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In concert – Alina Ibragimova, CBSO / Dinis Sousa: Sibelius, Dvořák & Arvo Pärt

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Alina Ibragimova (violin, above), City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra / Dinis Sousa (below)

Pärt Our Garden (1959, rev. 2003)
Sibelius Violin Concerto in D minor Op.47 (1903-04, rev. 1905)
Dvořák Symphony no.8 in G major Op.88/B163 (1889)

Symphony Hall, Birmingham
Thursday 3 April 2025

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse Picture of Alina Ibragimova (c) Joss McKinley; Dinis Sousa (c)

In what was an auspicious first appearance with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Dinis Sousa presided over an appealing programme that featured repertoire staples by Sibelius and Dvořák alongside welcome revival of an uncharacteristic early choral piece by Arvo Pärt.

Uncharacteristic but highly enjoyable, Our Garden seems relatively untypical of the Estonian composer even in his mid-twenties – its winning an award at a Soviet-sponsored competition in 1962 bringing plaudits at a time when Pärt’s was very much an ‘unofficial’ presence on the new-music scene. Six decades on this can be enjoyed simply for what it is – an unpretentious celebration of youthful endeavour whose unaffected setting of four not overly polemical texts is as cohesive as it is sincere. Certainly, the CBSO Youth Chorus did justice to writing whose rhythmic unison was offset with some deft harmonic twists and enhanced by the resourceful contribution of a sizable orchestra. An obvious candidate for inclusion in music quizzes, Our Garden is never less than effective on its own terms and made for an attractive curtain-raiser.

Geographical proximity aside, there was little connection between Pärt’s cantata or Sibelius’s Violin Concerto, and while a performance of the latter rarely fails to impress it rarely catches fire as it did here. Alina Ibragimova has given some memorable performances in Birmingham over recent seasons, but this account got to the heart of a piece that, for all its indebtedness to Romantic-era virtuosity, is no less original in form or content than its composer’s symphonies and tone poems of this period. Most notable were Ibragimova’s fusing of the first movement’s central cadenza with developmental impetus, her building of cumulative momentum over the course of the Adagio or a final Allegro which, though this may all but have eschewed the ‘ma non tanto’ marking, exuded a drive and panache maintained through to the scintillating close.

A first-rate accompanist, Sousa (above) brought out much of interest from the orchestral texture – not least its writing for low woodwind and horns which frequently underpins the soloist in a way that could only be Sibelius. Such attention to detail was equally evident in his performance of Dvořák’s Eighth Symphony – music easy to take for granted in its warmth and affability, yet whose opening Allegro is a masterclass in formal innovation as benefitted from the incisive if never overdriven energy Sousa brought to this movement as a whole and its coda in particular.

Even finer was the Adagio, its pathos shot through with an ominous import which came to the surface at its brief if forceful climaxes and so confirmed this as music of rare eloquence. The intermezzo’s twin themes unfolded with an ideal lilt that made its boisterous pay-off the more fitting, while the finale made the most of Dvořák’s putting his trenchant folk-dance through a set of variations whose rapidly growing excitement could always be sensed even as the music subsided towards virtual stasis, from where the peroration made for a truly uproarious QED.

Those expecting Finlandia at the start of the second half (as indicated in this season’s guide) were disappointed, but Sousa did offer the second (in G) of Dvořák’s Legends as an apposite encore – its fluid interplay of poise and humour the ideal way to end this memorable concert.

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 conductor Dinis Sousa, violinist Alina Ibragimova and the CBSO Youth Chorus

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

On Record – Myaskovsky: Vocal Works Vol. 2 (Ilya Kuzmin, Dzambolat Dulaev & Olga Solovieva) (Toccata Classics)

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Myaskovsky
Six Poems of Alexander Blok Op. 20 (1920)
At the Decline of Day: Three Sketches to Words by Fyodor Tyutchev Op.21 (1922)
Three Sketches Op.45 (1938)
From the Lyric Poetry of Stepan Shchipachyov Op. 52 (1940) Songs of Many Years Op.87 (1901-1936, rev. 1950) – nos.1, 6, 7 & 10
Two Songs of Polar Explorers (1939)

Ilya Kuzmin (baritone, Op.20, Op.45), Dzambolat Dulaev (baritone, all other songs), Olga Solovieva (piano)

Toccata Classics TOCC0667 [62’44”] Russian (Cyrillic) texts and English translations included
Producer and Engineer Ilya Dontsov

Recorded 2018-2022

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse

What’s the story?

Toccata Classics continues its estimable coverage of the songs by Nikolay Myaskovsky with a second volume devoted to those for baritone which, in term of its performances, sound and annotations, is no less successful as a demonstration of the composer’s prowess in this genre.

What’s the music like?

Myaskovsky composed some 120 songs, with roughly half written early in his career before the symphony was central to his thinking. The first two collections here emerged between his Fifth and Sixth Symphonies, a traumatic time personally and culturally with civil war having engulfed the Soviet Union. Hence that darkly fatalistic aura which pervades the Six Poems of Alexander Blok, its texts drawn from this poet’s early maturity at the tune of the 20th century and framed by two of Myaskovsky’s finest songs: the bittersweet A full moon has risen over the meadow and the speculative In the silent night. Written soon afterwards, At the Decline of Day features three ‘sketches’ after Fyodor Tyutchev whose brevity only accentuates their expressive acuity – notably the central setting ‘Your friendly voice prompts no living spark’.

Over a decade on and Three Sketches finds Myaskovsky tackling poetry with whose Socialist Realism he could have had little empathy, though his setting of Lev Kvitko’s A Conversation evinces a wistful poise hardly warranted by the text. This quality is more gainfully employed in From the Lyric Poetry of Stepan Shchipachyov, not least for the way the composer invests often wantonly propagandist texts with that sense of imaginative wonder that may have been their desired intention all along – as is evident from such as Mount Elbrus and the Aeroplane. Although published as Myaskovsky’s last opus, Songs of Many Years collates 15 songs which had been written often many years before. Of the four heard here, Thus yearns the soul finds the 20-year-old setting Aleksey Koľtsov’s text with due awareness of its aspirational ardency, while the baleful Sonnet of Michelangelo makes pertinent comparison with Shostakovich’s version 65 years on. The first two from Four Songs of Polar Explorers offer a distinctive take on the ‘mass song’, of which the rousing Song of the Polar Sailors audibly fulfils its remit.

Does it all work?

Yes, providing one accepts that Myaskovsky was not a composer of songs given to extremes of emotion or flights of fancy in those texts he chose to set. Such a tendency to introspection could easily have been over-emphasized through allotting this selection solely to the baritone register, and it is a tribute to Ilya Kuzmin and Dzambolat Dulaev that any risk of expressive uniformity is wholly avoided – the former as unforced in his eloquence as the latter renders his often more impersonal settings with a light and flexible touch. Both singers here benefit from Olga Solovieva’s perceptive accompaniment, confirming her once again as a pianist of no little finesse. The texts and translations for all of these 28 songs have been included, and though some may regret the absence of transliterations, they can mostly be accessed online.

Is it recommended?

Very much so, and not least as Patrick Zuk’s booklet note sets the scene so thoroughly yet evocatively. Warmly recommended and, with just over a third of Myaskovsky’s songs now recorded, this is hopefully a series that Toccata will be able to see through to its completion.

Listen & Buy

For purchase options, you can visit the Toccata Classics website. For information on the performers, click on the names to read more about Ilya Kuzmin, Dzambolat Dulaev and Olga Solovieva – and composer Nikolay Myaskovsky

Published post no.2,493 – Thursday 3 April 2025

On Record – Alessandro Marangoni, Orazio Sciortino, Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano / Giuseppe Grazioli: Rieti: Piano Concertos (Naxos)

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Rieti
Piano Concerto no.1 (1926)
Piano Concerto no.2 (1937)
Piano Concerto no.3 (1955)
Concerto for Two Pianos (1951)

Alessandro Marangoni, Orazio Sciortino (pianos), Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano / Giuseppe Grazioli

Naxos 8.564505 [80’27”]
Producer Stefano Barzan Engineer Cinzia Guareschi

Dates: 21-22 August 2022, 17-20 August 2023 (Piano Concerto no.3, Concerto for Two Pianos) at Auditorium di Milano

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse

What’s the story?

Naxos continues its enterprising 20th Century Italian Classics with the concertante works for piano by Vittorio Rieti (1898-1994), the Egyptian-born Italian composer whose years in Paris then New York and Chicago afforded contact with a range of illustrious musicians and artists.

What’s the music like?

Dedicated to Poulenc and likely inspired by the success of Prokofiev’s Third Concerto earlier that decade, Rieti’s First Piano Concerto brings a deft touch to its ostensible neo-Classicism – whether in the martially-inflected playfulness of its initial Allegro, laconic but also beguiling ambivalence of its central Andantino, or the theatrical high-jinx of a final Allegro whose nod towards jazz rhythm marks this out as a piece decidedly yet always unaffectedly of its time. Seemingly forgotten following its premiere (by the composer?), its revival is well deserved.

Just over a decade on, the Second Piano Concerto emerged from material originally intended for a harpsichord concerto. On a similar scale to its predecessor, the opening Allegro has an impetus that denotes the uncertainty spreading throughout Europe at this time, and which is intensified by the central Adagio with its plangent discourse between soloist and orchestra; a quality the final Allegro (which follows with barely a pause) does not so much overcome as dismiss through an energetic repartee which brings about the nominally affirmative ending.

By the time of his Third Piano Concerto, Rieti was well established in the United States such that the present work is audibly in the lineage of American works for this medium of the post -war era. Any undue portentousness in the introductory Largo is dismissed with the vivacious Allegro that follows, then the central Andantino confirms that, while Rieti’s idiom might not have altered substantially over his career, it gained in subtlety and depth. Any more ominous expression is avoided in the final Allegro as it wends a capricious course to its decisive close.

Written in the wake of his relocation to the USA, the Two-Piano Concerto helped to establish Rieti’s reputation in a very different cultural climate. There is little moderate about either the tempo or character of the impetuous opening Allegro, then the central Allegretto comprises a set of variations’ which takes its unassuming theme through a diverse range of moods without losing focus on route to the pensive close. The final Allegro turns away from any encroaching inwardness with its energetic fugal interplay such as makes for an ending of pointed defiance.

Does it all work?

It does, provided one accepts Rieti as a product of his age rather than trailblazer or innovator. Stravinsky, Prokofiev and even Jean Françaix are prominent in the stylistic mix, with a more tensile aspect derived from Copland in the works of his American years. Not that this should offset enjoyment of music that feels never less than communicative and often engagingly so, particularly as regards the latter two pieces. Both of these were recorded way back in the LP era, but to have all four works rendered in such sympathetic readings is hardly to be gainsaid.

Is it recommended?

It is, not least when Alessandro Marangoni (alongside Orazio Sciortino) is so attuned to this music, while Giuseppe Grazioli obtains a committed response from the Milan orchestra. The succinct booklet notes are highly informative and further enhance the appeal of this release.

Listen & Buy

For purchase options, you can visit the Naxos website. For information on the performers, click on the names to read more about Alessandro Marangoni, Orazio Sciortino, Giuseppe Grazioli and the Orchestra Sinfonica Milano. An interview between Vittorio Rieti and Bruce Duffie can be read here

Published post no.2,492 – Wednesday 2 April 2025

In appreciation – Sir Arthur Bliss

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by Ben Hogwood

Today marks 50 years since the passing of Sir Arthur Bliss, one of the most important composers in recent British musical history.

The Arthur Bliss Society sum up his contribution as “one of the most important figures in British musical life from the early 1920s (when he was regarded as an enfant terrible) through to his later years and his tenure of the office of Master of the Queen’s Music from 1953, following Sir Arnold Bax”.

If you are a regular Arcana reader you will have read about recent performances of A Colour Symphony, one of his most popular orchestral works, and also a revival for his masterful Temporal Variations, recorded by the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra and John Wilson for later this anniversary year.

For now, here is a Tidal playlist taking excerpts from some of Bliss’s most important works, as well as including the two orchestral works noted above:

https://tidal.com/browse/playlist/5bd034aa-a0fb-42f5-9b1c-28788ad8a0fa

To read about further concerts in Bliss’s anniversary year, you can visit the Arthur Bliss Society website – where you will find more information about the pieces above.

Published post no.2,486 – Thursday 27 March 2025

In appreciation – Pierre Boulez

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by Ben Hogwood

Today marks the centenary of the birth of composer and conductor Pierre Boulez, a towering figure in 20th century classical music.

There are so many recordings conducted by Boulez that I thought it best to share a playlist centred on memories of concerts I saw him conduct, largely from the 1990s and 2000s.

My first encounter with him was a rare appearance with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall. There he conducted Bartók’s Piano Concerto no.1 with customary clarity, soloist Krystian Zimerman delivering a memorable performance of percussive drive as he does here. On the second half of the concert was Stravinsky’s Petrushka, well-represented here by Boulez’s recording for DG in Cleveland.

Another South Bank visit in the 1990s brought an unusual appearance for Schoenberg’s monodrama Erwartung, sung memorably by soprano Jessye Norman. I remember vividly several visits to the Barbican to see Boulez conduct the London Symphony Orchestra in the 1990s, and one performance that particularly stands in the memory was that of Ravel’s Valses nobles et sentimentales, a colourful yet brisk performance that danced with a glint in its eye.

One other eyeopener, which I will never forget, was Boulez conducting Prokofiev’s Scythian Suite at the Barbican – a work he never recorded. Simultaneously on the bill was Szymanowski’s Violin Concerto no.1. Here was a composer Boulez seemingly re-evaluated later in his life, recording the concerto with violinist Christian Tetzlaff for DG.

From the recorded side I have included Maurizio Pollini’s pioneering account of Boulez’s own Piano Sonata no.2, a challenging piece that I must admit I have not yet conquered – but whose importance is clear.

To finish, my favourite Boulez recording, which finds him back in Cleveland conducting Debussy’s Nocturnes, a recording notable for its ideal pacing, beautiful colouring and immaculate rhythmic direction.

You can listen to this selection on Tidal by clicking on the playlist link below:

https://tidal.com/browse/playlist/3632d2ec-3ba7-4c0f-9654-569aff5dfb1d

Published post no.2,485 – Wednesday 25 March 2025