Tag Archives: Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov

In concert – Frank Dupree, Philharmonia Orchestra / Santtu-Matias Rouvali: Kapustin, Glinka, Borodin & Rimsky-Korsakov

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Frank Dupree (piano, above), Philharmonia Orchestra / Santtu-Matias Rouvali (below)

Glinka Capriccio brillante (Spanish Overture no.1 ‘Jota Aragonese’) (1845)
Kapustin Piano Concerto no.5 Op.72 (1993)
Borodin Symphony no.2 in B minor (1869 – 1876)
Rimsky-Korsakov Capriccio Espagnol Op.34 (1887)

Royal Festival Hall, London
Thursday 7 March 2024 (7.30pm)

Reviewed by Ben Hogwood Pictures (c) Raphael Steckelbach (Frank Dupree), Sisi Burn (Santtu-Matias Rouvali)

After this orchestral spectacular, I can confidently say that the Royal Festival Hall is free of cobwebs!

This most appealing program from the Philharmonia Orchestra was a cosmopolitan collection of works with roots in Russia, in the symphonic tradition (Borodin), delivering postcards from Spain (Glinka and Rimsky-Korsakov) or bringing in music from even further across the Atlantic (Kapustin).

The work with the farthest reach took top billing, thanks to the advocacy and breathtaking pianism of Frank Dupree. Making his debut with the Philharmonia, the soloist seized the opportunity to share his love of the music of Nikolai Kapustin, a composer he has championed on record in the past three years.

To call Kapustin ‘eclectic’ would be an understatement, but the label fits his unusual gift for looking outwards from classical music to jazz, boogie-woogie, Latin and even rock. To his credit none of those stylistic references sound hackneyed, and although the single-movement Piano Concerto no.5 is written out on paper it has a fresh, improvisatory quality that Dupree and the Philharmonia fair lifted off the page.

There were fun and games in this performance, harnessing elements of Gershwin, Milhaud and Shostakovich’s jazz writing, but ultimately channelling a style all of Kapustin’s own. Dupree shared the many musical jokes with the audience, while the Philharmonia percussion section – drum kit, bongos, castanets, everything but the kitchen sink! – was on hot form, Santtu-Matias Rouvali conducting with relish. The slow music explored more tender asides, evoking Harlem nights or even poolside in a hotter climate, while the fast music found Dupree exhibiting deceptive virtuosity as he navigated riffs and syncopations aplenty.

Even this wasn’t quite the highpoint, for there followed a high-spirited encore, Dupree leaning into the piano to thrum the strings in an atmospheric introduction to rhythmic high jinks, the percussion section – including Rouvali – out front to joust playfully with the soloist. It brought the house down.

With such a crowd-pleasing concerto, it was to the Philharmonia and Rouvali’s enormous credit that the rest of the program did not suffer, thanks to sparkling performances of music by three of the ‘mighty handful’ from late 19th century Russia.

Glinka’s clever interpolation of Spanish themes into his own Romantic language was brilliantly conveyed, a colourful account where Rouvali’s tempo had just the right ebb and flow. It is easy to forget this music is as old as 1845, and while the influences of Berlioz and Mendelssohn were still relatively fresh there was plenty of swagger in the dancing rhythms, the percussion again enhancing the brassy swagger of the closing pages.

Rimsky-Korsakov’s Capriccio Espagnol was even more successful, a treasure chest of melodies opened with evident enthusiasm by Rouvali, whose rapid tempo changes did occasionally leave the string section needing to make up ground. Cadenzas for violin (orchestra leader Zsolt-Tihamér Visontay), flute (Samuel Coles), clarinet (Mark van de Wiel) and harp (Heidi Krutzen) were superbly executed, Rimsky’s mini ‘concerto for orchestra’ revealed in glorious technicolour.

Rimsky wrote the Capriccio while orchestrating his friend Borodin’s opera Prince Igor – and it was his own Symphony no.2 that was in theory the most ‘sober’ of the night’s four works. We reckoned without a powerful performance from Rouvali and his charges, however, making the most of a work bursting with melodic ideas that should be heard much more often in the concert hall. The first of these ideas sets the tone for the symphony, a stern utterance with strings digging in and brass solemnly intoning their thoughts. Once heard the melody sticks in the listener’s mind, dominating the first movement where symphonic arguments were tautly exchanged.

There was room for lightness, however, in the quickfire scherzo and jubilant finale. These movements were bisected by an emotive third movement of deeper Russian origin, its theme lovingly delivered by cellos but finding plangent brass (the wonderful horn section led by Ben Hulme) and superb woodwind solos to complement. Rouvali relished the chance to dust off this relative symphonic outcast as part of a thrilling, memorable concert. The smiles on the faces of the Royal Festival Hall concertgoers as they filed into the open air said it all.

You can find more information on further concerts at the Philharmonia website

Published post no.2,112 – Saturday 8 March 2024

In concert – Jess Gillam, CBSO / Eduardo Strausser: Villa-Lobos, John Williams, Rimsky-Korsakov & Stravinsky

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Jess Gillam (soprano & alto saxophone, above), City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra / Eduardo Strausser

Rossini La Cenerentola (1817) – Overture
Villa-Lobos Fantasia for Saxophone, W490 (1948)
Rimsky-Korsakov arr. Glazunov/Steinberg Le Coq d’or – Suite (1908, arr. 1909)
Williams Escapades (2002)
Stravinsky L’Oiseau de feu – Suite (1910, arr. 1919)

Symphony Hall, Birmingham
Wednesday 31 January 2024

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse. Photo (c) Robin Clewley

Brazilian conductor Eduardo Strausser made his welcome return to the City of Birmingham Symphony with a programme where three orchestral showpieces were heard alongside two pieces that gave full rein to the charismatic playing and persona of saxophonist Jess Gillam.

Although he featured the saxophone on numerous occasions, Heitor Villa-Lobos wrote just one concertante piece. His Fantasia makes a virtue out of brevity in the lively declamation of its opening movement then the motoric impetus of its finale. No slouch in either, Gillam sounded most involved (understandably so) in the central Lent – its initial melody for viola, soulfully rendered by Adam Römer, soon giving rise to an eloquent dialogue which (hardly for the first time) inferred, that in this most productive of composers, less can often be more.

More compelling overall was Escapades, a concerto drawn from his soundtrack to the Steven Spielberg film Catch Me if You Can by John Williams. A movie as promises rather more than it delivers, this features one of the most appealing of its composer’s latter-day scores with its evoking US culture in the early 1960s that the present work encapsulates to perfection. From the ominous while humorous expectancy as conjured by Closing In, via the lightly applied pathos of Reflections to the coursing energy of Joy Ride – this is Williams at something near his best and Gillam responded accordingly. A pity the contributions of double bass and vibraphone was not as prominent aurally as it was visually (maybe they should have been given more to do?), but this hardly affected the scintillating immediacy of what was heard.

Having opened proceedings with an account of the overture to Rossini’s Cinderella as deft and as scintillating as could be wished, Strausser ended the first half with a (surprisingly?) rare outing for the whole suite from Rimsky-Korsakov’s final opera The Golden Cockerel. For all the controversy aroused by its scenario, this is otherwise an archetypal example of its composer relying on technique rather than inspiration. Most of the best music can be found   in a suite made posthumously by Glazunov and Maximilian Steinberg that provides a telling portrait of Tsar Dodon – whether mired in the superstitious inertia of his palace, hapless (and helpless) on the battlefield, serenaded by the alluring Queen of Shemakha, or exuberant at his intended wedding before meeting his ‘lamentable end’ to the crowing of that pesky cockerel.

The CBSO despatched what is effectively a ‘concerto for orchestra’ before its time with real aplomb, then sounded no less committed in the second of those suites Stravinsky drew from his highly Rimskian ballet The Firebird. Here the sombre aura of its Introduction segued effortlessly into Appearance… and Dance of the Firebird, the latter exuding an infectious lilt, before a plaintive take on the Princesses’ Khorovod. Others have found greater abandon in the Infernal Dance, but the clarity and articulation conveyed here were beyond reproach. Strausser then steered a secure course through the Lullaby, its folk-derived bassoon melody plaintively intoned by Nikolaj Henriques, into a Finale whose hymnic jubilation set the seal on an evening where the absence of any Austro-German element proved its own justification.

Click on the link to read more on the current CBSO concert season, and on the names for more on saxophonist Jess Gillam, conductor Eduard Strausser and composer John Williams

Published post no.2,075 – Friday 2 February 2024

Live review – Clara Mouriz, CBSO / Jaume Santonja Espinos: Rimsky-Korsakov, Montsalvatge, Falla & Prokofiev

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Clara Mouriz (mezzo-soprano, below), City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra / Jaume Santonja Espinos (above)

Symphony Hall, Birmingham
Wednesday 13 November 2019

Rimsky-Korsakov Capriccio Espagnol Op.34 (1887)
Montsalvatge Cinco canciones negras (1945, orch. 1949)
De Falla El sombrero de tres picos (Suites 1 & 2) (1919)
Prokofiev Symphony no.7 in C sharp minor Op.131 (1952)

Written by Richard Whitehouse
Photo credit (Clara Mouriz) JM Bielsa

Now into his second season as assistant conductor with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Jaume Santonja Espinos has already made his mark so that tonight’s programme of his own choosing saw a juxtaposition of Russian and Spanish music equally to the orchestra’s liking. Certainly they pitched head first into Rimsky-Korsakov‘s Capriccio Espagnol, its ‘Alborada’ sections accordingly boisterous with the ‘Variazioni’ not lacking eloquence, then the bracing contrasts of the final ‘Fandango’ building gradually while inexorably to an effervescent close.

A pity Xavier Montsalvatge (1912-2002) is not more widely known, his stylistic amalgam of French impressionist with Spanish-cum-Latinate qualities appealing without being anodyne. Provocation is hardly lacking in his Canciones negras – its resourceful orchestral garb duly pointing up the fraught nostalgia of Cuba in a piano and smouldering sexuality as underpins Habanera rhythm, which aspect takes a more sinister turn in The Dandy as itself contrasts with the plaintiveness of Lullaby for a little black boy, before the verbal onomatopoeia of ‘Negro Song’ brings a visceral close. Clara Mouriz was in her element throughout one of the few Spanish song-cycles to have entered the repertoire, making one hope she and Santonja Espinos might tackle Roberto Gerhard‘s bewitching Cancionero de Pedrell before too long.

A swift return to the platform enabled Mouriz to add vocal enticements to the opening of de Falla‘s The Three Cornered Hat, both suites from which were heard this evening. The rather piecemeal first of these is dominated by the Dance of the Miller’s Wife, suitably suave and sensuous, while the three pieces that comprise the Second Suite (a CBSO staple in decades past) were judiciously characterized; the langour of the Neighbour’s Dance followed by the propulsion of the Miller’s Dance; then the heady denouement of the Final Dance enabling Santonja Espinos to secure playing both stylish and subtle on route to a scintillating close. Programming de Falla’s Love the Magician would have given the estimable Mouriz rather more to do, yet no-one hearing the present selection was likely to have felt short-changed.

The decidedly un-Spanish restraint of Prokofiev’s Seventh Symphony risked seeming anti-climactic after the interval, though this performance more than had its measure. The opening Moderato exemplified that ambiguity between wistfulness and resignation lying at the heart of this composer’s last major work, with the ensuing Allegretto a waltz-sequence of teasing understatement prior to its uproarious coda. Even better was the Andante, its variations on a theme of disarming simplicity affectingly rendered – after which, the final Vivace lacked that last degree of irony for its playfulness to feel more than dutiful. The return of the first movement’s big tune was powerfully despatched but, even with the original quiet ending, the closing bars were too matter-of-fact for their inherent pathos to come through unabated.

Even so, a thoughtful account of a piece as yields its depths but gradually. Santonja Espinos’s concerts with the CBSO are worth the anticipation: should he wish to include more Spanish music, the fiftieth anniversary of Gerhard’s death next year would be worth commemorating.

Listen

You can listen to a playlist of the music featured in this concert on Spotify below, including the recording made by Clara Mouriz herself with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra and Juanjo Mena:

Oxford Lieder Festival – Kai Rüütel and Roger Vignoles: Tallinn to St Petersburg

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Kai Rüütel (soprano, above), Roger Vignoles (piano, below)

Härma Ei saa mitte vaiki olla (I cannot stay silent)
Brahms Wie Melodien Op.105/1, Immer leiser wird mein Schlummer Op.105/2, Klage Op.105/3, Auf dem Kirchhofe Op.105/4
Rachmaninov O, dolgo budu ja, v molchan’i nochi tajnoj (In the silence of the secret night) Op.4/3, Poljubila ja (The Soldier’s Wife) Op.8/4, Zdes’ khorosho (How fair is the spot) Op.21/7
Mägi Kolm laulu Betti Alveri luulele (3 songs on poems by Betti Alver) [(Päike paistis, kaste hiilgas (The sun was shining, the dew gleamed), Kui kajab muusika (When music echoes), Uneaknale, uneaknale kevad koputas (On the window of sleep)]
Tormis Nukrad Viivud (Sorrowful Moments) [Kevadpäike, ära looju veel (Spring sun, do not set yet), Sügislaul (Autumn Song), Ei ole roose õitsenud minule (‘No roses have bloomed for me’), Armastus (‘Love’)
Rimsky-Korsakov Plenivshis rozoj, solovey (The Nightingale) Op.2/2, Na kholmakh Gruzii (On Georgia’s Hills) Op.3/4, Serenade Op.4/4, Drobitsya, i pleshchet, i brizzhet volna (The wave breaks) Op.46/1, Kogda volnuyetsya zhelteyushchaya niva (When the ripening wheat fields gently stir) Op.40/1
Mart Saar nnemuiste (In Days of Yore), Kõrs kahiseb (The Straw Murmurs), Kadunud ingel ‘Lost Angel’, Sügismõtted (Autumn Thoughts), Mis see oli? (What was It?), Üks ainus kord (Only Once More)

Holywell Music Room, Oxford
Wednesday 17 October 2018 (evening)

Written by Ben Hogwood

Continuing the Baltic theme of this Wednesday at the Oxford Lieder Festival, Estonian mezzo-soprano Kai Rüütel and pianist Roger Vignoles gave a fascinating concert introducing their audience to Estonian song from the 20th century, helpfully placed in the context of Romantic Russian and German song. Rüütel had very helpfully provided English translations of the Estonian songs, which was particularly useful for those Festival goers who had attended the earlier ‘Language Lab’ in the Ashmolean museum, where we had an introduction to the language from Kerli Liksor.

Rüütel set the tone with the unaccompanied Estonian folk song Ei saa mitte vaiki olla (I cannot stay silent), before four late Brahms songs showed off the rich tones of her mezzo-soprano. Yet there was a feeling these were merely a prelude to the meat of the concert, which really began with a wonderfully evocative account of the first of three Rachmaninov songs, In the silence of the secret night. The value of Vignoles’ scene setting was incalculable both here and in the Brahms, with some complex piano writing handled with apparent ease and an instinctive sense of melody and expression. Rüütel inhabited the character of The Soldier’s Wife with a powerful sorrow, contrasted with a dream-like finish to How Fair Is The Spot.

There followed 3 Songs on poems by Betti Alver from the 96-year old Estonian composer Ester Mägi. These had a very clear sense of location in their folk-inspired melodies, with distinctive inflections that Rüütel was ideally placed to exploit. These were mirrored in the piano part, which provided a particularly dramatic introduction for the second song, Where Music Echoes. The directness of the text was strangely refreshing and was reflected in the economy of the music, slightly redolent of Janáček in its economy but forging a very distinctive path.

The name of Veljo Tormis will be a more familiar name to students of Baltic music. Known primarily for his choral work, he is a fine song composer too – and the 1958 collection Sorrowful Moments left a lasting impression. Its central pair, Autumn Song and No Roses Have Bloomed For Me, were darkly toned, but the final Love offered much greater hope, Rüütel singing from the heart of ‘the stars that light the traveller’s way’.

Photo credit (c) Ben Ealovega

We returned to Russia for the beginning of the second half, with some rarely heard songs from Rimsky-Korsakov. Given the melodic prowess and dramatic scene setting on show in songs like On Georgia’s Hills and The Wave Breaks it remains a mystery that Rimsky’s songs are not heard more in the concert hall. Rüütel sang them with great fullness of tone but also enjoyed the more tender moments of Serenade and When The Ripening Wheat Fields Gently Stir. Vignoles’ tumultuous evocation of The Wave Breaks was a highlight; so too the pair’s account of The Nightingale.

Finally we heard the music of Mart Saar, an Estonian composer from the first half of the 20th century who studied with Rimsky-Korsakov. In one of several helpful introductions Rüütel told of how Saar followed Rimsky’s advice to ‘be himself’ but also to take risks – and those qualities were evident in these deceptive songs. They were deceptive because some of the twists and turns had an individual quirk, Romantic in profile but alighting on unexpected harmonies or melodies. To Rüütel these were second nature, and in Autumn thoughts especially she found a deep, soulful mood. The first song, In days of yore, had more obvious folk music inflections, but perhaps the most dramatic song of all was Lost Angel, where Vignoles’ mastery of the challenging piano part set the way clear for Rüütel’s direct, emotive response.

As an encore Rüütel and Vignoles gave us a timeless account of Richard Strauss’s Morgen which, while brilliantly performed it did not distract from the impact of the Estonian and Russian music we had just heard. Clearly there are many riches to be discovered from the Baltics, and it is to be hoped Rüütel and Vignoles might set these down permanently for a record company such as Hyperion.

This was a memorable concert, and will be broadcast soon on BBC Radio 3. It comes with the strongest possible recommendation!

Further listening

There is relatively little material on streaming services with which to discover Estonian songs – but there is a new series devoted to the songs of Mart Saar that has just begun:

Meanwhile most of the music from the concert can be heard on the below Spotify playlist: