Tag Archives: Samuel Coleridge-Taylor

BBC Proms 2023 – Elena Urioste, BBC NoW / Tadaaki Otaka – Rachmaninoff / Respighi, Coleridge-Taylor & Beethoven

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Prom 7 – Elena Urioste (violin), BBC National Orchestra of Wales / Tadaaki Otaka

Rachmaninoff (orch. Respighi) Five Études-tableaux (1911-17, orch 1930) [Proms premiere]
Coleridge-Taylor Violin Concerto in G minor Op.80 (1911-12)
Beethoven Symphony no.5 in C minor Op.67 (1807-08)

Royal Albert Hall, London
Wednesday 19th July 2023 [7pm]

by Richard Whitehouse photos by Andy Paradise / BBC

Tadaaki Otaka’s years at the helm of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales (1987-95) were a highpoint of the latter’s history, and it was good to see and hear the rapport between them now that he is Conductor Laureate being maintained throughout this evening’s programme.

Surprising that Respighi’s orchestration of five from Rachmaninoff’s sets of Études-tableaux had not been given at the Proms, but the respective 150th and 80th anniversaries of his birth and death provided an ideal opportunity. Otaka brought out the listless calm of The Sea and the Seagulls with its death-haunted aura, then conveyed the scintillating energy of The Fair. With its evocations of Orthodox chant and heady pealing of bells towards the close, Funeral March is the most imposing and Otaka gave it its due – not least by pointing up the deadpan humour of Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf which provides greatest possible contrast. The sheer effervescence of March made a fitting conclusion to a sequence that, while other orderings are possible (not least 2-1-4-3-5), is a viable and a cohesive entity in its own right.

The resurgence of interest in Samuel Coleridge-Taylor continued apace with a revival of his Violin Concerto, 111 years after its UK public premiere at these concerts. Its composer’s last major work, this is a work audibly in the Romantic tradition and while the initial Allegro gets off to a less than promising start with its blousy and over-emphatic first theme, the resource with which the soloist elaborates both this and the insouciant idea that follows is as engaging as the cadenza underpinned by drum-roll is arresting. The central Andante is the undoubted highlight, its warmly confiding main melody capable of unexpected plangency as it unfolds, then the final Allegro draws on the Afro-American inflections of Coleridge-Taylor’s heritage in a spirited discourse whose climax sees an opulent restatement of the work’s opening theme.

A testing assignment such as Elena Urioste (after last year’s Proms debut with Ethel Smyth’s Double Concerto) gave with no little panache, her vivid while modest tone heard to advantage in Tom Poster’s eloquent take on Harold Arlen’s Over the Rainbow that was given as encore.

A staple of the Proms since its very first season 128 years ago, Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony comes so weighted with expectation as to make any performance in itself a provocative act. Eschewing astringency and portentousness, Otaka (rightly) rendered the initial movement as an elemental though unpredictable play on its indelible opening motif; the ensuing Andante pursuing an equally eventful course as its main theme evolves via a process of developing variation, the heroic and inquisitive held in unforced accord through to the decisive ending.

A pity that Otaka opted not to take the repeat in the Scherzo (rather than that of the finale) – its interplay between the ominous and the impetuous abetted by a transition of speculative intent. Here too there was never any risk of pomposity or overkill, Otaka steering this most visceral of symphonic finales through a development of bracing immediacy then on to a coda whose insistent C major reiterations were the outcome – no more and no less – of this movement’s innate potential. The undiminished relevance of this music was never for a moment in doubt.

For more on the 2023 BBC Proms, visit the festival’s website at the BBC. Click on the names for more information on the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Tadaaki Otaka and Elena Urioste

In concert – London Symphony Orchestra / Sir Antonio Pappano: Richard Strauss, Coleridge-Taylor & Liszt

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Roman Simovic (violin), London Symphony Orchestra / Sir Antonio Pappano

Coleridge-Taylor Ballade in A minor Op.33 (1898)
Liszt Die Ideale S106 (1856-7)
Richard Strauss Ein Heldenleben Op. 40 (1898)

Barbican Hall, London
Sunday 12 February 2023

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse

It may have been his only concert this season with the orchestra of which he becomes Chief Conductor next year, but the rapport between Sir Antonio Pappano and the London Symphony Orchestra was audibly sustained through the whole of what proved a judiciously programmed concert.

Whether or not his Ballade (as commissioned for and premiered at a Three Choirs Festival in Gloucester) was inspired by music from a nearby street organist, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s work confirms the melodic fecundity and orchestral panache of his maturity. Its languorous slower episodes, framed by swifter sections of mounting energy, might not generate a more cumulative momentum, but the emotional immediacy of this piece overall is never less than appealing – certainly in a performance as vividly and precisely executed as that given tonight.

Pappano gave a memorable account of Liszt’s Eine Faust Symphonie four seasons ago, and it is good to see him exploring the mostly neglected orchestral output of this still misunderstood figure. The 12th of his symphonic poems, Die Ideale was written for the unveiling of a statue of Goethe and Schiller – a poem by the latter furnishing the conceptual basis of a piece which avoids programmatic or psychological excess for mostly lyrical and understated material; one whose deftly modified sonata design may well have been in Wagner’s mind when envisaging the symphony of the future. Pappano steered a cohesive course, building assuredly towards a triumphal if never bombastic apotheosis whose chordal writing for timpani (picked up on by Bruckner in his First Symphony nine years later) is merely its most striking musical attribute.

This conductor has made a fine recording of Richard Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben with Orchestra dell’ Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, and a similar combination of formal clarity alongside expressive intensity was evident here. Surging forward without indulgence, The Hero found due contrast in the sniping pettiness of The Hero’s Adversaries – consummately rendered by the LSO woodwind – then leader Roman Simovic took centre-stage for an unusually focussed take on The Hero’s Companion as culminated in rapturous euphony. Pappano’s underlying tempo for The Hero at Battle was a little too headlong, though never to the detriment of its textural density in what emerged as a purposeful development of the work’s myriad motifs; heading into a powerfully wrought climax at the beginning of The Hero’s Works of Peace.

It is in this penultimate section that the work’s pivoting between tone poem and symphony is most finely drawn, and Pappano duly underlined the numerous allusions to Strauss’s earlier pieces with due awareness of their place within the intricately conceived whole. Nor was the fateful transition into The Hero’s Resignation and Fulfilment uncharacterized, making this finale a culmination of the overall design and consummation of its intrinsic content. Whether or not the evocation of domestic bliss, there could be little doubt as to the music’s sincerity.

Contrary to latter-day presumptions, moreover, there was no evidence of the work’s revised ending as somehow tacked-on to what went before – Pappano drawing a Nietzschean ‘oneness’ from those closing bars which set the seal on a persuasive reading, and a memorable concert.

You can find out more about the 2022/23 season and book tickets at the London Symphony Orchestra website. Click on the artist names for more on Sir Antonio Pappano and Roman Simovic, while you can also read more about the Samuel Coleridge-Taylor Foundation

In concert – Clara-Jumi Kang, CBSO / Ryan Bancroft – Coleridge-Taylor, Mendelssohn & Sibelius

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clara-jumi-kang

Coleridge-Taylor Solemn Prelude in B minor, Op. 40 (1899)
Mendelssohn Violin Concerto in E minor, Op. 64 (1844)
Sibelius Symphony No. 2 in D, Op. 43 (1901-2)

Clara-Jumi Kang (violin), City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra / Ryan Bancroft

Symphony Hall, Birmingham
Thursday 13 January 2022

Written by Richard Whitehouse Ryan Bancroft picture (c) Benjamin Ealovega

Having seen in the new year in customary Viennese-style, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra continued its season with this programme of repertoire staples along with what was (probably) only the third performance of a relatively early orchestral work by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor.

The recent revival of interest in Coleridge-Taylor hopefully means such enticing pieces as his Violin Concerto and Clarinet Quintet will be heard more frequently at concert hall and recital rooms. If the Solemn Prelude is not quite on their level, it certainly deserved more than total neglect following its premiere at Worcester Cathedral in 1899; a further hearing last July only made possible after the manuscript was relocated at the British Library. Combining Elgarian nobility with Brucknerian grandeur, its outer sections exude a portentousness complemented by the expressive immediacy at its centre; abetted here by Ryan Bancroft’s flexible handling of tempo so a welcome melodic spontaneity came to the fore. No undiscovered masterpiece, but an appealing work that doubtless fulfilled its remit back then and could do so again today.

Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto has never lacked for performances during the 177 years of its existence such that familiarity can breed, if not contempt, then at least a certain predictability. Credit to Clara-Jumi Kang for reminding one how (to quote David Kettle’s apt description in the programme) ‘‘quietly innovative’’ the piece is as to formal continuity and motivic fluidity. Not that this was a low-key or understated reading – Kang bringing out the combative side of the opening Allegro (‘appassionato’ it duly was), not least her impetuous take on the central cadenza whose developmental function was tellingly underlined. The Andante melded warm lyricism and plaintive regret to a bewitching effect then, after its teasing entrée, the animated repartee of the finale was deftly rendered through to a vivacious coda and decisive conclusion.

Now in his early thirties, Bancroft (above) is into his second season as principal conductor of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and takes up a similar post with Royal Stockholm Philharmonic in 2023. This account of Sibelius’s Second Symphony left little doubt as to his interpretative credentials, not least with a finely proportioned yet impulsive reading of the initial Allegretto, then an Andante as lacked in little in that formal focus essential if its fervour is not to become histrionic. To which, an attacca from one movement to the other might have been beneficial.

The latter movements run continuously in any case – and, after a scherzo by turns tensile and tender, the transition was unerringly handled such that the finale hit the ground running. This can easily become discursive or even sprawl but, with its ‘big tune’ kept in check and starkly modal second theme keenly ominous, it built purposefully and with some inevitability to an apotheosis that, while it evinced more in the way of triumph than catharsis, none the less set the seal on an idiomatic performance with the CBSO woodwind and brass often at their best.

After an evening of Stephen Sondheim (now the more poignant following his death last November), then chief conductor designate Kazudi Yamada returns on Wednesday 19 and Thursday 20 January in a programme of Strauss, Mozart and Mahler.

For more information on the next concerts with Kazudi Yamada you can visit the orchestra’s website. Meanwhile click on the links for information on Clara Jumi-Kang and Ryan Bancroft.

Playlist – Clare Hammond

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It is with great pleasure that we welcome pianist Clare Hammond to the Arcana playlist section.

Clare has just released a new solo album, Variations. It is a typically thoughtful and inventive program of works from the 20th and 21st-centuries, ranging from  Adams to Birtwistle, Copland to Gubaidulina.

We invited Clare to complement her new album with a selection of her own favourite sets of variations, and she has obliged with some new discoveries. We begin with one of the greatest of all, the towering Passacaglia for organ by Bach, via Leopold Stokowski‘s colourful orchestration. Then we downsize for Louise Farrenc‘s Variations concertantes sur mélodie suisse, for violin and piano, before we hear from George Walker, the first African American to have won the Pulitzer Prize for Music, and only recently getting more exposure as a composer. Polish composer Grażyna Bacewicz, with her Theme with Variations, offers a strong contrast to the Farrenc, again for violin and piano.

A Decca recording from 1993 follows, an early bit of recognition for the craft of Coleridge-Taylor and his substantial Variations on an African Air for orchestra. We go to piano for Lili Boulanger‘s typically concise and expressive contribution, before the wonderfully humourous, wacky and brilliant Variations on America by Charles Ives, in the orchestration by William Schuman.

Make sure you have a listen to this as well as Clare’s album, to be reviewed on Arcana soon. Our grateful thanks to her for an invigorating hour of music:

You can read more about Clare Hammond’s Variations album on the BIS website, and to hear clips and purchase from Presto Classical, click here

In concert – Members of the English Sinfonia @ St John’s Smith Square: English Miniatures

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Members of the English Sinfonia: Janice Graham (violin), Nick Bootiman (viola), Julia Graham (cello) Chris Hopkins (piano)

Vaughan Williams The Lark Ascending (1914)
Bridge Miniatures – Book 2, H88 (1910)
Coleridge-Taylor Piano Trio in E minor (1893)
Holst String Trio in G minor (1894)
Bax Piano Quartet in One Movement (1922)

St. John’s, Smith Square, London, 15 December 2020 (lunchtime)

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse

Celebrating its 60th anniversary next year, the English Sinfonia will be remembered by older listeners for those valuable recordings of British music with Neville Dilkes (not least the first modern account of Moeran’s Symphony). Its current incarnation as ensemble-cum-chamber orchestra enables it to tackle a wide repertoire, and even though only the core personnel was featured in this afternoon’s concert, the works that were chosen offered a more than plausible overview of British chamber music composed across the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Easy to forget that, long before his music assumed a more radical mindset, Frank Bridge was a composer of lighter fare. Hence those three sets of Miniatures for piano trio – classy salon music of which the second set moves from a soulful while never cloying Romance, via an infectious and decidedly scherzo-like Intermezzo, to a Saltarello with more than a hint of menace in its hectic dash. By comparison, the Piano Trio of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor tries a little too hard to impress. If this early piece is hardly the equal of such as the later Clarinet Quintet, its three compact movements are never less than eventful – whether in the vehement Allegro with its portentous opening, a Scherzo whose unremitting energy brings little respite, or Finale whose distinctive furiant rhythm sees the whole work through to a forthright close.

Unlike the above, Holst composed relatively few chamber pieces in his maturity. While his String Trio evinces little sense of what he went on to achieve, this does not lack for incident. Idiosyncratic, too, in that its compact and forthright opening movement is followed by one which, over twice as long, integrates a slow movement, scherzo and finale that add up to an unlikely if cohesive whole; the fugal intricacies of that final section a stern test of ensemble such as the present players despatched with evident resolve. Appreciably more characteristic is the Piano Quartet by Bax – its tensile single movement packing a wide range of ideas and moods into little more than 10 minutes; and following an essentially conflicted to triumphal trajectory recalling that of the combative First Symphony which immediately preceded it.

Opening this afternoon’s programme, Janice Graham gave an affecting account of The Lark Ascending in the version for violin and piano first heard in public exactly 100 years ago. Now the orchestral version has become ubiquitous, this chamber guise can feel almost a reduction, yet the lucidity of its formal layout becomes even more explicit, and the understated poise of its piano part – as rendered by Chris Hopkins – belies any doubts as to Vaughan Williams’s limitations when writing for the instrument. An eloquent start to an enterprising programme.

Further information at https://www.englishsinfonia.org.uk/