Category Archives: In concert

In concert – ESO Digital Black History Concert – The Art of the Rag

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English Symphony Orchestra / Kenneth Woods

Joplin (arr. Schuller) Maple Leaf Rag (1899)
Europe (arr. Schuller) Castle House Rag (1914)
Blake (arr. Schuller) Charleston Rag (1917)
Morton Black Bottom Stomp (1925)
Joplin (arr. Schuller) The Entertainer (1902)

Recorded at Wyastone Concert Hall, Monmouth on November 10th, 2020
First broadcast on October 28th, 2021

Written by Richard Whitehouse

Although recorded just over a year ago, the English Symphony Orchestra’s Art of the Rag made an ideal contribution to the most recent Black History Month – focussing on music by four of the most influential practitioners of the dance-form that became known as Ragtime.

He might not actually have attained his 100th birthday, but Eubie Blake remains among the most versatile of those composers who straddled the (apparent) divide between ragtime and jazz – Charleston Rag typical in its harmonic sideslips and rhythmic syncopation confidently rendered here. His contribution to the promoting of Black musicians, furthering the American war-effort, and creating specifically African-American music has overshadowed James Reese Europe’s compositions – Castle House Rag conveying an ambivalent jollity which was surely intended. Because he lived long enough to perform and record extensively, Jelly Roll Morton has no equals in evolving a jazz idiom – Black Bottom Stomp effectively codifying what was merely a dance craze into a musical template which was to have far-reaching consequences.

Framing these items were the two most popular rags by Scott Joplin. Among his earliest such pieces, Maple Leaf Rag was a success immediately on publication, while The Entertainer had chalked up a plethora of arrangements even before the ragtime revival of the early 1970s, but neither secured financial success for their hapless composer. They certainly responded well to dextrous and attentive playing from the ESO, ably directed by Kenneth Woods and given the benefit – as were most of these pieces – of stylish arrangements by the late Gunther Schuller.

An enterprising selection such as more than fulfilled its purpose in promoting music whose familiarity need not detract from its innovative qualities. Perhaps the ESO could yet mount    a concert or even a staged presentation of Joplin’s magnum opus – the opera Treemonisha?

Further information on the ESO’s current season can be found at their website

In concert – City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra: A Covid Requiem

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Adès O Albion (1994, arr. 2019)
Pärt Fratres (1977, arr. 1991)
Purcell (arr. Britten) Chacony in G minor Z730 (c1680, arr. 1948)
Barber Adagio in B flat minor Op.11 (1935, arr. 1936)
interspersed with poetry readings by Casey Bailey
Fauré Requiem in D minor Op.48 (1887-90, rev. 1893)

James Platt (bass), Casey Bailey (poet), CBSO Children’s Chorus, CBSO Youth Chorus, CBSO Chorus, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra / Tomo Keller (violin/director), Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla (conductor)

Symphony Hall, Birmingham
Saturday 6 November 2021

Written by Richard Whitehouse

Even if live music-making has gradually been returning to how it was, the (ongoing) legacy of Coronavirus could hardly be overlooked, thus a concert such as that given this evening by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra was a necessary act of remembrance for all the many concertgoers to have been affected by the pandemic. As befitted such an occasion, no speeches or prefatory remarks were needed, with the darkening of the auditorium during the performance a simple but effective gesture which helped focus musicians and listeners alike.

Strings only were onstage in the first half – Tomo Keller directing a sequence as began with O Albion, Thomas Adès’s arrangement of the sixth movement from his quartet Arcadiana, whose gentle pathos made for the ideal entrée. Arvo Pärt has written numerous memorials and while Cantus might have been more appropriate in this context than Fratres, the latter’s sparing deployment of percussion as to underline its ritualistic emergence then withdrawal conveyed no mean eloquence. Surprising, perhaps, that Britten’s arrangement of Purcell’s Chacony is not heard more frequently on such occasions, its expressive intensification here informed by an acute rhythmic clarity. Barber’s Adagio is, of course, a staple at these times – the visceral emotion of its climax and subdued fatalism that ensues audibly conveyed here.

Interspersed between these pieces were poems by Casey Bailey, currently Birmingham Poet Laureate and whose readings were undeniably affecting in their sincerity – whether the heady reportage of 23.03.21 (a date no-one in the UK could hope to forget), the intimate evocation of Weight or graphic remembrance of Once. His appearances on stage were precisely judged as to segue into then out of the music either side and it was a pity when he did not take a call at the end of this first half, alongside the CBSO strings, given his contribution to proceedings.

Tomo Keller remained for the second half – adding ethereal counter-melodies to two of the sections in Fauré’s Requiem, whose 1893 version is without violins but with divided violas and cellos along with reduced woodwind and brass to make for a reading closer to the initial conception and certainly more apposite tonight. Her credentials in the choral repertoire well established, Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla conducted with a real sense of this work’s essential poise but without neglecting any deeper emotions. James Platt brought a ruminative warmth to the Hostias and Libera me, and it was an inspired touch to have the Pie Jesu sung in unison by the Children’s Chorus; its plaintiveness offsetting those richer tones of the Youth Chorus and CBSO Chorus, while opening-out the music’s textural and expressive range accordingly.

In one sense it would have been better had this concert not had to take place, given the legacy it commemorated (as was witnessed by the personal recollections occupying five pages of the programme) and yet, as those ethereal strains of the In Paradisum receded beyond earshot, a feeling of the Covid crisis having been recognized then overcome was palpable on the part of those present. Moreover, the CBSO’s next event is a performance of Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen – surely as transcendent and life-affirming an experience as could be hoped for.

Further information on the CBSO’s current season can be found at the orchestra’s website. For more on Casey Bailey, click here, for James Platt click here, and for Tomo Kellner here

In concert – BCMG NEXT @ Coventry Cathedral

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Kerkour Procession in Remembrance (2010)
Salonen Pentatonic Étude (2010, rev. 2014)
Roxburgh Wordsworth Miniatures (1998)
Birtwistle Duets for Storab (1984)
Lachenmann Pression (1969)
Saunders Bite (2016)

NEXT [Leila Hooton, Rebecca Speller, Gavin Stuart (flutes), Emily Wilson (clarinets), Cameron Howe (viola), Carwyn Jones (cello)]

Coventry Cathedral
Wednesday 3 November 2021

Written by Richard Whitehouse

This evening’s concert by NEXT (musicians training as performers of contemporary music in a partnership between Birmingham Contemporary Music Group and Royal Birmingham Conservatoire) was to have featured Gérard Grisey’s penultimate work Vortex Temporum, but a player’s withdrawal after testing positive for Covid led to this alternative programme of solos and duos from the past half-century; one that, coming together as an effective and appealing recital in its own right, showed no sign of having been assembled at short notice.

The Anglo-Moroccan composer Brahim Kerkour is little heard in the UK, though Procession in Remembrance (the central piece in Three Modules for Sketches of Miniatures) suggests a continuation of spectral thinking (Kerkour studied with Tristan Murail) for the way alto flute and bass clarinet intertwined to create raptly translucent textures at once abstract yet tangible. Music to which Esa-Pekka Salonen’s Pentatonic Étude offered a notable foil – this paraphrase on a passage from Bartók’s unfinished Viola Concerto putting the solo instrument through its paces, before reclaiming the original in an understated apotheosis realized by Cameron Howe with due sensitivity. Hopefully a full-scale viola concerto by Salonen will yet be forthcoming.

Two sets of interdependent pieces came next. Edwin Roxburgh remains best known for larger-scale compositions, but Wordsworth Miniatures finds him no less adept when working on a more limited canvas – poems by the English author serving as the titles for these four deftly contrasted clarinet miniatures which Emily Wilson rendered with appropriately lyrical poise. Written while resident on the Inner Hebridean isle of Raasay, Harrison Birtwistle’s Duets for Storab draws its inspiration from three locations featuring the name of a Viking prince whose shipwreck, pursual and death are not so much portrayed as evoked by the six atmospheric and plaintive pieces with flautists Rebecca Speller and Leila Hooton in (mainly) whimsical accord.

Finally, to two more substantial and combative solo pieces which both conveyed the essence of their respective composers. Helmut Lachenmann’s Pression expounded a radical notion of ‘instrumental musique-concrète’ explored in later orchestral and chamber works – its utilizing cello as a means of sonic inclusiveness summoning a trenchant response from Carwyn Jones. Even more visceral in content, Bite finds Rebecca Saunders draws on the thirteenth and final prose from Beckett’s Texts for Nothing in this monologue for bass flute whose phonetic and syntactical elements are subsumed into a tensile continuum where anticipations and echoes merge freely or often forcefully – Gavin Stewart entering into its spirit with evident resolve.

Such a programme might not have seemed suited to the expanse of Coventry Cathedral, but the situating of musicians and listeners in a semi-circle adjacent to the entrance and at right-angles to the nave kept proceedings well within focus and allowed for the acoustic’s natural ambience to come through. Hopefully the Grisey can be rescheduled in due course, but the qualities of these pieces and their performances could not be gainsaid. Meanwhile, BCMG returns next Friday with a late-evening recital BCMG Nights in the foyer of Symphony Hall.

Further information on future BCMG and NEXT events can be found at the BCMG website

In concert – Benjamin Grosvenor, CBSO / Marta Gardolińska: Mozart, Beethoven, Fanny Mendelssohn & Felix Mendelssohn

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Mozart Die Zauberflöte K620: Overture (1791)
Beethoven Piano Concerto no.1 in C major Op.15 (1795, rev. 1800)
Fanny Mendelssohn Overture in C major (1832)
Mendelssohn Symphony no.4 in A major Op.90 ‘Italian’ (1833)

Benjamin Grosvenor (piano), City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra / Marta Gardolińska

Symphony Hall, Birmingham
Wednesday 3 November 2021 (2.15pm)

Written by Richard Whitehouse. Picture of Benjamin Grosvenor (c) Andrej Grilc

Those having heard Gustavo Dudamel’s recent Ives cycle will know of Marta Gardolińska’s role in the success of the Fourth Symphony, with her similarly methodical attention to detail being evident in this afternoon’s concert with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra.

An avowedly Classical concert it may have been, but an artfully programmed one. Certainly, it was refreshing these days to hear the introduction of Mozart’s Overture to The Magic Flute given with this degree of gravitas, followed by a purposeful take on the main allegro such as brought out the music’s verve along with an onward striving apposite given its indebtedness to the ideals of the Enlightenment. The CBSO itself sounded wholly enthused in what was as purposeful and as immediate an account of this piece as it can have given in recent seasons.

It also prepared admirably for Beethoven’s First Piano Concerto with Benjamin Grosvenor (above). The latter has often sounded unduly self-effacing in the concerto repertoire, but this work fits his temperament to a tee – not least its initial Allegro, whose alternating of bravura with more equivocal expression included an electrifying transition to the reprise then nonchalant take on what is the second (c1805), shortest and contextually most satisfying of the composer’s three cadenzas. Neither was there any lack of eloquence in a Largo such as ranks among the most affecting of Beethoven’s earlier slow movements, while a headlong if never hectic tempo for the final Rondo enabled Grosvenor to instil his last entry with a poise as made the orchestral payoff the more conclusive. A fine performance which inevitably brought the house down.

Grosvenor returned for an affecting encore of Danza de la Moza Donosa – second of three Danzas Argentinas by Alberto Ginastera (maybe Grosvenor will investigate one or other of his piano concertos one day?). There was further unfamiliar fare after the interval, with an Overture by Fanny Mendelssohn. Her only completed orchestral work, its formal cohesion and technical finesse indicate what might have been possible under different circumstances, not least when Gardolińska drew such committed and characterful playing from the CBSO.

There cannot have been a time when Felix Mendelssohn’s Italian Symphony was unpopular in Birmingham and so it proved here. As has become customary, Gardolińska (rightly) observed the first movement’s exposition repeat, with its substantial lead-in, in what was otherwise an unexceptionally fine account of this opening Allegro. More individuality came through in the Andante, not least with its quirkily understated interplay between pedantry and pathos, while the intermezzo was more than usually arresting for the distinction made between its elegant outer sections and a trenchant, often combative trio. The ensuing Saltarello rounded off this performance in bracing fashion – those rhythmic contrasts between its main and second ‘tarantella’ themes vividly brought out on the way to a conclusion of no-nonsense finality.

This appealing programme was enthusiastically received by the fullest house the CBSO had enjoyed since live music-making resumed. Symphony Hall will hopefully be as well attended this Saturday, when Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla returns for the commemorative A Covid Requiem.

Further information on the CBSO’s current season can be found at the orchestra’s website. For more on Marta Gardolińska, click here – and for more on Benjamin Grosvenor, head to the pianist’s website

CBSO players perform the Allegretto from Fanny Mendelssohn’s String Quartet in E flat here:

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