Tag Archives: Kazuki Yamada

In concert – Fazil Say, CBSO / Kazuki Yamada: Prokofiev, Saint-Saëns & Rachmaninoff

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Fazil Say (piano), City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra / Kazuki Yamada

Prokofiev Symphony no.1 in D major Op.25 ‘Classical’ (1916-17)
Saint-Saëns Piano Concerto no.2 in G minor Op.22 (1868)
Rachmaninoff Symphonic Dances Op.45 (1940)

Symphony Hall, Birmingham
Wednesday 4 October 2023

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse. Picture (c) Fethi Karaduman

French and Russian music has dominated the start of this season by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, this afternoon’s programme continuing the trend with early pieces by Prokofiev and Saint-Saëns heard alongside Rachmaninoff’s last and arguably greatest orchestral work.

Prokofiev consigned two earlier such pieces as juvenilia prior to his Classical Symphony, an infectious refit of Haydn in the early 20th century and calling-card for a career that beckoned in the West. If Kazuki Yamada slightly over-egged the humour in the opening Allegro, as too a rather self-conscious take on the Gavotte, the limpid phrasing of the intervening Larghetto was as disarming as was the interplay of wind and strings in the Finale – a reminder, here as throughout, that such musical directness should not be mistaken for mere technical facility.

This could be said of the Second Piano Concerto that Saint-Saëns unleashed on an evidently nonplussed Parisian audience half-a-century earlier. True, the conflation of Bach – given a makeover worthy of Alexander Siloti – with Liszt affords the opening movement an almost makeshift design, but Fazil Say took it firmly in hand from a surging ‘chorale-prelude’ to a tersely decisive coda. A pity his pianism was not applied a little more deftly in the ensuing intermezzo, its ingratiating poise smothered by an almost hectoring insistence, but the final Presto suited this most demonstrative of present-day virtuosi to a tee – its perpetuum mobile undertow maintained with unflagging resolve through to those almost brutal closing chords. Credit to Yamada for enhancing the total effect with his astute and precise accompaniment.

Say, as much composer as pianist, responded to the applause with his Black Earth – a study in sonority alluding to the golden-age of Turkish balladry as well as the Saz (a Turkish lute) in a mood of sombre fatalism which, unlike his orchestral epics, did not outstay its welcome.

The CBSO has given frequent performances over the decades of Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances, but none so incendiary. Not that there was anything overly powerhouse in Yamada’s conception of an initial piece whose outer sections felt trenchant in their energy, with the alto saxophone melody at its centre eloquently given by Kyle Horch and the coda rendered with melting grace. Nor was any lack of suavity in the central piece, its underlying waltz motion poised on a knife-edge of sardonic humour rightly given its head in the hectic closing pages.

Yamada had the measure, too, of the last piece with its dramatic introduction and impulsive continuation, but it was in the lengthy central episode this reading really came into its own – the composer creating music of an intoxicating expression via subtleties of harmonic nuance or textural shading rather than any defining melodic line. From here, impetus was seamlessly restored to a climactic emergence of the Dies irae plainchant then surged on to the explosive closing gesture that might have resounded longer had the audience not unreasonably erupted.

Yamada responded with Lezginka from Khachaturian’s ballet Gayane. An exhilarating close to an afternoon as began for early arrivals with what sounded like a medley from a mid-1970s children’s TV show on the first-floor performance space: it could only be here in Birmingham.

You can read all about the 2023/24 season and book tickets at the CBSO website. Click on the artist names for more information on pianist Fazil Say and conductor Kazuki Yamada

In concert – Sheku Kanneh-Mason, CBSO / Kazuki Yamada: Beethoven, Shostakovich, Walton

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Sheku Kanneh-Mason (cello), City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra / Kazuki Yamada

Beethoven Leonore Overture no.1 Op. 138 (1807)
Shostakovich Cello Concerto no.1 in E flat major Op.107 (1959)
Walton Symphony no.1 in B flat minor (1932-5)

Symphony Hall, Birmingham
Saturday 16 September 2023

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse

Having opened the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra’s season two days earlier with Verdi’s Requiem, Kazuki Yamada returned for a judicious programme comprising three ‘No. 1’s’ – two mid-20th century masterpieces and an overlooked gem from the previous century.

Beethoven’s First Leonore Overture is in fact the third such piece written in conjunction with his eponymous opera, being intended for a Prague production that never materialized. Shorter in duration and simpler in design than its two ‘successors’, it sets the scene without attempting an overview of Leonore’s dramatic essence. Yamada duly made the most of an introduction as speculative as it was searching, then steered a lively course over the main Allegro – not least a surging crescendo into the coda such as Rossini had taken to heart before the decade was out.

It was with Shostakovich’s First Cello Concerto that Sheku Kanneh-Mason won BBC Young Musician of the Year in 2016 and thus launched a career that shows no signs of stalling. In the meantime, his take on this piece has deepened and at times darkened – the opening Allegretto exuding keen irony abetted by the incisive response from an orchestra whose single horn and double woodwind are thrown into sharp relief against modest strings. If the ensuing Moderato seemed a little measured, its stark intimacy was eloquently sustained to a yearning climax then mesmeric interplay of cello harmonics with celesta in the coda. The third-movement Cadenza emerged with real cumulative impetus, and not even the hiatus while Kanneh-Mason replaced a broken string could stem the final Allegro’s sardonic course to its decisive closing flourish.

A work that has latterly regained (at least in the UK) the reputation it enjoyed decades earlier, Walton’s First Symphony has had regular performances from the CBSO (and a recording with Simon Rattle), and this reading did not lack for commitment. Not least an opening movement such as built methodically and remorsefully from initial expectancy, through a central span of brooding stasis, to a pulverizing culmination; the only proviso being the frequent inaudibility of its underlying pulse in lower strings during the climactic stages. The scherzo seemed even finer in its tense amalgam of spite and barbed humour, its treacherous syncopation dextrously handled, while the slow movement unfolded from a wistful flute melody (affectingly rendered by Marie-Christine Zupancic) to its climax of baleful intensity subsiding into numbed regret.

The finale still tends to be seen as surrender to well-tried symphonic precedent yet, as Yamada presented it, did not eschew formal or emotional obligations. The resolute introduction, agile fugal writing and irresistible build-up to the timely appearance of extra percussion all became part of a conception vindicated by the elegiac trumpet theme (ably conveyed by Jason Lewis); leading to a peroration in which Yamada’s urging his players onward briefly risked unanimity of response while still resulting in the sheer affirmation of those thunderous closing chords.

Overall, an engrossing performance which augurs well for the CBSO’s first full season with Yamada. Next week places the spotlight on Thomas Trotter who, having done forty years as City Organist in Birmingham, takes the loft for repertoire staples by Poulenc and Saint-Saëns.

You can read all about the 2023/24 season and book tickets at the CBSO website. Click on the artist names for more information on cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason and conductor Kazuki Yamada

In concert – Birmingham Contemporary Music Group: Blossoming In Birmingham

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Oliver Janes (clarinet), Philip Brett, Stefano Mengoli (violins), David BaMaung (viola), Arthur Boutillier (cello), Birmingham Contemporary Music Group / Otis Lineham, Kazuki Yamada (conductors)

Illean Januaries (2017)
Fujikura Perpetual Spring (2017)
Ligeti String Quartet no.2 (1968)
Hosokawa Blossoming (2007)
Fujikura Secret Forest (2008)

BCMG NEXT [George Blakesley (clarinet), Anna Vaughan (violin), Alma Orr-Ewing (viola), Finley Spathaky (cello), Rob Hao (piano)

Fujikura Scion Stems (2010)
Illean Février (2019)
Fujikura Halcyon (2011)

CBSO Centre, Birmingham
Saturday 29 April 2023 (7pm and 9pm)

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse

Spring may have arrived tardily this year, but Birmingham Contemporary Music Group was certainly in full bloom with this judiciously balanced and absorbing programme that featured one post-war classic and two pieces by one of the leading composers from the present time.

First, though, the welcome opportunity to hear a work by Lisa Illean, whose understated and fastidiously realized music conceals more than is evident on initial hearing. Such is true of Januaries, inspired by memories of holidays in Queensland together with descriptions of the Australian landscape. Its innate subtlety finding a direct parallel in this composer’s drawing of often ethereal yet always evocative timbres and textures from her 12-strong ensemble; and throughout which BCMG responded with due commitment to the direction of Otis Lineham.

The first of two pieces this evening by Dai Fujikura, Perpetual Spring drew inspiration from the Japanese Garden in Portland (US), notably the idea of growth as a process both ongoing and inexorable. Heard from this vantage, the clarinet represented a conceptual and expressive focal point; around which the string quartet weaved its dense if never claustrophobic texture with audible dexterity. Here, too, the music implied considerably more than was ever stated – no doubt in accord with the ‘‘power of ‘quiet’ nature’’ its composer took as his starting-point.

Although it now tends to be overshadowed by its predecessor, Ligeti’s Second String Quartet remains one of his most significant works – its five movements a compendium of his musical practice during the late 1960s, but with a formal and expressive focus that amply sustains the 20-minute whole. It was a measure of this account that a cumulative impetus carried through not merely to the explosive fourth movement, but also a finale whose textural mirage took in allusions to what went before: the music not so much ceasing as dispersing beyond earshot.

The string quartet was also Toshio Hosokawa’s chosen medium for Blossoming. Taking the image (and most probably its mythical association) of a lotus as its starting-point, the piece opened out in music typical of this composer for its unforced elegance and felicitous aura.

Considerably more engrossing an all-round experience, Fujikura’s Secret Forest is among the most impressive of his ensemble works and not least for its visceral conception. Placed centre-stage, the string nonet was balanced with groups of woodwind and brass either side, and above the auditorium. It was the ensuing interplay between the spatially arrayed sound-sources, strings intense in their eloquence and winds hieratic in their intangibility, that the conductor shaped over its course – not forgetting the solo bassoon, seated in the auditorium, who became a human figure plotting a course through this sonic landscape. The piece was directed with conviction by Kazuki Yamada and promises much for the Fujikura commission Wavering World, which he will premiere with the CBSO in Symphony Hall on January 17th.

A pity not more punters remained for the post-concert performance by musicians of BCMG NEXT, which featured two more works by Fujikura. Scion Stems took string trio as the basis for a wide-ranging discussion of textures made even more immediate by its brevity, whereas Halcyon pursued a more circumspect yet never disengaged interplay between clarinet and string trio. In between, Février found Illean’s writing at its most sensuous in its sequence of exchanges between clarinet, cello and piano to which these players likewise did full justice. The current NEXT line-up performs its final concert on June 11th, while BCMG itself returns to Birmingham Town Hall on May 12th for its TREE Concert featuring a new commission by Christian Mason alongside one of the most impressive compositions by Helmut Lachenmann

For more on future BCMG events, click on the link to visit their website. For more information on the composers featured, click on the names to read about Dai Fujikura, Lisa Illean and Toshio Hosokawa, while you can read about the conductors by clicking on Kazuki Yamada and Otis Lineham

In concert – Alexandre Kantorow, CBSO / Kazuki Yamada: Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto no.2 & Holst The Planets

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Alexandre Kantorow (piano), CBSO Youth Chorus, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra / Kazuki Yamada

Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto no.2 in G major Op. 44 (1879-80)
Holst The Planets Op. 32 (1914-17)

Symphony Hall, Birmingham
Thursday 2 February 2023

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse

He may not take up his role as Chief Conductor for a couple of months, but Kazuki Yamada already has acute rapport with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, as was evident tonight in this unlikely though effective coupling of major works by Tchaikovsky and Holst.

While it has never aspired to the popularity of its predecessor, Tchaikovsky’s Second Piano Concerto lacks none of the melodic appeal or emotional heft synonymous with this composer. Growing conviction that piano and orchestra were best heard separately rather than together can give the first movement a rather stop-start trajectory, but with Alexandre Kantorow (below) alive to its bravura and poetic facets there was never a sense of disjointedness in a first movement – emphasis on whose ‘brillante’ and ‘vivace’ markings avoided any risk of portentousness.

Although those aspects of the edition by Alexander Ziloti that simplify the solo writing have now been consigned to history, truncation of the Andante into an intermezzo akin to that of the First Concerto remains common. To do so, however, misses out on the expansiveness of this movement – notably its eventful trialogue between piano, violin and cello as dominates the latter stages, and which here saw a sustained interaction between Kantorow and the CBSO section leaders (Eugene Tzikindelean and an as yet unidentified cellist. Yamada directed with an unobtrusive rightness, then gave the soloist his head in a finale that makes up for its relative brevity with scintillating wit and agility – not least in the coda when, having resisted any temptation for a grand apotheosis, Tchaikovsky allows soloist and orchestra an effervescent race to the close.

Tchaikovsky was never an influence on Holst, and the conventional scoring of the former’s piece is worlds away from that of The Planets with its extended range of ingenious timbres and textures. Finding the right martial pulse at the outset of Mars, Yamada built this first piece to a pulverizing climax – after which, the enfolding raptness of Venus was the more tangible in its serenity and poise. The deftness and insouciance of Mercury was no less to the fore, and the only reservations came in a Jupiter whose bracing outer sections verged  on the dogged; with a central section whose indelible melody took on a ceremonial turgidity which has nothing to do with this music as Holst conceived it. Happily, the remaining three pieces, which all too often seem anticlimactic, emerged as highlights of this performance.

Undeniably the emotional focal-point, Saturn unfolded from initial remoteness to a climax whose sense of crisis was palpably evident, before withdrawing into a radiant evanescence. Contrast with the sardonic humour of Uranus was pronounced – Yamada making the most of its flights of fancy, then lurchingly triumphant parade, before the heart-stopping dissolve near its close. Neptune capped proceedings superbly – its strangeness and insubstantiality allied to searching introspection which afforded cohesion to this venture into the unknown.

Placed high to the left of the auditorium, the CBSO Youth Chorus added its ethereal tones. The final fadeout began almost too remotely to be sustained yet, as this repeating vocalise moved beyond earshot, there was no doubt as to the totality of what had been experienced.

You can read all about the 2022/23 season and book tickets at the CBSO website. Click on the artist names for more on Kazuki Yamada and Alexandre Kantorow – and for more on Gustav Holst, head to The Holst Society

In concert – Nicola Benedetti, CBSO Chorus and Symphony Orchestra / Kazuki Yamada: Dvořák, Mendelssohn & Grigorjeva

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Dvořák Carnival Overture, Op. 92 (1892)
Mendelssohn Violin Concerto in E minor, Op. 64 (1844)
Grigorjeva In Paradisum (2012)
Dvořák Symphony no.9 in E minor Op.95 ‘From the New World’ (1893)

Nicola Benedetti (violin), CBSO Chorus, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra / Kazuki Yamada

Symphony Hall, Birmingham
Tuesday 20 September 2022

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse

It may have been a largely mainstream programme, but tonight’s concert by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra drew a capacity house at the beginning of a season in which Kazuki Yamada takes on the reins for what looks an eventful new era near the start of the orchestra’s second century. The CBSO’s response in Dvořák’s Carnival Overture more than confirmed it was ready for the challenge – Yamada ensuring the nocturnal evocation at its centre worked its evocative spell, then building an irresistible momentum going into the thrilling final bars.

Mendelsohn’s Violin Concerto cannot have been absent from many of the CBSO’s previous 102 seasons and made its appearance this evening, Nicola Benedetti tackling a piece she must herself have played on many occasions. Not that there was anything routine about a reading such as abounded in subtle touches – especially the opening Allegro’s cadenza, which more than usually fulfilled its role as this movement’s structural fulcrum. In the Andante, Benedetti pointed up the expressive contrast between its main themes; the second of which was notable for a tonal astringency that brought out its plangency in full measure. If there was nothing so arresting in the finale, the interplay of soloist and orchestra was astutely judged through to the effervescence of the closing bars. Certainly, a performance to make one enjoy the piece anew.

Introducing the second half, Yamada requested the audience remain silent during the pause between pieces – the first a setting of In Paradisum by Ukrainian-born Galina Grigorjeva (b 1962), its lucid harmonies and heady culmination bringing the best out of the CBSO Chorus.

From here to the New World Symphony was no great step. Once again, a work rarely absent from the CBSO’s schedule seemed largely revitalized. Not that all of Yamada’s interpretative decisions came off – after an introduction of no mean gravitas the opening Allegro unfolded a little fitfully, though so interventionist an approach might have gained from the exposition repeat to place these in greater context. There were similar touches in the Largo, yet here the focus of Yamada’s conception and the raptness of the player’s concentration were their own justification – not least towards the close, with the front desks combining to poignant effect. Without being driven as ruthlessly as is often the case, the Scherzo has the requisite impetus and, throughout its trio, a whimsical elegance which proved as engaging as the charged coda.

Heading into the final Allegro with minimal pause, Yamada brought out its inherent force but also the ruminative eloquence of its second theme; the transition to which, in the reprise, was ideally judged. Nor did the apotheosis lack for drama as those closing bars melted into silence.

Prior to the start of this concert, a minute’s silence was observed then (most of) the audience joined in possibly its first rendering of God Save the King. A more localized farewell was paid later in the evening to Colin Twigg, first violinist for over 31 years and whose retirement will hopefully see more of his own compositions as have featured in Centre Stage recitals over the years. A miscellany is featured on a Toccata Classics release and worth anyone’s investment. The CBSO will be back in action on Saturday with a major new commission from Brett Dean.

You can read all about the 2022/23 season and book tickets at the CBSO website. For further information on the night’s artists, click on the names for composer Galina Grigorjeva, and for artists Nicola Benedetti and Kazuki Yamada