Tag Archives: classical-music

In concert – Marie-Christine Zupancic, Sebastian Heindl, CBSO / Kazuki Yamada: Saint-Saëns, Respighi, Takemitsu & Berlioz

Posted on by
Reply

Marie-Christine Zupancic (flute), Sebastian Heindl (organ), City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra / Kazuki Yamada

Berlioz Le Corsaire Op.21 (1844)
Takemitsu I Hear the Water Dreaming (1987)
Respighi I Fontane di Roma P106 (1916)
Saint-Saëns Symphony no.3 in C minor Op.78 ‘Organ’ (1886)

Symphony Hall, Birmingham
Wednesday 4 June 2025

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse Picture of Kazuki Yamada (c) Benjamin Ealovega

The dashing upsurge at the start of The Corsair launched this evening’s concert by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra under its music director Kazuki Yamada in fine style. Nor was the pathos in this last of Berlioz’s concert overtures downplayed, and if the main portion lacked the pizzazz of illustrious predecessors, Yamada’s handling of the apotheosis proved an object-lesson in controlled spontaneity – setting the seal on a fine account of a piece that long -standing attendees will recall as a favourite of one-time principal conductor Louis Frémaux.

The music of Tōru Takemitsu was often heard in the era of Simon Rattle, but not I Hear the Water Dreaming. Taking its cue (along with other works of this period) from the ‘Dreamtime’ tradition of Aboriginal art, here a painting from the Papunya region of Western Australia, this short though eventful piece typifies its composer’s final creative phase – the formerly radical tendencies from previous years not so much disowned as finding an accommodation with the impressionist leanings of his earliest maturity. A sonic canvas, moreover, against which solo flute pursues its capricious course, with only a hint of something more confrontational either side of the cadenza-like passage towards its close. Certainly, this was music to which Marie-Christine Zupancic (taking time out as the CBSO’s first flute) sounded unerringly attuned.

CBSO regulars will recall Yamada presenting the whole of Respighi’s ‘Roman Triptych’ at a memorable concert four years ago. Tonight, Fountains of Rome rounded off the first half in a performance at its best in the effervescence of Triton at Morning or the dazzling majesty of Trevi at Midday, fading as if suspended in the Symphony Hall ambience. If Valle Giulia at Dawn felt a little passive in its allure, the enfolding serenity of Villa Medici at Sunset was fully sustained – the delicacy and suppleness of its entwining melodic lines accorded full rein.

The CBSO has been identified with Saint-Saëns’s Organ Symphony since Frémaux’s lauded recording of half-a-century ago, and it remains a work in which this orchestra excels. Yamada was (rightly) intent on stressing its symphonic cohesion, drawing ominous expectancy from the first part’s introduction and building no mean momentum in its ensuing Allegro. Sebastian Heindl’s hushed entry duly set the tone for a raptly eloquent slow movement, measured while never sluggish as it headed toward its heartfelt climax then on to a coda of bittersweet repose.

There was no lack of incisiveness or humour in the scherzo which opens the second part – its scintillating passagework for piano duet artfully integrated into the orchestral texture, with an ideally paced link into the finale with its indelible main melody and methodical build-up to a majestic peroration. Those thunderous initial chords aside, Heindl made less of an impact than might have been expected, but his always resourceful choice of registrations underlined the extent to which both he and Yamada continually had the ‘bigger picture’ uppermost in mind.

Overall, then, a concert which manifestly played to this orchestra’s collective strengths. The CBSO is back next week with its former music director Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla for what will be only a second UK performance, 63 years after the first, for Weinberg’s Fifth 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 soloists Marie-Christine Zupancic and Sebastian Heindl, and conductor Kazuki Yamada

Published post no.2,496 – Sunday 6 April 2025

Summer Music in City Churches 2025 – Eternal Light

Posted on by
Reply

from the press release and website:

Summer Music in City Churches is a festival in the City of London. Founded in 2018, it presents beautiful music to engage, divert and inspire, in ancient and architecturally stunning churches in the Square Mile. Standing cheek by jowl with City offices, these churches are glorious settings in which to listen and reflect: oases of history, beauty and peace amidst the 24-7 hurly-burly of City life.

It’s only a month until the opening night of this year’s Summer Music in City Churches. If you haven’t got your tickets yet, don’t lose any time.

‘Eternal Light’ is a series of stunning concerts presented during evenings and lunchtimes from 18th to 27th June. Along with some of the great choral requiem settings (Fauré, Duruflé, Verdi), you’ll find an enticing variety of luminous music performed in beautiful, historic churches.

It is our pleasure to welcome back the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted this year for the first time by Sir John Rutter. Other returning festival favourites include string quartet Brother Tree Sound, Tier3 Trio, RPO Brass, and pianists Iain Farrington, Mark Bebbington and Viv McLean.

We are thrilled to feature a number of up-and-coming talented young musicians, including: duo Eleanor Grant (voice and double bass) & Gus McQuade (guitar); soprano soloist Hannah Dienes-Williams; organist Paul Greally; award-winning guitarist Jack Hancher; and the exquisite sound of Corvus Consort.

There’s a special chance to hear Lucy Parham‘s composer portrait of Debussy, ahead of a sell-out performance at the Wigmore Hall later in the year.

Finally, don’t miss Verdi’s immortal Requiem in the remarkable new version by Richard Blackford performed by the City of London Choir under Daniel Hyde.

Evening concerts take place in St Giles Cripplegate; at lunchtimes we visit light-filled St James Garlickhythe, St Mary Abchurch and St Botolph-without-Bishopsgate for the first time. Click below for full details and to book tickets.

As a subscriber to our newsletter, you can buy tickets to all concerts – lunchtime and evening – with 20% off by quoting KESEL20 when you book. Or buy a season ticket to the whole festival for just £100.

For details and booking, head to the Summer Music in City Churches website

Published post no.2,543 – Saturday 24 May 2025

In concert – Roberts Balanas, Ealing Symphony Orchestra / John Gibbons: Electrifying Ealing – Bernstein, Ángela Luq, Coleridge-Taylor & Bliss

Posted on by
Reply

Roberts Balanas (electric violin, below), Ealing Symphony Orchestra / John Gibbons (above)

Bernstein orch. Kostall & Ramin Symphonic Dances from West Side Story (1957 arr. 1961)
Luq Electric Violin Concerto ‘Machina Humana’ (2023-24) [World Premiere]
Coleridge-Taylor Valse de la reine Op.22/3 (1899)
Bliss A Colour Symphony Op.24 (1921-22, rev, 1930)

St Barnabas Church, Ealing, London
Saturday 10 May 2025

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse Picture of Roberts Balanas (c) Kiril Kozlov

Another typically enterprising concert by the Ealing Symphony Orchestra and its longstanding music director John Gibbons, featuring the first performance (albeit not designated such) of a major work for electric violin and pieces from a diverse trio of British or American composers.

It might have been orchestrated by regular collaborators Irwin Kostall and Sid Ramin, but the Symphonic Dances from Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story is as characteristic of the latter’s idiom as it is representative of his most successful musical. Rhythmically a little straightlaced in the Prologue, the performance audibly hit its stride with a Somewhere of melting pathos then a vivacious Scherzo leading to an impulsive Mambo, before the insouciant Cha Cha and ominous fugal Cool presaged a visceral Rumble then a Finale of heartfelt eloquence.

Lauded for her work with electronics, Spanish composer Ángela Luq evidently had no qualms when tackling a full-scale concerto for electric violin. Comprising four contrasted movements, Machina humana duly exploits those timbral and expressive possibilities of its solo instrument – whether in the intricate rhythmic dialogues of its opening Machina, the lucid textures and sensuous harmonies of Sueño (Dream), the impulsive conflict between soloist and orchestra of Animal, then the surging emotions of the final Amar (Love). Musical content may have lacked memorability, with the work rather falling short of its ambition (at least as expressed in the composer’s programme note), but the virtuosity or finesse of Roberts Balanas in realizing this innovative project was unarguable, with the Ealing SO audibly relishing its involvement.

No doubt this piece will secure even greater attention when soloist, orchestra and conductor tour it to Latvia in due course. Maybe on that occasion Gibbons will take the opportunity to give what would likely a first hearing there of Valse de la reine by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. Third in a sequence of Four Characteristic Waltzes, this is a reminder that its composer was highly adept at ‘light’ music; its halting gait and its affecting lyricism to the fore in what was a welcome revival and a pertinent reminder of his legacy at the time of his premature death.

It also made a telling entrée into A Colour Symphony by Arthur Bliss. This 50th anniversary-year of his passing has led to a notable upsurge in performance and not least of what remains his best-known orchestral work. Whether or not Gibbons has previously conducted it, he had the measure of this piece. Purple made for a thoughtful yet never turgid prelude; one whose stately processional found immediate contrast in the alternate impetus and effulgence of the scherzo that is Red. Nor was there any underplaying of that ambivalent and even ominous element which underpins the outwardly placed unfolding of Blue, a slow movement which leads effortlessly into the finale that is Green with its intricately arrayed double-fugue that builds to a peroration whose outcome is a true declaration of intent thrillingly conveyed here.

An impressive performance, then, which once again confirmed Gibbons’s prowess across the broad spectrum of British orchestral music. Hopefully the Ealing SO will be able to include more Bliss in future programmes, this being music it had clearly taken to its collective heart.

Published post no.2,541 – Thursday 22 May 2025

On Record – English Symphony Orchestra / Kenneth Woods: Elgar Festival Live – Symphony no.1 & In The South (ESO Records)

Posted on by
2

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

In concert – The London Chorus and New London Orchestra / Adrian Brown: VE Day 80th Anniversary Concert @ Holy Trinity Church, Sloane Square

Posted on by
Reply

Petroc Trelawny (orator), The London Chorus, New London Orchestra / Adrian Brown

Vaughan Williams Six Choral Songs (1940)
Martinů Memorial to Lidice (1943)
Walton Spitfire Prelude and Fugue (1942)
Bliss Morning Heroes (1929-30)
Holst/Rice I Vow to Thee My Country (1921)

Holy Trinity Church, Sloane Square, London
Thursday 9 May 2025

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse

The London Chorus and New London Orchestra have put on notable concerts in recent years, few more ambitious than this programme to mark not merely the 80th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day but also the 50th anniversary of Sir Arthur Bliss’s death in appropriate manner.

The first half comprised an unlikely but effective sequence of pieces written at the start of or during the Second World War. Rarely revived as such, Vaughan Williams’s Six Choral Songs to be Sung in Time of War works well as a whole: settings of Shelley that touch on aspects of courage, liberty, healing, victory, then pity, peace and war – before A Song to the New Age characterizes its utopian leanings in subdued and even ambivalent terms which seem typical of its composer. Suffice to add that the London Chorus had the full measure of its aspiration.

Two succinct if otherwise entirely different pieces brought out the best from the New London Orchestra. Rarely so overt in emotion, Martinů was well-nigh explicit when commemorating Nazi atrocities in music of plangent harmonies and chorale-like fervency both evocative and affecting. Derived from his score to the film The First of the Few, Walton had come up with a showpiece whose ceremonial prelude is vividly countered by its incisive fugue – making way for a brief if poignant interlude before matters are brought to a head in the rousing peroration.

Although intimately bound up with the First World War, Morning Heroes is wholly apposite for the present context. Conceived as the exorcism of his wartime experiences, Bliss’s choral symphony elides deftly between a distant past and its present; the first of its five movements featuring an orchestral introduction to set out the underlying mood and salient motifs, before Hector’s Farewell to Adromache had Petroc Trelawny eloquently evoking that scene on the ramparts of Troy without excess rhetoric. Adrian Brown’s understated direction meaningfully pointed up the expressive contrast between this and The City Arming – the setting of Walt Whitman whose interaction of chorus and orchestra was powerfully sustained right through   to the simmering unease at its close, with the onset of hostilities in the American Civil War.

The two parts of the central movement saw each section of the London Chorus come into its own: the women in Vigil, a confiding take on lines by Li-Tai-Po (Li Bai) such as relates the emotions of those left behind; and the men in The Bivouac’s Flame, plangently evoking life at the front with further lines from Whitman’s Drum Taps. Choral forces reunite in Achilles Goes Forth to Battle, a setting from later in The Iliad which brings about the work’s climax via The Heroes – a rollcall commemorating those of Antiquity. After this, the starkness of Wilfred Owen’s Spring Offensive is the greater for its sparse accompaniment – Trelawny’s oration a model of understatement as this segued into the setting of Robert Nichols’s Dawn on the Somme with those ‘morning heroes’ themselves evoked affirmatively if fatalistically.

A concert which ended in fine style with Holst’s stirring anthem had begun in subdued fashion with Dawn on the Somme – Ronald Corp’s elegy, given hours after his death was announced. Someone who had always given his all to this chorus and orchestra, he will be greatly missed.

Ronald Corp OBE (1951-2025)

Published post no.2,530 – Sunday 11 May 2025