Tag Archives: City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra

In concert – Jeremy Denk, CBSO / Kazuki Yamada: Gershwin, Clyne, Ravel & Mussorgsky / Wood

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Jeremy Denk (piano, above), City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra / Kazuki Yamada

Gershwin An American in Paris (1928)
Clyne ATLAS (2023) [CBSO Co-Commission: UK Premiere]
Ravel Pavane pour une infante défunte (1899, orch. 1910)
Mussorgsky orch. Wood Pictures at an Exhibition (1874, orch. 1915)

Symphony Hall, Birmingham
Wednesday 1 May 2024

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse

This evening’s concert by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra may have taken its overall title from the final work, but ‘pictures’ were everywhere in evidence and not merely those ‘at an exhibition’ – not least with Kazuki Yamada as enthusiastic as ever at the helm.

While it loses out to his Rhapsody in Blue in the popularity stakes, Gershwin’s An American in Paris is surely the most successful of his orchestral pieces for matching its immediacy of imagery to a resourceful structure. Encouraging the CBSO to a bracing response in the outer sections, and with Jason Lewis’s nostalgic trumpet initiating that pathos-laden central phase, Yamada secured a response whose full-on expression was offset by too sectional an approach – the music proceeding in a stop-start fashion rather than unfolding organically as it should.

Over recent years, the New York-based Anna Clyne has emerged among the leading British composers of her generation, with this first UK hearing for her piano concerto ATLAS keenly anticipated. Inspired by the eponymous and epic collection of the artist Gerhard Richter, this likewise falls into four ‘volumes’ rather than movements, which also underlines their relative formal freedom. Certainly, the ingenious interplay between soloist and orchestra is a tough challenge which Jeremy Denk met head-on – whether in the coursing energy then yielding eloquence of the opening Fierce, alluring textural overlaps of Freely, intimate, the lilting nonchalance of Driving or cumulative activity of the final Transparent with its surge to an emphatic close that (as with this work overall) was capricious and allusive in equal measure.

Doubtless motivated by Denk’s coruscating virtuosity, the CBSO gave its collective all in a work which (rightly) appealed to those present – the pianist responding with his deft take on the Heliotrope Rag co-written by Scott Joplin and the tragically short-lived Louis Chauvin.

After the interval, a rare moment of calm – Ravel’s Pavane for a Dead Princess given with a studied if never stolid grace, Elspeth Dutch’s horn and Katherine Thomas’ harp enhancing its appeal. As with Fauré’s Pavane, this is ideal music for opening the second half of a concert.

And so, to Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition – heard here in the orchestration by Henry Wood which preceded and was duly superseded by Ravel’s. Wood is more interventionist, not least by reducing the recurrent ‘Promenade’ to a stealthy introduction, but not necessarily less faithful to the piano work’s spirit – hence the scabrous immediacy of Gnomus, sombre aura of The Old Castle (Andrew McDade’s tuba balefully intoning on high above stage-right), or fatalistic tread of Bydlo with its evocative percussion. Respighi was probably taken by this glowering depiction of Catacombs with a ghostly recollection of the promenade hardly less effective, and if Baba Yaga gets summarily curtailed here, the crescendo of bells launching The Great Gate[s] of Kiev set the tone for a treatment whose opulence borders on overkill.

Not that this inhibited the CBSO from projecting Wood’s organ-clad texture to the maximum, to the enthusiasm of an audience that erupted in the lingering resonances at its close. Quite a way to end an impressive performance, and a memorable concert, on a day that saw Yamada become this orchestra’s Music Director and the CBSO launch ‘A Season of Joy’ for 2024/25.

Click on the link to read more on the current CBSO concert season, and also to read about the recently announced 2024/25 programme. Click on the names for more on pianist Jeremy Denk, conductor Kazuki Yamada, and composer Anna Clyne

Published post no.2,168 – Saturday 4 May 2024

In concert – James Ehnes, CBSO / Markus Stenz: Schumann Violin Concerto & Bruckner Symphony no.7

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James Ehnes (violin, above), City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra / Markus Stenz (below)

Schumann Violin Concerto in D minor WoO23 (1853)
Bruckner Symphony no.7 in E major WAB107 (1881-83, ed. Nowak)

Symphony Hall, Birmingham
Thursday 25 April 2024

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse Picture of James Ehnes (c) Benjamin Ealovega, Markus Stenz (c) Kaupo Kikkas

His appearance here for performances of Mahler’s Second Symphony two years ago had made one hope that Markus Stenz might soon be invited back to the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra – such being so tonight for this outstanding programme of Schumann and Bruckner.

Although it now enjoys frequent hearing, Schumann’s Violin Concerto yet remains under the shadow of its eight-decade limbo after the composer’s mental breakdown then decision by its intended soloist Joseph Joachim to withhold performance. Only in 1937 was it given in public, since when it has gradually come to be regarded (as Yehudi Menuhin believed it would be) as the missing link between Beethoven and Brahms. Certainly, there was nothing tentative about James Ehnes’ advocacy, which proved as interpretively acute as it was technically immaculate.

Pacing the initial movement so that its earnest character never becomes unduly sombre is not easy, but Ehnes ensured its halting progress never felt effortful and Stenz drew textures of no mean luminosity from these modest forces. The slow movement seemed more eloquent for its listless pathos, with its terse transition into the finale astutely judged. Its underlying polonaise rhythm deftly inflected, this rather gauche rondo yielded an easy-going momentum in the call and response between soloist and orchestra, through to a conclusion both genial and resolute.

A memorable performance which reinforced Ehnes as among the most consistent (as well as undemonstrative) of present-day virtuosi – something that was no less evident in his account of the Third Sonata (‘Ballade’) by Eugène Ysaÿe which here made for a scintillating encore.

The UK has seen little of Stenz since his tenure with the London Sinfonietta during the mid-1990s, a pity given he has few peers among conductors of his generation in terms of Austro-German repertoire. Such was borne out by Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony – Classical in its lucidity of motion, Romantic in its frequently impulsive emotion. Not least an initial Allegro moderato that elided between its contrasting themes with unforced rightness, the abruptness of certain tempo changes (accentuated by his rare recourse these days to the Nowak edition) channelled into a coda of surging sublimity. Even finer was the Adagio for the inevitability with which this drew respectively elegiac and lyrical themes into a sustained traversal, via an exultant peroration (cymbal and triangle duly outdone by timpani), to a nobly resigned close.

The latter two movements can easily seem anti-climactic, but there was nothing understated about the Scherzo as Stenz heard this – the impetus and acerbity of its outer sections finding accord with a trio whose lilting poise was delectably pointed. As for the Finale, most succinct of Bruckner’s maturity, Stenz emphasized its expressive contrast between themes through his choice of tempi – while managing to mould these into a convincing unity before heading into a coda which revisits that of the first movement with blazing affirmation in the here and now.

The performance would not have made the impact it did without the CBSO playing at or near its best throughout – such Bruckner interpretation having few, if any, equals when it comes to live music-making. One can only hope conductor and orchestra will work together again soon.

Click on the link to read more on the current CBSO concert season, and on the names for more on violinist James Ehnes and conductor Markus Stenz

Published post no.2,161 – Saturday 26 April 2024

In concert – Ian Bostridge, CBSO / Gergely Madaras: Thorvaldsdottir, Britten & Tchaikovsky

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Ian Bostridge (tenor), City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra / Gergely Madaras (above)

Thorvaldsdottir Dreaming (2008)
Britten Les Illuminations Op.18 (1939)
Tchaikovsky Symphony no.1 in G minor Op.13 ‘Winter Daydreams’ (1866, rev. 1883)

Symphony Hall, Birmingham
Wednesday 17 April 2024

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse Picture of Gergely Madaras (c) Hannah Fathers

This evening’s concert with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra comprised what was an unusually cohesive programme centred on the concept of ‘dreams’, assembled and directed with consistent empathy and insight by the Hungarian conductor Gergely Madaras.

Dreaming was the title as well as the watchword of the piece by Anna Thorvaldsdottir which opened proceedings. Her first major work for orchestra is already characteristic in its eliding between evocations arcadian and desolate, with an undeniable sense of the ominous coming through as the final stages take on an extemporized quality; musicians gradually exiting the sonic frame with just the capricious asides of a cellist remaining. Eduardo Vassallo made the most of this brief spotlight, and the CBSO made its collective presence felt to striking effect.

Arthur Rimbaud’s brief but meteoric spell as a poet in the early 1870s had belated if decisive impact on numerous composers and none more than Britten, his song-cycle Les Illuminations among his finest achievements in any medium. Having sung it many times, Ian Bostridge (above) still manages to point up the growing anticipation of ‘Fanfare’ or breathless excitement of Villes; his wide-eyed wonder in Phrase then graceful musing in Antique matched by the resolute irony of Marine or glancing wit of Royauté. Madaras drew languorous playing from the CBSO strings in Interlude and brought out the ecstatic longing of Being Beauteous, before the fervid imagining of Parade brought this sequence full circle. It remained for Départ to offer a fulfilled exit as poet – and composer – resignedly bids farewell to the realm of dreams.

This gripping account should not have needed Bostridge to address members of the audience after the fourth song, asking they refrain taking pictures on their mobiles while the music was in progress. An overhaul of the management’s current laissez-faire approach might be in order.

After the interval, a comparatively rare outing for Tchaikovsky’s First Symphony. The ‘Winter Daydreams’ of its subtitle implies an unforced though rarely contrary take on formal precepts, as in an opening movement (oddly marked Allegro tranquillo) whose often portentous pauses were well integrated by Madaras into the cumulative symphonic flow. The CBSO woodwind came into own with the Adagio – its oboe melody among its composer’s most affecting, and not least when it returns at the movement’s climax in a mood of expansive if fateful grandeur.

Partly drawn from an earlier piano sonata, the Scherzo exudes a pert animation that Madaras judged to a nicety, as he did the wistful ruminations of its trio. Much the hardest movement to make cohere, the Finale unfolded persuasively from its sombre introduction to a celebratory Allegro replete with fugal episodes; the ensuing build-up (its effect not lost on Shostakovich) to the resounding restatement of its main theme duly capped by an apotheosis whose overkill was (rightly) kept well within limits, thereby setting the seal on this persuasive performance. For imaginative programming and convincing execution, Madaras is at the forefront among conductors of his generation – his rapport with the CBSO evident throughout. This should be equally true when Markus Stenz returns next week for a pairing of Schumann and Bruckner.

Click on the link to read more on the current CBSO concert season, and on the names for more on tenor Ian Bostridge and conductor Gergely Madaras. Click here for an interview Arcana conducted with composer Anna Thorvaldsdottir in 2023

Published post no.2,153 – Friday 19 April 2024

In concert – Stewart Goodyear, CBSO / Ilan Volkov: Ives, Zappa, Lewis & Gershwin

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Stewart Goodyear (piano), City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra / Ilan Volkov (above)

Ives Three Places in New England (1911-14, rev. 1929)
Zappa Bob in Dacron and Sad Jane (1982-3)
Lewis Memex (2014)
Gershwin orch. Grofé Rhapsody in Blue (1924, rev. 1942)

Symphony Hall, Birmingham
Wednesday 27 March 2024

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse

Ilan Volkov is always a welcome presence on the Symphony Hall podium, and this evening he conducted the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra in a fascinating programme of works by American composers – three of them established in music notably removed from classical.

The concert was framed by what have now become repertoire pieces, but Ives’s Three Places in New England had to wait over half a century to be accorded this status. Using what sounded to be the most recent edition, Volkov stressed its late-Romantic impulsiveness and rhetorical eloquence, though some over-emphatic pauses or phrasing slightly undersold the cumulative majesty of The Saint Gaudens and coursing energy of Putnam’s Camp – which latter still teetered (rightly) on chaos at its close. If the build-up in The Housatonic at Stockbridge felt unduly precipitate, Rachel Pankhurst’s rendering of its cor anglais melody had ideal pathos.

The three decades since Frank Zappa’s untimely death have brought into focus his sheer range of musical preoccupations, though his pair of early 1980s albums with the London Symphony Orchestra made plain that being one of rock music’s finest guitarists and leading provocateurs was never enough. Despite their linkage via a ballet with its somewhat dubious scenario, Bob in Dacron and Sad Jane are individual entities and their respective two movements underline Zappa’s concern for musical and expressive diversity – whether in the reckless overkill of the male protagonist or halting fatalism of the female. Volkov secured dedicated playing from the CBSO as brought out Zappa’s debt to ‘third stream’ jazz as much as his modernist forebears.

George Lewis is another figure whose creativity ranges over multiple media – not least that of the orchestra which, thanks not least to Volkov’s advocacy, has gained some familiarity in the UK. Its title referring to a theoretical device for establishing connections across an otherwise unregulated body of information, Memex is typical of the composer through its complexity of textures which affords a heady virtuosity but also a measure of subtlety and inwardness, not least in those final stages when the earlier volatility gradually coalesces into something akin to resolution; as if all that information was, if not dispersed, at least finding discipline. Such, at least, was the impression left by this committed reading of a striking and absorbing piece.

It might have been a conceptual leap too far from here to Gershwin’s galvanizing of the ‘jazz age’ aesthetic almost a century earlier, though Rhapsody in Blue has lost relatively little of its edge during the interim – especially when Stewart Goodyear projected the steely spontaneity of its solo part with such gusto. Admittedly the large orchestral forces (a feature of each work heard tonight) lacked a degree of co-ordination in tutti sections, but Volkov was at one with his pianist in conveying the breezy and often brittle excitement of music which sounded as   if evolving in real-time – not least the final stages that emerged as a high-octane apotheosis.

No little excitement, then, was generated over the course of this performance as of this concert overall: just the sort of event the CBSO should be putting on each season, which latter would certainly be the poorer were artists such as Volkov not encouraged to follow their convictions.

Click on the link to read more on the current CBSO concert season, and on the names for more on pianist Stewart Goodyear, conductor Ilan Volkov and composers Frank Zappa and George Lewis.

Published post no.2,133 – Saturday 30 March 2024

In concert – Anu Komsi, CBSO / Sakari Oramo: Sibelius Tempest Suite & Sypmhony no.7; Richard Strauss & Merikanto

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Anu Komsi (soprano), City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra / Sakari Oramo (above)

Sibelius The Tempest (1925-6) – Suite no.1 Op.109/ 2
Richard Strauss Vier letzte Lieder, AV150 (1948)
Merikanto Ekho (1922)
Sibelius Symphony no.7 in C major Op. 105 (1923-4)

Symphony Hall, Birmingham
Wednesday 28 February 2024

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse Pictures (c) Hannah Blake-Fathers

Could it really be 15 years since Sakari Oramo last conducted the orchestra of which he was music director for a decade? Time has passed, but his rapport with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra was evident throughout what proved a well-planned and finely executed concert.

Sibelius featured prominently during Oramo’s tenure, with recorded and live cycles of the symphonies, so it was natural his music frame this programme. His music for The Tempest is the most diverse of his theatre works – the First Suite drawn from this lavish score opening with a searing evocation of The Oak Tree, before heading into a characterful Humoreske then Caliban’s Song with its telling bizarrerie. The Harvesters reminded of Sibelius’s gift for ‘light music’, as too the animated Canon and insinuating Scene, to which the plangent Berceuse then ominous Interlude made for startling contrast. A truncated version of The Tempest music that provided the prelude followed on with due seamlessness – its teetering on the metaphorical edge brought up abruptly if convincingly in this gripping performance.

Anu Komsi (above) then joined the orchestra for Richard Strauss’s Four Last Songs – a sequence which often gains emotional gravitas as it proceeds, though a slight edginess in Frühling gave it greater expressive ambivalence prior to the fatalism of September – the most perfectly realized of these songs. The growing rapture of Beim Schlafengehen featured a poised violin solo from Eugene Tzikindelean, then Komsi gave of her eloquent best in Im Abendrot – its euphonious postlude accorded suitably spacious treatment by Oramo as this evanesces towards eternity.

Komsi returned after the interval with what must have been a first hearing in Birmingham for Ekho, a short but arresting scena by Finnish composer Aarre Merikanto. Written just after his opera Juha, at the start of his most innovative period, this draws on the example of Sibelius’s Luonnotar along with the post-Impressionism of Koechlin and Roussel. Its intricately detailed textures complement a vocal line as virtuosic technically as it is audacious expressively, one with which Komsi was in her element as this music heads almost intuitively to a furtive close.

Fascinating to recall while Merikanto was pursuing so fractured a musical discourse, Sibelius was working towards his most integrated statement. Oramo has given many performances of the Seventh Symphony, but the present one felt exceptional in the ease and inevitability of its formal follow-through. The eliding from one section to the next was realized with a rightness which, as with the motivic constituents from which this work emerges, never drew attention to itself other than during moments of greatest expressive focus – notably those appearances of the trombone theme which ensure unity, even when the music retreats from its emotional apex into a coda not so much final as immovable. Nor was this achieved through conscious interpretation, Oramo setting a course that allowed the musicians simply to play the music.

This impressive performance rounded off a no less impressive evening. Before the last work, Oramo spoke about the significance his CBSO tenure had for his conducting and his regret this ‘reunion’ had taken so long. Hopefully his next appearance will not be so long in coming.

Click on the link to read more on the current CBSO concert season, and on the names for more on soprano Anu Komsi and conductor Sakari Oramo.

Published post no.2,106 – Sunday 3 March 2024