Category Archives: Song

In concert – Martin Helmchen, CBSO / Kazuki Yamada: Mozart Piano Concerto no.26 & Bruckner Symphony no.9

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Martin Helmchen (piano, below), City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra / Kazuki Yamada (above)

Mozart Piano Concerto no.26 in D major K537 (1788)
Bruckner Symphony no.9 in D minor WAB109 (1887-96, ed. Nowak)

Symphony Hall, Birmingham
Thursday 12 December 2024

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse Pictures (c) Beki Smith (Kazuki Yamada), Giorgia Bertazzi (Martin Helmchen)

This last concert before its Christmas and New Year festivities found the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra back with music director Kazuki Yamada for a coupling of Mozart and Bruckner that worked well as a programme over and above its D major-D minor framework.

Lauded for decades after his death, Mozart’s Piano Concerto no.26 was then dismissed as one of his few mature failures through a steely brilliance concealing little, if any, more personal expression. While it may lack the pathos or ambivalence that inform its dozen predecessors, its extrovert nature is complemented by a poise to which Martin Helmchen was well attuned. The martial undertow of its opening Allegro was offset by its winsome second theme and by the harmonic freedom of one of Mozart’s most capricious developments, then the Larghetto had a lilting charm cannily offset by the suavity of the closing Allegretto. That the autograph omits much of its piano’s left-hand part has led others to extemporize their own completion, but Helmchen restricted himself to cadenzas that were inventive and never less than apposite.

Yamada and the CBSO were unwavering in support, making for a performance that certainly presented this work to best advantage and reaffirmed Helmchen’s credentials as a Mozartian. Hopefully this soloist’s and conductor’s first Birmingham collaboration will not be their last.

Birmingham audiences had not so far encountered Yamada in Bruckner but, on the basis of his Ninth Symphony, here is a composer for whom he has real affinity. Not that this performance had it all its own way – the first movement, if not lacking either solemnity or mystery, did not quite cohere across its monumental span. Each thematic element was potently characterized, but their underlying follow-through felt less than inevitable such that the development lacked something of the centripetal force needed for a properly seismic impact, though the coda built with due remorselessness to a baleful close. If the Scherzo’s buoyant outer sections eschewed the ultimate violence, Yamada judged almost ideally the contrasting tempo for its trio – which latter emphasized a spectral or even sardonic humour which is surely unique in this composer.

In the absence of a finale (though such a movement was well on its way towards completion, as numerous realizations attest), the Adagio represents this work’s nominal culmination. Here orchestra and conductor gave of their interpretative best. Once again, the issue is how to fuse its almost disparate components into a sustained while cumulative totality and Yamada faced this challenge head on – the music exuding gravitas but with enough flexibility of motion to encompass its textural and emotional extremes right through to an apotheosis numbing in its unrelieved dissonance. Not that it pre-empted the coda’s benedictive quality from endowing closure on this movement as on the work as a ‘whole’, woodwind and strings gradually being drawn into the timbre of horns and Wagner tubas as these resounded eloquently into silence.

It hardly needs to be added that the CBSO’s playing abetted this impression, while Yamada’s placing of the double-bases in a row at the rear of the platform audibly galvanized the music-making and so set the seal on a performance which will doubtless linger long in the memory.

For details on the 2024-25 season A Season of Joy, head to the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra website. Click on the names to read more about pianist Martin Helmchen – and the orchestra’s principal conductor Kazuki Yamada

Published post no.2,394 – Sunday 15 December 2024

In concert – Eugene Tzikindelean, CBSO / Kazuki Yamada: Elgar Violin Concerto & Walton Symphony no.2

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Eugene Tzikindelean (violin, above), City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra / Kazuki Yamada (below)

Elgar Violin Concerto in B minor Op.61 (1909-10)
Walton Orb and Sceptre (1952-3)
Walton Symphony no.2 (1957-60)

Symphony Hall, Birmingham
Wednesday 4 December 2024

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse

His tenure so far as music director of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra has shown Kazuki Yamada to have real sympathy for British music, hence it was no surprise to encounter this programme of works by Elgar and Walton, which itself proved (unexpectedly?) satisfying.

Following on his highly regarded performances of Nielsen and Walton over previous seasons, CBSO leader Eugene Tzikindelean took on Elgar’s Violin Concerto for a reading which was fine if not consistently so. The opening movement, in particular, lacked forward momentum in its restless first theme so that not enough contrast was established with its rapt successor – the highlights being Yamada’s vigorous handling of its orchestral introduction and a development as powerfully sustained as it was combatively rendered. Tzikindelean was more fully at home with the central Andante, its variously reflective and heartfelt melodies drawn into a seamless continuity enhanced by a notably beguiling response from the CBSO woodwind. Whether or not the most profound of Elgar’s slow movement, this is arguably his most perfectly achieved.

The finale was, for the most part, equally successful – this being hardly the first performance setting off at a suitably incisive tempo, only to lose impetus once the poised second theme has entered the frame. Not that there was insufficient energy to make the emergence of its lengthy accompanied cadenza other than startling – this latter proceeding with a suffused mystery and poignancy, not least in recalling previous themes, as finds Elgar as his most confessional; the movement then resuming its earlier course as it surged on to a decisive and affirmative close.

Although his later orchestral works have never quite fallen into obscurity, Walton’s tended to fare better in the US than in the UK. Not least the coronation march Orb and Sceptre – all too easily denigrated next to the opulent grandeur of predecessor Crown Imperial, but evincing a jazzy lack of uninhibition and, in its trio, a suavity Yamada clearly relished in the company of an orchestra that made benchmark recordings with Louis Frémaux almost half a century ago. Even the latter could not summon the pizzaz conveyed here with that trio’s infectious return.

Walton’s Second Symphony has been equivocally regarded ever since its Liverpool premiere, but Yamada clearly harboured few doubts as to its conviction. The opening Allegro unfolded methodically if remorselessly, its main themes subtly yet meaningfully differentiated not least in bringing out the compositional mastery of sizable orchestral forces. Nor was there any lack of pathos in the ensuing Lento, its ominous tones denoting music shot through with intensely ambivalent emotion. Much the most difficult movement to sustain, the final Passacaglia was no less successful – Yamada binding its successive variations into a tensile if never inflexible whole, while making a virtue of Walton’s premise that a 12-note theme can resolve effortlessly in tonal terms at the peroration: a journey as fascinating as its destination proved exhilarating.

Interesting to note this concert was ‘being recorded for future release;, given the Walton was undoubtedly an account to savour. Yamada is back with the CBSO next week in a programme which pairs Mozart’s penultimate piano concerto and Bruckner’s (unfinished) final symphony.

For details on the 2024-25 season A Season of Joy, head to the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra website. Click on the names to read more about CBSO leader, violinist Eugene Tzikindelean – and the orchestra’s principal conductor Kazuki Yamada

Published post no.2,386 – Saturday 7 December 2024

In concert – Dame Sarah Connolly, CBSO Choruses, CBSO / Sofi Jeannin: The Music Makers

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Dame Sarah Connolly (mezzo-soprano), CBSO Children’s Chorus, CBSO Youth Chorus, CBSO Chorus, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra / Sofi Jeannin

Weir Music, Untangled (1992)
Muhly Friday Afternoons (2015, orch. 2019) [UK Premiere]
Britten The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra Op.34 (1945)
Elgar The Music Makers Op.69 (1912)

Symphony Hall, Birmingham
Wednesday 20 November 2024

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse Pictures (c) Andrew Crowley (Dame Sarah Connolly), (c) Radio France / Christophe Abramowitz (Sofi Jeannin)

Under the capable direction of Swedish-born Sofi Jeannin (below), the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra tonight took on a varied if cohesive programme featuring two composers with direct links to the city, one of whose works had been performed for the first time here 112 years ago.

Although he might not be so associated with Birmingham, Nico Muhly is hardly an unknown quantity. Friday Afternoons proved a diverting and enjoyable traversal across eight traditional poems – directly yet unaffectedly recalling Britten in their simplicity of choral writing with, in this instance, a resourceful and often evocative orchestration that brought out subtle and quite unexpected nuances from these texts. Qualities that the combined CBSO Youth and Children’s Choruses responded to with alacrity, doubtless owing to the astute guidance of Julian Wilkins.

Beforehand, the orchestra made no less favourable a response in Music, Untangled by Judith Weir, former Master of the Queen’s Music and composer-in-association to the CBSO during 1995-98. Written for the Boston Symphony, this not unreasonably American-sounding piece takes extracts from melodies emanating from the Western isles of Weir’s native Scotland as the basis for a compact if eventful piece where said melodies are gradually fined down from sonic diversity to a single strand through a process of ‘less is more’ typical of this composer.

Closing the first half, what had started out as Britten’s ‘Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Purcell’ received an engaging performance at its best in those variations highlighting specific instruments – in the course of which the excellence of the individual CBSO sections came to the fore. Presentation of the theme itself was a little on the portentous side, a quality which re -surfaced in a fugue whose clarity of texture seemed at the expense of that exuberance when Britten puts his orchestra back-together. An enjoyable take on a timeless masterpiece even so.

Despite its high-profile launch at the 1912 Triennial Festival, Elgar’s The Music Makers has struggled to find general favour – his setting of Arthur O’Shaughnessy’s Ode intensifying the text’s ambivalence and introspection via a wealth of self-quotation such as renders several of his most acclaimed pieces from an unlikely or even disturbing perspective. Together with its near-contemporary work, the symphonic study Falstaff, this is Elgar at his most searching as well as confessional – qualities such as the encroaching ‘Great War’ would duly exacerbate.

Despite its modest (35-minute) duration, The Music Makers is a difficult work to pace and to make cohere and, while Jeannin (an experienced choral conductor) did not wholly succeed in these respects, there was no doubt as to her insight into its content or defining of its emotions. Prepared by Simon Halsey (who first ‘gave’ this work with Simon Rattle some 40 years ago), the CBSO Chorus lacked little in conviction or finesse – and, if Dame Sarah Connolly was not quite at her most assured, the sheer eloquence and conviction of her singing could never be denied.

A fine account, then, of a work still in need of such advocacy for its inherent greatness to be acknowledged. Interesting also that audience response was warm if undeniably muted – as if to confirm, on this occasion at least, the music’s ‘message’ had got through to those listening.

For details on the 2024-25 season A Season of Joy, head to the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra website. Click on the names to read more about soloist Dame Sarah Connolly, conductor Sofi Jeannin and composers Nico Muhly and Dame Judith Weir

Published post no.2,372 – Sunday 24 November 2024

In concert – CBSO Strings / Eugene Tzikindelean: Bach: Goldberg Variations

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City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra Strings / Eugene Tzikindelean (above)

J.S. Bach arr. D. Sitkovetsky Goldberg Variations BWV988 (c1740)

Town Hall, Birmingham
Sunday 10 November 2024, 3pm

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse Picture (c) Beki Smith

Having already made his mark other than as leader of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra with his performances in recent seasons of concertos by Nielsen and Walton, Eugene Tzikindelean this afternoon directed the orchestra’s strings in a performance of Bach’s Goldberg Variations.

First published 323 years ago, the ‘Goldbergs’ launched the series of works from Bach’s final decade in which formal and technical procedures take on an almost arcane dimension, though this music is always realizable in practical terms whatever its abstraction. Taken up by leading virtuosos in the wake of Liszt, notably Busoni who fashioned his ‘concerto without orchestra’ in 1914, it became synonymous with Glenn Gould whose 1955 recording launched his career internationally as surely as it established Bach’s work in the minds of listeners the world over.

More recently the variations have been arranged for a variety of media, among which that by the violinist Dmitry Sitkovetsky has become among the most familiar – firstly as realized for string trio in 1984, then for string ensemble eight years later. The question as to how large a body of strings is left to the musicians: the present account amounted to 38 players including harpsichord, ideal for the acoustic of Birmingham Town Hall and what was a commendably sizable house. Not the least attraction of this arrangement is the skill with which Sitkovetsky has translated the timbral and textural possibilities of the harpsichord original, such that they sound entirely idiomatic in this context as well as capable of a variety of interpretive nuance; with this aspect proving crucial to the overall persuasiveness of the performance heard here.

The duration of the ‘Goldbergs’ can vary widely, according to just how many of the first-half or second-half repeats of its 30 variations are taken. Those anticipating an account around 78 minutes (given in the programme) might have been disconcerted with the hour-long rendition that resulted, but Tzikindelean’s approach in this respect was wholly consistent in placing the emphasis on those variations which mark strategic formal and expressive junctures. Thus the 15th with its starkly fatalistic aura; the 25th, described by harpsichordist Wanda Landowska as the ‘‘black pearl’’ and an adagio of simmering emotional charge; then the 30th, unfolding as a ‘quodlibet’ of popular melodies which seems intent on countering any previous austerity as it builds to a culmination where the Aria da Capo can bring the whole concept full circle.

Such was certainly true of this superbly realized reading, directed by Tzikindelean with that combination of focus and spontaneity as characterizes his work as leader. It would be wrong, moreover, not to single out those other section-leaders whose contributions were hardly less vital to its success – hence second violinist Lowri Porter, violist Chris Yates, cellist Bozidar Vukotic and double bassist Anthony Alcock; Martin Perkins was a lively continuo presence who enhanced successive variations without ever interposing himself on the overall sound.

A fine demonstration of the collective prowess of the CBSO strings, and there will be similar opportunities to hear the orchestra’s woodwind then brass and percussion at Sunday afternoon concerts in January and March next year, which will hopefully prove to be just as memorable.

For details on the 2024-25 season A Season of Joy, head to the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra website. Click on the names to read more about violinist Eugene Tzikindelean and arranger / violinist / conductor Dmitry Sitkovetsky

Published post no.2,359 – Monday 11 November 2024

In concert – Steven Osborne, CBSO / Kerem Hasan: Coleman, Grieg & Beethoven

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Steven Osborne (piano), City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra / Kerem Hasan (above)

Coleman Umoja: Anthem for Unity (2001, orch. 2019)
Grieg Piano Concerto in A minor Op.16 (1868)
Beethoven Symphony no.4 in B flat major Op.60 (1806)

Symphony Hall, Birmingham
Thursday 7 November 2024, 2.15pm

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse Picture (c) Tristan Fewings

Highly regarded for his work with Welsh National Opera and his five years at the helm of the Tyrolean Symphony, British-Cypriot conductor Kerem Hasan’s is a relaxed though attentive presence that resulted in no mean rapport with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra.

Such was evident from the outset of Valerie Coleman’s Umoja. Written for wind quintet, this ‘Anthem for Unity’ (the latter word in Swahili being the title) went through incarnations for wind sextet and concert band before being expanded to a commission from the Philadelphia Orchestra. Essentially a sequence of free-flowing variations on a theme stated by solo violin after an atmospheric introduction, it emerges in sharply contrasted guises before arriving at   a culminative statement – its evocation of ‘unity’ the more powerful for such overt restraint.

If the remainder of this programme consisted of repertoire staples, there was nothing routine or predictable about the performances. Steven Osborne has doubtless given more consistently accurate accounts of Grieg’s Piano Concerto, but his determination here to throw caution to the wind almost always paid off. Not least in an opening movement at its most perceptive in an unusually cohesive development, then a cadenza which ably sustained emotional tension through to a thunderous close. Building to a fervent rendering of its main theme, the Adagio evinced no lack of pathos, and Hasan secured a seamless transition into the finale – its virile main theme tellingly contrasted with that rapturous flute melody (Marie-Christine Zupancic on fine form), which emerged duly transformed as a majestic apotheosis towards the close.

That Hasan was out to make the case for Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony was evident from an introduction whose speculative mystery was tangibly conveyed, thus making contrast with the first movement’s main Allegro the more potent. Nor was the repeat of the exposition a carbon copy of what preceded it, Hasan channelling its impetus into an eventful development whose hushed transition into the reprise brought a surge of adrenalin no less palpable than that of the brief if thrilling coda. The ensuing Adagio might be felt to lack the drama or heroism of those in the symphonies either side, though its wistful main theme accrued considerable profundity on its successive and varied reappearances – not least through the unforced eloquence of the CBSO woodwind in what becomes something of an all-round showcase for that department.

Hasan drove the scherzo sections of the third movement hard, yet there was never any lack of articulation, while the trio sections had all the ingratiating charm needed. Taking the finale at anything that approaches the composer’s metronome marking can easily become a hostage to fortune, but the CBSO held its collective nerve throughout what was an eventful as well as an exhilarating ride – one fully underpinned by Beethoven’s irreverent humour such as comes to the fore in the tonal and emotional punning of those captivating bars that round off this work.

A persuasive case, then, for Beethoven Four as for Hasan’s conducting. Meanwhile, Sunday afternoon brings an intriguing event in the guise of Bach’s Goldberg Variations arranged by Dmitry Sitkovetsky for string ensemble and directed by CBSO leader Eugene Tzikindelean.

For details on the 2024-25 season A Season of Joy, head to the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra website. Click on the names to read more about pianist Steven Osborne, conductor Kerem Hasan, and composer Valerie Coleman

Published post no.2,357 – Saturday 9 November 2024