Tag Archives: Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

In concert – Jong-Gyung Park, Tonbridge Philharmonic Orchestra / Oliver Cope: Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov & Brahms

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Jong-Gyung Park (piano, below), Tonbridge Philharmonic Orchestra / Oliver Cope (above)

Tchaikovsky Romeo & Juliet Fantasy Overture (1869, rev. 1880)
Rachmaninov Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini Op.43 (1934)
Brahms Symphony no.4 in E minor Op.98 (1884-5)

Chapel of St Augustine, Tonbridge School, Tonbridge
Saturday 22 February 2025

Reviewed by Ben Hogwood Photos of Oliver Cope, Chapel of St Augustine (c) Ben Hogwood

This was the first concert for the Tonbridge Philharmonic Orchestra under their interim musical director Oliver Cope, in the position while current incumbent Naomi Butcher is on maternity leave. On this evidence he has quickly built a rapport with the orchestra, already in fine fettle under Butcher’s recent direction. On this occasion they responded with a memorable concert of Romantic favourites, given in the spectacular setting of the Chapel of St Augustine in Tonbridge School.

It is easy to take Tchaikovsky’s inspiration for granted, for his storytelling and melodic gifts are so abundant that his best music flows irrepressibly. Such is the case with the Romeo & Juliet Fantasy Overture, in spite of the two revisions required for its composer to be fully satisfied. Cope was an athletic presence on the podium as the orchestra responded with a dramatic account of the lovers’ story, the sword duel between Mercutio and Tybalt particularly vivid, while the soaring love theme tugged at the heartstrings. With fire and brimstone, and crisp ensemble playing, this performance lit the touch paper at the start of the evening.

If anything, Rachmaninov’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini was even better. This was because Jong-Gyung Park (above), the popular rehearsal pianist with the Tonbridge Philharmonic Choir, delivered a sparkling account of the theme and its 24 variations. Cope threw down the gauntlet with a brisk tempo, yet Park rose to the challenge by taking control of even the quickest exchanges. There was an instinctive flow through the first six variations, the mood acquiring an appropriate chill as the Dies Irae was introduced in the seventh. From here the music travelled down darker roads, though still found time for a baleful sixteenth variation, before a shiver could be felt in the air as the seventeenth took hold. The famous eighteenth variation was lovingly delivered, before a flight to the finish that saw Park dazzle with her virtuosity, never losing sight of the whole picture.

To complete a challenging program, Brahms’s Symphony no.4 – and after initial hesitation, a convincing interpretation revealing this work’s unique bridges to the past – notably Bach – and the future, with Schoenberg on the horizon. There was an attractive open-air quality to much of the orchestra’s music making, with the second movement becoming a spring-like counterpart to the obdurate first. The scherzo built on this, dancing with a smile on its face. Flautist Rebecca Rees led a fine woodwind section in the second movement, where the horns, led by Paul Kajzar, were suitably fulsome. They were to prove critical to the success of the finale as the passacaglia developed, capping a performance with serious outlines but shot through with bursts of optimism suggesting Brahms still had a great deal to be thankful for later on in life. It put the seal on an extremely impressive concert.

For details on their 2024-25 season, head to the Tonbridge Philharmonic Society website. Click on the names to read more about pianist Jong-Gyung Park and conductor Oliver Cope

Published post no.2,456 – Tuesday 25 February 2025

In concert – Summer Music in City Churches: Tier3 Trio @ St Giles Cripplegate

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Tier3 Trio [Joseph Wolfe (violin), Jonathan Ayling (cello), Daniel Grimwood (piano)]

Liszt arr. Saint-Saëns Orpheus
Tchaikovsky arr. Grimwood Andante non troppo (second movement of Piano Concerto no.2 in G major Op.44) (1880)
Arensky Piano Trio no.1 in D minor Op.32 (1894)

St Giles Cripplegate, London
Thursday 13 June 2024, 1pm

Reviewed by Ben Hogwood

‘Love’s Labours’ is the title of this year’s Summer Music in City Churches festival, based opposite the Barbican Hall in St Giles Cripplegate. The ten day-long enterprise is proving ample consolation for the much-missed City of London Festival, which once captivated audiences in the Square Mile for three weeks and offers music of equal range and imagination.

For the second year in succession the Tier3 Trio visited for a lunchtime recital, following up last year’s tempestuous Tchaikovsky Piano Trio with an attractive programme subtitled From Russia with Love. They began with a curiosity, playing Saint-Saëns’ little-known arrangement of Liszt’s symphonic poem Orpheus for piano trio. A highly effective transcription, it retained its dramatic thread in this fine performance, notable for its attention to detail and well-balanced lines when reproducing Liszt’s slow-burning music. Pianist Daniel Grimwood successfully evoked Orpheus’ lyre, while Jonathan Ayling’s burnished cello sound probed in counterpoint to Joseph Wolfe’s violin.

Tier3 was formed during lockdown, and in the same period when he was performing Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto no.2 in Germany, Grimwood realised the suitability of the work’s slow movement for trio. He rightly complemented ‘the extent to which Tchaikovsky was an experimenter in form’, a trait found in many works but at its inventive peak in the second concerto, whose slow movement is in effect a piano trio with orchestra. Here the arrangement was just right – balanced, elegant and fiercely dramatic towards the end. Clarity of line was secured through sensitive pedalling from Grimwood, the trio using the resonant acoustic to their advantage, while the individual cadenzas were brilliantly played.

These two notable curiosities linked beautifully into one of the best-known works of Anton Arensky, his Piano Trio no.1 in D minor. Arensky is not a well-known composer, fulfilling in part an unkind prophecy from his teacher, Rimsky-Korsakov. However that does not mean his music is without merit – far from it, as in his brief life of 45 years he wrote two symphonies, four orchestral suites, a substantial output of piano and high quality chamber music, of which the first piano trio is the pick.

Dedicated to the cellist Karl Davidov, it is equal parts elegy, drama and ballet – with a powerful first movement setting the tone. The balletic second movement Scherzo demands much of the piano, but Grimwood was its equal, sparkling passagework from the right hand dressed with twinkling figures for cello and piano. The emotional centre of the trio was in the slow movement, with a heartfelt tribute to Davidov in Ayling’s first solo, while the finale rounded everything up in a highly satisfying payoff, a return to the first movement’s profound theme capped with an emphatic closing section.

These were very fine performances from a trio at the top of their game, navigating the resonant acoustic of St Giles with power and precision. On this evidence, Rimsky-Korsakov would have had to eat his words!

You can read more about Summer Music in City Churches at the festival website – and you can listen to a Spotify playlist below, containing the music heard in this concert – with the original version of the Tchaikovsky:

Published post no.2,209 – Friday 14 June 2024

Another serenade for a spring evening…

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…this time from Tchaikovsky. Here is his Serenade for Strings in C major, performed by the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Terje Tønnesen:

Published post no.2,190 – Sunday 26 May 2024

In concert – Ian Bostridge, CBSO / Gergely Madaras: Thorvaldsdottir, Britten & Tchaikovsky

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Ian Bostridge (tenor), City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra / Gergely Madaras (above)

Thorvaldsdottir Dreaming (2008)
Britten Les Illuminations Op.18 (1939)
Tchaikovsky Symphony no.1 in G minor Op.13 ‘Winter Daydreams’ (1866, rev. 1883)

Symphony Hall, Birmingham
Wednesday 17 April 2024

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse Picture of Gergely Madaras (c) Hannah Fathers

This evening’s concert with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra comprised what was an unusually cohesive programme centred on the concept of ‘dreams’, assembled and directed with consistent empathy and insight by the Hungarian conductor Gergely Madaras.

Dreaming was the title as well as the watchword of the piece by Anna Thorvaldsdottir which opened proceedings. Her first major work for orchestra is already characteristic in its eliding between evocations arcadian and desolate, with an undeniable sense of the ominous coming through as the final stages take on an extemporized quality; musicians gradually exiting the sonic frame with just the capricious asides of a cellist remaining. Eduardo Vassallo made the most of this brief spotlight, and the CBSO made its collective presence felt to striking effect.

Arthur Rimbaud’s brief but meteoric spell as a poet in the early 1870s had belated if decisive impact on numerous composers and none more than Britten, his song-cycle Les Illuminations among his finest achievements in any medium. Having sung it many times, Ian Bostridge (above) still manages to point up the growing anticipation of ‘Fanfare’ or breathless excitement of Villes; his wide-eyed wonder in Phrase then graceful musing in Antique matched by the resolute irony of Marine or glancing wit of Royauté. Madaras drew languorous playing from the CBSO strings in Interlude and brought out the ecstatic longing of Being Beauteous, before the fervid imagining of Parade brought this sequence full circle. It remained for Départ to offer a fulfilled exit as poet – and composer – resignedly bids farewell to the realm of dreams.

This gripping account should not have needed Bostridge to address members of the audience after the fourth song, asking they refrain taking pictures on their mobiles while the music was in progress. An overhaul of the management’s current laissez-faire approach might be in order.

After the interval, a comparatively rare outing for Tchaikovsky’s First Symphony. The ‘Winter Daydreams’ of its subtitle implies an unforced though rarely contrary take on formal precepts, as in an opening movement (oddly marked Allegro tranquillo) whose often portentous pauses were well integrated by Madaras into the cumulative symphonic flow. The CBSO woodwind came into own with the Adagio – its oboe melody among its composer’s most affecting, and not least when it returns at the movement’s climax in a mood of expansive if fateful grandeur.

Partly drawn from an earlier piano sonata, the Scherzo exudes a pert animation that Madaras judged to a nicety, as he did the wistful ruminations of its trio. Much the hardest movement to make cohere, the Finale unfolded persuasively from its sombre introduction to a celebratory Allegro replete with fugal episodes; the ensuing build-up (its effect not lost on Shostakovich) to the resounding restatement of its main theme duly capped by an apotheosis whose overkill was (rightly) kept well within limits, thereby setting the seal on this persuasive performance. For imaginative programming and convincing execution, Madaras is at the forefront among conductors of his generation – his rapport with the CBSO evident throughout. This should be equally true when Markus Stenz returns next week for a pairing of Schumann and Bruckner.

Click on the link to read more on the current CBSO concert season, and on the names for more on tenor Ian Bostridge and conductor Gergely Madaras. Click here for an interview Arcana conducted with composer Anna Thorvaldsdottir in 2023

Published post no.2,153 – Friday 19 April 2024

Switched On – Austra: Swan Song (Original Score) (Domino)

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by Ben Hogwood

What’s the story?

It comes as no surprise to learn that Katie ‘Austra’ Stelmanis had her first experience performing in the orchestra pit for Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker, performed by the National Ballet of Canada in 1990.

Since then her distinctive voice has been one of the standout elements in the music of her band, Austra, who have made a name for their distinctive electronica, a satisfying mix of pop and 80s-inspired electronica.

Now, though, she turns her attention to solo concerns with a lo-fi set-up. Tasked with setting the musical scene to Swan Song, a feature documentary immersing viewers inside The National Ballet of Canada in its new production of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake, she decided to use a single synth, a mellotron and – of course – her voice.

What’s the music like?

‘Ethereal’ is an overused word in writing about music, but it really does apply to Katie Stelmanis and her voice, which she uses to great effect here. It floats on the air in the opening Karen’s Theme, accompanied by the graceful synth lines, responding to the ebb and flow of the dancers. The themes are beautifully characterised, and Stelmanis often uses softly voiced arpeggios on the synth (a Juno-106) to depict the rise and fall of the dancers.

Genevieve’s Theme and Shae’s Theme are relatively muffled but attractively scored, while Siphe’s Theme has a lovely mottled presentation. Robart gives contrast, with gurgling electronics, as do Move To The Theatre and Curtain Call, each dressed with a beautiful vocalise.

The mellotron comes into its own for Corps de Ballet, and with its twisting line gives a good representation of a dancer maintaining their poise. The main number is Bow, whose minimal ideas and probing motif are subtly moving.

Stelmanis’ use of the Tchaikovsky themes is subtle and very clever, leaving an original score whose inspiration sits beneath the surface but has a lasting impact.

Does it all work?

It does. By their nature these soundtracks can be quite fragmented but the sequence here is very satisfying, with some lovely sounds and colours.

Is it recommended?

It is. If you like Austra as a band you won’t need any persuading, though you might be surprised at the extent to which Katie Stelmanis allows her imagination to blossom in what is a striking piece of work.

For fans of… Gazelle Twin, Julia Holter, Laurel Halo

Listen & Buy

Published post no.2,103 – Thursday 29 February 2024