It’s a hot summer evening here in the UK – and thoughts have turned to the wonderful score Mendelssohn completed as incidental music to Shakespeare’s play.
Here it is, with Walter Weller conducting the Royal Scottish National Orchestra:
by Ben Hogwood Picture from the Bain Collection, Library of Congress
This day marks the centenary of the premiere of one of Prokofiev‘s most remarkable works, the Second Symphony. It was first performed in Paris on 6 June 1925, under the baton of Serge Koussevitsky.
It is difficult to imagine a work of greater contrast to the first symphony in the composer’s output, the much-loved ‘Classical’. Where that was a masterly updating of the classical style, bursting with good tunes, the Second initially impacts as a cacophony of noise and seemingly devoid of melody.
Listen more closely, however, and you will hear some distinctive themes beyond the bluster, some innovative orchestration and a highly original approach to form drawing initially from Beethoven’s 32nd and final piano sonata. Perhaps inevitably these qualities were lost on the first audience, who recoiled from the piece. Their reaction gave Prokofiev serious doubts about his ability as a composer.
Yet time has treated this piece relatively well, with no less a composer than Christopher Rouse showering it with praise. Listen below and see what you think:
Published post no.2,556 – Friday 6 June 2025
Elgar
Symphony no.1 in A flat major Op.55 (1907-08)
In the South (Alassio) Op.50 (1903-04)
English Symphony Orchestra / Kenneth Woods
ESO Records ESO2501 (80’10″]
Producer and Engineer Tim Burton
Live performances at Worcester Cathedral on 4 June 2022 (In The South) and 3 June 2023 (Symphony)
Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse
What’s the story?
There could hardly been a more fitting release to launch the English Symphony Orchestra’s own label than these performances drawn from past editions of the Elgar Festival, with both of them a reminder of the ESO’s formidable prowess over the range of symphonic writing.
What are the performances like?
The First Symphony may not have the usual number of strings to complement its triple wind, but due to the resonance of Worcester Cathedral this is not evident as regards internal balance. Not least in an opening movement whose motto-theme is never indulgent, setting the tone for an Allegro where expressive variety goes hand in hand with formal focus. Especially fine is a hushed transition into the reprise, then a coda that distils the equivocal mood as this subsides into ruminative calm. Woods is mindful to invest scherzo and trio with consistency of pulse, so if the former feels reined in on return, the latter has an ideal poise and wistfulness. Nor is the transition other than indicative of the Adagio’s profundity, Woods negotiating its soulful main theme and wistful episodes with unerring rightness through to the ineffable closing bars.
If the finale has any marginal falling-off of inspiration, it is not apparent here. Sombre if shot through with expectancy, its introduction launches an Allegro whose alternating incisiveness and suavity holds good over an impulsive development, then a transformation of the codetta whose pathos intensifies for an apotheosis where the motto-theme carries all before it. Not that the closing pages are bombastic or grandiloquent in import – rather, they set the seal on a work whose affirmation is made the greater for its having been so purposefully attained.
As for In the South, the main issue is in setting a tempo flexible enough to accommodate this concert overture’s extended sonata design without it becoming episodic. Here a surging main theme, its speculative transition and suave second theme emerge seamlessly – the underlying tension carried into a development whose impulsiveness is maintained across the intervening first episode. Amply evoking the grandeur of ‘empires past’, this is astutely handled such that its implacability eschews bathos. If the second ‘canto populare’ episode is just a little reticent, its expressive raptness – and Carl Hill’s eloquent playing of its indelible viola melody – more than compensates. Nor is there any loss of continuity during the reprise, Woods’s building of momentum near the start of the coda ensuring an irresistible yet never overbearing peroration.
Does it all work?
Almost always. ESO concerts at the Elgar Festival have yielded numerous performances of note, with In the South among the finest yet in vindicating a work that can all too easily fall victim to its seeming indulgencies. Nor is that of the First Symphony far behind in revealing the formal intricacy and expressive variety of music as personal as is any of this composer’s major works. Anyone who may have harboured doubts about either piece is likely to be won over, confirming an empathy as augers well for the Second Symphony at this year’s festival.
Is it recommended?
Absolutely. These readings are far more than mementos of their concerts, this being ‘Volume 1’ suggests that further performances from the Elgar Festival will be made available. Note too the first instalment of a Sibelius cycle is downloadable as the second release on ESO Records.
Listen / Buy
You can read more about this release and explore purchase options at the ESO website Click to read more about the English Symphony Orchestra, conductor Kenneth Woods and the Elgar Festival 2025
Published post no.2,536 – Sunday 18 May 2025
Bruckner, ed. Kito Sakaya Symphony no.9 in D minor WAB109 (1887-96)
with performing edition of finale by Nicole Samale, John A. Phillips, Benjamin-Gunnar Cohrs and Giuseppe Mazzuca (1983-2012) as revised by John A. Phillips (2021-22)
Hallé / Kahchun Wong
Hallé CDHLD7566 [two discs 88’24’’]
Producer Steve Portnoi Engineers Tony Wass, Edward Cittanova
Recorded 26 October 2024 at Bridgewater Hall, Manchester
Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse
What’s the story?
The Hallé furthers its association with principal conductor and artistic advisor Kahchun Wong in this recording of Bruckner’s Ninth Symphony, the finale heard in a new edition prepared by John A. Phillips as the ostensible culmination of a process extending back across four decades.
What’s the music like?
Although his introductory note leaves no doubt as to his advocacy for Bruckner Nine, Wong’s approach is not an unqualified success overall. Doubts such as they are centre on the opening two movements, the first of which lacks that sustained inevitability and cumulative intensity necessary to make its extensive span cohere. Aptly contrasted in themselves, its three themes follow on each other without establishing any greater continuity and while the approach to its development yields tangible ominousness, the ensuing climax conveys less than the ultimate terror, though its coda does attain a fearsome majesty. Wong’s take on the second movement succeeds best in its trio’s speculative flights of fancy, which only makes the relative stolidity and emotional disengagement of its Scherzo sections the more surprising and disappointing.
The highlight is undoubtedly the Adagio. Without intervening unduly in its evolution, Wong ensures cohesion over a movement manifestly riven if not outright fractured by the starkness of its thematic contrasts. The journey towards its seismic culmination feels as eventful as it is absorbing and while that climax is less shattering than it can be, the clarity afforded its dense harmonies could not be bettered. Wong is mindful, moreover, not to allow its coda to broaden into an extended postlude but instead to keep this moving in anticipation of what is to follow.
This is hardly the place to go into the whys or wherefores of the ‘SPCM’ edition of the Finale. Given his intensive research into the issues of what is extant and what Bruckner intended for the crowning movement of his grandest symphonic design, Phillips is ideally placed in making his revisions to a completion which renders some striking yet often disparate material from a focussed and convincing perspective. The main alterations are those made to its latter stages, more streamlined and with less overt rhetoric than in the 2011 revision as recorded by Simon Rattle (Warner) though, to this listener at least, the 2008 revision as recorded by Friedemann Layer (Musikalische Akademie) still remains the most convincing in context. Whatever else, Wong conveys the extent of this gripping torso right through to the elation of its apotheosis.
Does it all work?
How well this performance succeeds depends on how one judges the necessity of that closing movement and the persuasiveness of Wong’s interpretation as a whole. Pertinent comparison might be made with the Hallé’s previous recording (also on its own label) – Cristian Mandeal drawing a response that, in the first two movements, has a power and intensity in advance of this newcomer. Interesting he should eschew the finale while instilling into those three earlier movements a sense of completion which, whether or not intentionally, is its own justification.
Is it recommended?
It is, whatever the reservations here expressed. This is not the final word on a four-movement Bruckner Nine any more than on Wong’s evolving interpretation though, with realistic sound alongside Phillips’s detailed while informative annotations, it is evidently a mandatory listen.
Listen / Buy
You can read more about this release and explore purchase options at the Hallé website
Published post no.2,518 – Wednesday 30 April 2025
Published post no.2,509 – Sunday 20 April 2025
Arcana.fm 