelude in G major (from BWV860) (c1722)
Francisco Coll Rizoma (2017)
Domenico Scarlatti Sonata in G, Kk.305
Ravel Sonata for violin & cello (1922)
J.S. Bach 15 Two-part Inventions BWV772-86 (selection) (c1723)
Ligeti Hommage à Hilding Rosenberg (1982)
Xenakis Dipli zyia (1951)
C.P.E. Bach Presto in C minor Wq114/3 (c1768)
Kodály Duo Op.7 (1914)

Patricia Kopatchinskaja (violin), Sol Gabetta (cello)

Queen Elizabeth Hall, London
Tuesday 26 October 2021

Written by Richard Whitehouse

Combining two of the most charismatic and creative string players of their generation was such a good idea to make one surprised it had not happened earlier, but tonight the Patricia Kopatchinskaja and Sol Gabetta double-act hit the Southbank Centre in no uncertain terms.

A stomping entrée to Leclair’s Tambourin in C (a rare instance when Kopatchinskaja donned footwear) launched proceedings in arresting fashion, while Jörg Widmann’s Valse bavaroise and Toccatina all’inglese – both from his resourceful playbook of 24 Duos – allured and engaged. Bach’s Prelude in G (from BWV860) afforded a limpid breathing-space, then Francisco Coll’s Rizoma fairly intrigued with its incrementally shifting textures and ethereal harmonics – just the sort of piece, indeed, necessary for energizing the violin-and-cello medium. Kopatchinskaja admitted to disliking the arrangement of Scarlatti’s Sonata in G (Kk305) and canvassed the audience for its opinion, the response encouraging an incisive take on music whose enthusiastic response left her shaking her head in mock consternation.

The first half concluded with Ravel’s Sonata for violin and cello – much less often revived than it should be, ostensibly on account of the duo-medium, but an undoubted masterpiece when rendered with such commitment as here. Kopatchinskaja and Gabetta teased out those exquisite tonal obliquities of the Allegro, countered by the alternate brusqueness and suavity of the scherzo or distanced rapture of the slow movement; before the finale brought matters to a head with its headlong syncopation and no lack of that ‘spirit’ as indicated in the score.

A brief inclusion from Bach’s 15 Two-Part Inventions (BWV772-86) opened the second half with pointed understatement (presumably more so than the Scarlatti sonata that was originally scheduled), with the expressive poise of Ligeti’s Hommage á Hilding Rosenberg duly making way for the acerbic interplay of Xenakis’s Dipli zyia which is among the most Bartókian of the formative pieces to have found posthumous revival by this composer (who is hopefully being suitably commemorated throughout his centenary in 2022).

Kopatchinskaja and Gabetta then sat side by side for a speculative reading of C.P.E. Bach’s Presto in C minor (Wq.114 No. 3) made the more so through its being played pizzicato throughout. Interesting, too, how such an arrangement can dissolve any perceived boundary between musical epochs.

The programme reached a culmination in every sense with Kodály’s Duo, one of several large-scale chamber-works for strings on which his reputation as a composer of ‘abstract’ music rests. After a tensile account of the preludial Allegro, Kopatchinskaja and Gabetta rendered the central Adagio with sustained pathos and a timbral acuity made more so by their faultless intonation. Nor was there any lack of eloquence in the finale, its deliberate progress building a momentum that was released in the coda to heady and exhilarating effect.

Quite a concert, then, with a performance to match by two musicians who complement each other’s playing to a mutually beneficial degree. Hopefully they will be returning with another wide-ranging programme before too long. The enthusiastic audience evidently felt likewise.

For more information on the new Sol & Pat release, head to the Linn Records website