Tag Archives: Ilan Volkov

In concert – Isata Kanneh-Mason, CBSO / Ilan Volkov: Sibelius, Prokofiev & Freya Waley-Cohen

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Isata Kanneh-Mason (piano), City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra / Ilan Volkov

Sibelius The Oceanides, Op. 73 (1914)
Prokofiev Piano Concerto No. 3 in C, Op. 26 (1921)
Waley-Cohen Demon (2022) [CBSO Centenary Commission: World Premiere]
Sibelius Symphony No. 5 in E flat, Op. 82 (1915-19)

Symphony Hall, Birmingham
Wednesday 22 February 2023

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse

A frequent visitor during the past quarter-century, Ilan Volkov’s concerts with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra are always to be anticipated, and so it proved with this evening’s programme which brought together the familiar and the new to engaging effect.

Sibelius provided a potent framework, The Oceanides (of which the CBSO made a fine recording with Simon Rattle now almost four decades ago) heard in a reading of unusual breadth and deliberation. Not that this ever impeded the progress of music whose almost impressionistic eddying goes hand in hand with inexorability of motion; the outcome a double climax whose spiralling intensity – visceral even in the context of Sibelius’s later music – makes way for a coda whose understated fatalism was affectingly conveyed here.

Along with her brother Sheku, Isata Kanneh-Mason has had a major impact on the UK music scene – her skill and insight evident throughout this performance of Prokofiev’s Third Piano Concerto. There was no lack of élan in passagework where the composer sought to confirm his own pianistic credentials as he built a career in the West, but also a tendency to brittleness as arguably sold the music short. It was in more reflective sections that Kanneh-Mason came fully into her own – the limpid musing on its main theme at the centre of the first movement, the spectral half-lights of its successor’s third variation, or the warmly expressive melody at the heart of the finale in which her rapport with Volkov was tangible. If the electrifying close brought less than the ultimate frisson, it still set the seal on a reading of impressive potential.

After the interval, another in the CBSO’s Centenary Commissions – the well-regarded Freya Waley-Cohen (above) duly responding with Demon. Its scenario evoking the more ominous of folk stories, this piece packed a considerable amount of incident into its 11 minutes – a Ligetian playfulness offsetting its frequently intricate polyphony to diverting and, throughout the final stages, impulsive effect. Drawing an incisive and precise response, Volkov seemed intent on presenting this colourful curtain-raiser as well worthy of further and repeated performance.

Volkov’s accounts of Sibelius’s Third and Fourth Symphonies were highlights of a complete cycle at the 2015 Proms, and this account of the Fifth found his advocacy undimmed. Others have found greater atmosphere in the first movement’s earlier stages, but the purposefulness with which he built to its defining climax was undoubted; as too a corresponding build-up of momentum in its ‘scherzo’ – Matthew Hardy’s volleys of timpani spearheading the propulsive coda. More intermezzo than slow movement, the Andante had an appealingly winsome aura for all its darker undertones (with some delectable woodwind playing), while the finale made the most of its contrasts in motion – the ‘swan melody’ eloquently rendered – on the way to an apotheosis whose surging affirmation was driven home by those indelible closing chords.

An impressive performance, then, such as brought this concert to a suitably inspiring close. Volkov is on the podium again this Sunday – directing the CBSO Youth Orchestra in a new piece by Bergrun Snaebjörnsdottir, heard alongside music by Grażyna Bacewicz and Berlioz.

You can read all about the 2022/23 season and book tickets at the CBSO website. Click on the artist and composer names for more on Ilan Volkov, Isata Kanneh-Mason and Freya Waley-Cohen

BBC Proms – Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Folktone, BBC SSO / Ilan Volkov: Bartók Roots

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Patkop Konzerthaus artist in Residence serie

Folktone [below – Adam Römer (violin), Tamás Ferencz (violas, percussion, dance), János Kállai (dulcimer), András Lovászi (double bass)]
Patricia Kopatchinskaja (violin), BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra / Ilan Volkov

Traditional Hungarian folk music
Bartók Violin Concerto no.2 BB117 (1937-8)
Traditional Hungarian folk music
Bartók Suite no.2 BB40 (1905-7, rev. 1920 & ’43)

Royal Albert Hall, London
Saturday 28 August 2021

Written by Richard Whitehouse; picture of Ilan Volkov by Astrid Ackermann

This evening’s Prom may have seen the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra’s chief conductor Thomas Dausgaard replaced by its principal guest Ilan Volkov, but the ‘Bartók Roots’ concept remained unchanged so as to provide a fascinating and instructive overview of the interface between folk and art music.

Each Bartók piece was preceded by a selection of (mainly) dances courtesy of the band Folktone (led by Adam Römer, familiar as section-leader violist with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra). It was hardly a surprise that Patricia Kopatchinskaja, making her belated Proms debut, should have joined this enterprising quartet to make even more explicit the process whereby Bartók translated those folk melodies directly into the thematic content of his mature compositions – the seamless transition of one to the other doubtless giving Proms listeners pause for thought.

No performance by Kopatchinskaja could be described as routine, as it proved with Bartók’s Second Violin Concerto – less an interpretation than recreation of this greatest from a ‘golden age’ of such works, not least for the way it integrates formal rigour with that spontaneity of emotion emblematic of its composer. While there was no mistaking the all-round correlation between the outer Allegros, the means by which Kopatchinskaja emphasized this without loss of subtlety or expressive nuance underlined just how each of these movements reflects then transforms the other. Volkov secured playing of due sensitivity and poise from the BBCSSO – here and in an Andante whose variations on one of Bartók’s most disarming melodies was never more affecting than when this returns, only to evanesce into silence towards its close.

Kopatchinskaja herself returned for an apposite encore of Ligeti’s early Ballad and Dance in partnership with orchestra-leader Laura Samuel, the BBCSSO then joining-in with a repeat of the second piece. A further selection of folk pieces followed the interval, and prior to the performance of the Second Suite – among several early orchestral works by Bartók that are seldom revived but which throw a fascinating light on his evolution. If less amenable to the pointing up of its derivations from folk sources, the putative connections are no less evident.

At just over 30 minutes and scored for relatively reduced forces, this piece catches Bartók on either side of his initiation into collecting then absorbing of folk material. Such glimpses that emerge during the first three movements tend to be brushed aside by recurrences of that late-Romantic ethos stretching back via Strauss and Wagner to Liszt – hence the genial urbanity of the initial Serenata, rhythmic energy of the ensuing Allegro diabolico with its intensive fugal workout (this movement being the only piece its composer ever conducted in public), rhapsodic progress of the Scena della Puszta with its ruminative preamble for bass clarinet or new expressive vistas of the Per finire as it elides between folk melodies and voluptuous harmonies through to a close the more provisional for its having set out on a new beginning.

The BBCSSO recently recorded this work with Dausgaard (Onyx), but the present rendition with Volkov was no less idiomatic and maybe even more responsive to the chameleon-like aspect of its stylistic remit. It certainly ended this Prom in appealingly understated fashion.

You can find more information on the BBC Proms at the festival’s homepage. Click on the performers’ names for more information on Folktone and Patricia Kopatchinskaja, while for more information on the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra’s most recent Bartók release on Onyx Classics click here

Live review – CBSO & Ilan Volkov: Mahler Symphony no.9, Krása & Klein

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City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra / Ilan Volkov (above)

Symphony Hall, Birmingham
Thursday 25 April 2019

Krása Overture for small orchestra (1944)
Klein arr. Saudek Partita for strings (1944)
Mahler Symphony no.9 (1909)

Written by Richard Whitehouse

Photo of Ilan Volkov (c) Astrid Ackermann

Pursuing one of the more eventful conducting careers of his generation, Ilan Volkov returned to Birmingham for this pertinent juxtaposition of music by composers who numbered among countless Nazi atrocities next to what is arguably Mahler’s greatest symphonic achievement.

Mahler has long been central Volkov’s programming (performances of the Sixth and Seventh Symphonies when principal conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra resonate in the memory), and this evening’s account of the Symphony no.9 exuded conviction borne of long familiarity.

Even now, it is uncommon to hear a reading of the expansive first movement which unfolded with such unforced inevitability; those extremes of anguish and introspection finding seamless accord within the composer’s most elaborate formal design. Nor was there any lack of contrast with what follows – the ‘fantasia’ on ländler rhythms whose symmetrical elegance is constantly undercut by that glancing irony at its most acute during the final pages, when the texture appears to disintegrate out of weariness then from any more rational intent.

Excellent as was the City of Birmingham Symphony’s playing thus far, it raised its game for the third movement – the Rondo-Burleske whose contrapuntal intricacy can become turgid at too stolid a tempo and lose definition at too rapid a pace. Not that this fazed Volkov, who duly steered a secure course across what is tonally and emotionally Mahler’s most fractious statement – the soulful strains of its trio section allowing for precious little repose before the initial music returns in an explosive denouement. After this, the closing Adagio emerged as long-breathed yet never flaccid as it accumulated gravitas through to a fervent climax, then subsided into a coda shorn of false emoting or affectation – the CBSO strings all the while maintaining focus as Mahler’s silence-riven gestures seemingly attained the desired closure.

The brief though worthwhile first half had featured a brace of works by Czech composer who both flourished in the Nazi transit camp at Terezin before being murdered at Auschwitz. Not that there is any sense of encroaching dread in the Overture by Hans Krása – its purposeful elision of traits drawn from Stravinsky and Hindemith abetted by scoring as economical as it is characterful. Volkov secured an incisive rendering, only easing up for the final bars whose sense of suddenly opening-out onto new and unforeseen vistas was palpably conveyed here.

Even more engaging was the Partita by Gideon Klein. An arrangement – by Vojtěch Saudek (1951-2003) – of the String Trio that proved to be Klein’s last completed work, it features at its centre a sequence of variations on a Moravian folksong in which elements derived from Janáček take on a distinctive and undeniably personal guise at the hands of one who would have surely found a defining role in post-war Czech music. If the vigorous outer movements seem less individual, they are none the less effective within the context of this piece overall.

In both these works, Volkov secured a spirited response from the CBSO strings (perhaps a little too dogged in the Klein). Hopefully he will return to this orchestra during the 2019/20 season, and hopefully include further pieces by the ‘Terezin generation’ in his programmes.

For further information on the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra’s 2018-19 season click here

Further listening

This concert will be broadcast as part of ‘Radio 3 in Concert’ on Friday 3rd May. To access that concert click on this link

Ilan Volkov is yet to record a Mahler symphony, but for a leading version of the Symphony no.9 from the Berliner Philharmoniker and Herbert von Karajan you can listen on Spotify below:

BBC SSO / Ilan Volkov – Miller, Sciarrino, Croft & Beethoven ‘Eroica’

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Ilya Gringolts (violin), Juliet Fraser (soprano), Sound Intermedia (Ian Dearden and David Sheppard, sound design), BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra / Ilan Volkov (above, picture James Mollison)

Symphony Hall, Birmingham, Friday 17 November 2017

Miller Round (2016)

Sciarrino Allegoria della notte (1985)

Croft Lost Songs (2017) [World premiere]

Beethoven Symphony No. 3 in E flat, Op. 55, ‘Eroica’ (1804)

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse

Tonight’s Symphony Hall concert was hardly likely to muster a large audience, though those braving inclement weather and the chaos of redevelopment in the Centenary Square environs were rewarded with this strikingly contrasted programme from the BBC Scottish Symphony.

The first half consisted wholly of music by living composers. Canadian-born Cassandra Miller (b1976) may not yet be widely recognized in the UK, but Round demonstrated a sure feeling for orchestral sonority – drawing on a lesser known Tchaikovsky melody (rendered by cellist Gaspar Cassadó) as a ‘cantus firmus’ around which the texture gradually opens-out; taking in antiphonal trumpets and off-stage tubular bells, while maintaining its hushed aura through to the rapturous culmination. Ilan Volkov secured a committed response in this absorbing piece.

Such was no less true in Salvatore Sciarrino’s Allegoria della notte, yet the work itself was a disappointment. Sciarrino (b1947) has a knack for finding the ‘biting point’ between sardonic and ominous, but this homage to and deconstruction of Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto (near-quotations from which inform the opening and close) was for the most part an exercise in his trademark glassy textures and frozen gestures. Ilya Gringolts handled some stratospheric solo writing with aplomb, but this remained music appreciably longer on technique than substance.

A pity that the orchestra’s absence from the next piece prompted an exodus from the hall in expectation of an interval (though the programme could have been clearer on this), as many failed to return for the highlight of this contemporary triptych. New Zealand-born John Croft (b1971) is a further composer gaining in profile, and Lost Songs should do his reputation no harm at all. These settings of ancient Greek poets (three by Sappho, two by Alcaeus and one anonymous) for solo voice conjured a remote though never arid or uninvolving sound-world, enhanced by the evocation of lyres and reed instruments through the adept manipulation of live electronics – against which Juliet Fraser was a focal-point of eloquent poise. If any ‘note of reconciliation’ rather failed to emerge, this remained an assured and involving experience.

Was a point being made by the introspection of this first half when compared to the combative presence of Beethoven’s Eroica after the interval? Such thoughts came readily to mind during Volkov’s impressive account of a work as wears its two centuries and more lightly, not least in an opening Allegro (exposition repeat excluded) that unfolded intently yet never hectically via a far-reaching development and on to a coda that brought tangible fulfilment. The Adagio then marshalled its funereal essence with equal purpose, building to an anguished fugato and finally subsiding into a numbed acceptance – countered in the scherzo with its incisive energy and its trio’s horn-led jollity. The finale’s initial stages were ideally paced, and if the broader tempo of what ensued risked momentum, the coda duly surged forth with uninhibited resolve.

Overall, a fine showing for Volkov and BBCSSO alike. Were they to give a first UK hearing for Jorge E. López’s seismic Fourth Symphony (as premiered by Volkov in Luxembourg late last year), this would be worth braving the elements and urban redevelopment alike to attend.

For more information on the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, head to their website, and for Ilan Volkov, his artist website

In concert – BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra: Koechlin’s Seven Stars Symphony

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ilan-volkov-2Kari Kriiku (clarinet), BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra / Ilan Volkov, live from City Halls, Glasgow, Thursday 14 January 2016

Written by Ben Hogwood

What’s the music?

Dukas – L’apprenti sorcier (1896-7) (11 minutes)

Unsuk Chin – Clarinet Concerto (2014) (24 minutes)

Koechlin – Seven Stars Symphony (1933) (46 minutes)

Broadcast link (open in a new window):

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06v2667

About the music

koechlin

Anyone who has seen the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra in Glasgow knows how valuable they are to the community, not just in Glasgow but Scotland too. City Halls, the impressive building that has been their home for the last ten years, is the perfect venue for them. In that time they have explored an impressive range of repertoire with principal conductor Ilan Volkov, who has become a versatile conductor capable of turning his hand to any music from the last five centuries.

A typically inventive program here includes a rare performance of the Seven Stars Symphony by Charles Koechlin (above). Long before the likes of Heat magazine fuelled celebrity culture, Koechlin was a star-struck fan in awe of the Hollywood actors and actresses of the day, especially Lilian Harvey, subject of the second movement, who became his muse. Volkov includes this piece as an example of 1930s that is not often heard, with most programmers opting for the ubiquitous works of the period by Schoenberg, Shostakovich and early-period Stravinsky.

Before that we hear a classical music favourite, Dukas‘ L’apprenti sorcier (The Sorcerer’s Apprentice), surely one of the biggest influences on Walt Disney – appearing in the Fantasia film. This is followed by the Clarinet Concerto from Unsuk Chin, the South Korean composer’s sixth work in a form that suits her style.

What should I listen out for?

Dukas L’apprenti Sorcier (The Sorcerer’s Apprentice)

2:06 – an enchanted introduction, the clarinet spelling out what the profile of the main theme will sound like. The spell has been cast. The orchestral colouring is vivid but then the music stops – awaiting the bassoon’s big moment at 4:26 with the tune we all know and love. The orchestra develop and play around with this until we hear it again in full technicolour at 6:00.

Throughout the piece has a macabre element and this comes to the fore at 9:07 where we hear the creaking sound of the contrabassoon right at its lower end. Gradually the tune comes out again and the full orchestra play it at …with glittering touches applied to the top end with woodwind and piccolo.

Then the door seemingly slams shut, and at 12:10 we hear the enchanted music of the start again – before a sudden end at 13:00.

Unsuk Chin – Clarinet Concerto

16:30 – we hear the clarinet straight away, with its sonorous low end sounding almost like a bird – a swan maybe, ducking and diving over the orchestra like a bird with a big bill. The influence of Messiaen is clear in some of this writing.The brass are prominent with rich accompaniment, and then the strings are heard, shimmering in accompaniment to the clarinet’s playful notes. There uis a build-up and then the orchestra scatter at 22’53”, and the music is much more agitated. Then at 24’20” the music takes a thoughtful angle, the clarinet with

26:07 – the second movement begins with the clarinet playing multiphonics – as in two notes at once – which is a very difficult skill for the clarinettist! He does so very quietly and alone, and is gradually joined by members of the orchestra. The sound is akin to bottles in the wind, and is quite spooky. Then from 29’18” the clarinet returns to the top of the picture, but with some incredibly difficult passagework exploiting its whole range.

The music subsides but then gradually builds again – before the quiet multiphonics make a brief reappearance.

35:26 – the whirring of the percussion inspires the clarinet to a playful approach. Chin uses much more of the orchestra this time, and we hear the bass end in its fullest voice yet. The two forces then play off each other, the clarinet with short squeaks and pips to the end.

Koechlin – Seven Stars Symphony

You can listen to a BBC feature on the Seven Stars Symphony here

1:04:40 Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. – Immediately we get a taste of Koechlin’s rich orchestral palette through exotic solos for clarinet and violin. A rich harmonic backdrop creates a sultry atmosphere, while also suggesting a night time portrait. Flutes, clarinets, bassoon and oboe are all prominent over soft strings, painting pictures in the manner of an early detective soundtrack – far ahead of its time, given this piece was written in 1933!

1:11:43 – Lilian Harvey – a brief but affectionate portrait of Koechlin’s muse / obsession, assigned initially to the oboe but with high violins taking much of the melodic material.

1:14:27 – Greta Garbo – now we hear the weird but wonderful tones of the electronic ondes martenot, a similar instrument to the theremin. It begins the portrait of Greta Garbo with a highly chromatic melody, and Koechlin is to use the orchestra sparingly, creating an exotic atmosphere.

1:18:42 – Clara Bow Et La Joyeuse California – a lively dance led by high violins, countered by a wary sequence. Koechlin uses a wide range of orchestral colour in this movement. At 1:23:08 we hear a saxophone solo before the orchestral gathers for a big, exaggerated Hollywood finish.

1:25:31 – Marlene Dietrich – a soft clarinet solo cuts to an affectionate passage accompanied by softly rippling piano and harp. This slow movement is richly scored, and takes the profile of a declaration of love, settled by an affectionate viola solo at the end.

1:30:55 – Emil Jannings – more exotic scoring from Koechlin at the start of this movement, as the strings come surging through, before a quieter but no less atmospheric passage of play from the woodwind. The portrait ends with a warm string sound.

1:35:15 – Charlie Chaplin – Koechlin’s final portrait is also the most substantial, and could stand as a piece on its own. A luxurious violin solo is then interrupted by a lively sequence suggesting one of Chaplin’s fast moving black and white films – very expressive! Chaplin then becomes furtive, seemingly peering round corners in a slow section. Again Koechlin uses the whole orchestra in a rich variety of colours and moods, right from double basses and piano at the lower end to sparkling woodwind and brass at the top.

Even the harpsichord makes an appearance at 1:44:37. After this the orchestra begin to suggest a slow Habanera dance – but after hinting at a fast section indulges in a serene passage led by the strings – before a softly voiced march takes the music off into the distance – from which point sumptuous strings lead us home to a grand finish.