The Dome, Brighton

Sunday 7 December

Barry Wordsworth may be basking in the delights of the Antipodes but that has not stopped the season from providing exceptional music-making. On paper, yesterday’s concert looked somewhat odd. Most programmes hang themselves on one or two key items but here we had eight shorter works reflecting a composer’s response to the life and landscape of the country as a whole.

In one sense they were all national composers for even Mendelssohn came to be seen as an English composer in the same way that Handel had done. His Hebrides Overture set the tone for masterly reflection on the impact of the sea. This was followed by Butterworth’s hauntingly subtle vision of A Shropshire Lad. In the opening passages the dawn eases in before the sun rises, but this is not the cathartic explosion we experience in Strauss but the gentle warming of an English summer sun. The structure was very finely caught by conductor Richard Balcombe who seems to have an innate sensitivity towards English music.

John Bradbury is far too rarely heard as a soloist. His magnificent New Year’s Day concert a few years ago remains firmly fixed in the memory, but his superb playing was very much in evidence for Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending. Rarely have I sensed the various levels of the open-air as in this reading. While the woodwind provide hints of the bird life close to the ground and the cheerful folk melodies of the people below them, the lark sores above dipping and diving until at last it disappears not just from view but from our aural perspective. This certainly was a blithe spirit reflecting on the spiritual life of the world below. A masterly performance – when we will hear him again as soloist?

By contrast Hamish MacCunn’s youthful overture Land of the Mountain and the Flood seemed rather prosaic if easy to assimilate.

Sullivan’s Pirates of Penzance has little to do with Cornwall but the overture proved a cheerful opener to the second half before the more demanding Norfolk Rhapsody from Vaughan Williams. Though not as popular as the Lark its subtle beauty charmed us with ease.

The final two items were unarguably popular. Malcolm Arnold’s brief Four Cornish Dances have rather more to do with Cornwall than the Sullivan but they are distinctly tongue-in-cheek, particularly the rousing third dance in homage to Sankey & Moody. Then we came to Eric Coates and his London Suite, concluding with a rousing rendition of the Knightsbridge March. Most of us in the audience recalled this only too easily from In Town Tonight, but it was none the less nostalgically very welcome.

The next concert is the New Year’s Day Viennese Gala on 31 December, followed by a programme of Brahms and Beethoven on 11 January.

Mote Hall, Maidstone,

29 November 2014

Brian Wright was quite correct in his thinking that the programme of works this evening epitomised both the planning and strengths of the orchestra. What might appear to be a conventional set of items – Suite, Concerto, Symphony – brought a number of specific challenges both for the players and the audience, and a soloist of international acclaim.

Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring may seem very familiar but its rhythmic complexities and solo lines are traps for the unwary. The hushed, almost sultry, opening lulls us into a false sense of ease which is gently dispelled as dawn breaks. The playing had a slight rawness to it which was in keeping with the integrity of the score. This is not a sentimental work but a vision of the openness, both physically and spiritually, of a community prior to mass industrialisation and urbanisation. Copland looks back with his eyes open even if nostalgia creeps in. Once we passed through the variations of Simple Gifts we returned to the focus of the work, the love of the newly married couple and their relationship to the world around them. In the final bars, three stars come out, like a gentle blessing on their love. A magical moment.

It should be difficult to follow this but Giovanni Guzzo’s handling of the Brahms’ violin concerto was so captivating it almost made us overlook the start. He produced a radiant sweetness of tone, across the full range of his Stradivarius, but no violin is as important as the quality of the musician playing it. The orchestra rose the challenge of his playing, producing a bite and pulse which supported the clarity of his phrasing. The second movement seemed faster than usual moving the music forward with a subtle passion and heading us into the joyful exuberance of the finale. Thankfully he gave us an encore – the slow movement from a Bach violin sonata – which proved intoxicating in its slow unfolding and gentle phrases. Please ask him to return for the Mendelssohn!

Vaughan Williams’ Fourth Symphony may have been written ten years before the Copland but it has all the shock of the new. The terror explodes from the opening bars and the intensity of the writing never lets up. The slow movement may be quieter but it never smiles, and even when the Scherzo arrives, the outward sign is more a grimace than a greeting. The marches of the final movement prefigure Shostakovich and have all of his doubled-edged attack. Is there any hope here? Not a lot. Is this a vision of the future or a man distracted by the building of the Dorking by-pass? In the end neither matter for the symphony, played with remarkably tight control of its rhythms and some fine solo playing, is a massive outpouring of pain in a world which seems to be running out of control.

Next time – Weber, Taffanel, Nielsen and Dvorak – Saturday 31 January 2015.

London Coliseum 27 November 2014

ENO have mounted a number of highly successful productions of new works by John Adams, in collaboration with Peter Sellars. If The Gospel According to the Other Mary does not quite live up to the expectation of earlier stagings that should not imply that there is not much to appreciate here. The real problem is with the approach to the text and characterisation. While in essence a retelling of the passion, Jesus is never present. His words are given to a trio of counter-tenors, and occasionally spread across the rest of the cast. All of the named characters have at least one character double, and Lazarus is split over a singing tenor, a dancer and an actor. As such our sympathies are dissipated. It is difficult to empathise with a group rather than a single individual. It is the opposite of the Bach’s passions where we are drawn in by the emotional intensity of the singer and made to feel their pain.

The constant shifts in emphasis are also confused by the movement from mythical to contemporary time. We frequently lose the sense of where the focus is in any one scene, and the often powerful writing is lost in the hazy visual impact.

The small cast sing the score with enthusiasm and Russell Thomas is particularly effective as Lazarus, his long solo towards the end of act one at last galvanising our attention. Patricia Bardon’s Mary is often an outsider, ill at ease with the action around her, though this is never brought to real focus until the end.

The set of sand-coloured soft gauzes is effective though the constant drifting of the back cloths can be distracting. James F Ingalls provides very effective lighting which tries to guide our attention throughout, and is particularly effective in the choral scenes.

There is not a lot for the chorus to do dramatically and for much of the time they stand as a block, gesturing to the score in a way now familiar in Peter Sellars’ productions. Though frequently effective it can also be distracting.

Joana Carneiro drives the score with great intensity from the pit and it will be interesting to compare her approach to the new recording of the work.