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The Sixteen

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Bridgewater Hall, Manchester, 2 November 2012

Those of us who arrived early got two concerts for the price of one. As a substantial part of the introduction to the concert, Harry Christophers and Eamonn Dougan conducted Genesis Sixteen – the youth choir, auditioned annually and trained throughout the year – in works by Britten, Melgas, Part and Vaughan Williams. These young singers are chosen for the quality and individuality of their voices as well as their more obvious ability to blend as a choral group. As a result, the sound is strikingly original as well as technically accomplished. The four works given enabled the choir to demonstrate not only their technical finesse but the range of music they can turn their skills to. These young singers obviously have a secure future wherever they eventually sing.

The main concert focussed on works by Schumann and Brahms, a move away from the more familiar baroque repertoire of The Sixteen, but one that held no problems for them. Moreover, the works were to be heard with piano accompaniment only.

Brahms’ vocal quartets are among his least familiar output, but there is nothing small scale about them. The delicious warmth of An die Heimat, the jollity of Fragen were very effective. Spatherbst brings autumn mists but does not quite catch the melancholy of the text, but the set ended with the uplift of Warum.

After the interval we heard Ein Deutsches Requiem in the four-hand version which the composer himself arranged. There are many benefits to hearing the work in this more intimate version not least the clarity of musical lines both in the choir and the piano accompaniment. The opening Selig sind set a tone of stillness which returned regularly throughout the performance, none more so than in Wie lieblich sind deine Wohnungen, where the piano seemed even more apt than a full orchestra might have done.

Harry Christophers’ handling of the score maintained Brahms’ tempi and there was no sense of unnecessary haste or lightness just because there was no orchestra. Denn wir haben hie brought real power and nobility and the work concluded with a deeply-felt Selig sind die Toten.

In the first half John Reid had played three extracts from Schumann’s Waldszenen, the last of which was poignant and romantic without ever becoming sentimental.

Surprisingly, this was my first visit to the Bridgewater Hall. The acoustic seemed rather hard-edged, though this might be the result of a very low attendance. I doubt if the hall was half full. Given the quality of the performance and the reputation of the performers this was somewhat strange. BH

 

The Mikado returns to ENO

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ENO’s joyous and iconic interpretation of The Mikado returns to the London Coliseum this Christmas, complete with high-kicking chorus lines, satirical touches and a wonderfully elegant score. Jonathan Miller’s widely-acclaimed production of Gilbert & Sullivan’s ‘Japanese’ satire takes the story out of the tiny oriental town of Titipu and sets it in the faintly seedy grandeur of a 1930s English hotel – the perfect place for lampooning targets much closer to home. This revival marks Richard Suart’s 25th anniversary in the part of Ko-Ko, the Lord High Executioner.

David Parry conducts an outstanding British cast, led by Richard Suart as Ko-Ko. ENO favourite Robert Murray, who most recently played the role of Steersman in Jonathan Kent’s critically-acclaimed production of The Flying Dutchman, is Nanki-Poo. He is joined by ENO Harewood Artist Mary Bevan, singing the role of Yum-Yum and Richard Angas and Mark Richardson share the role of The Mikado of Japan. The cast also includes David Stout as Pish-Tush, Rachael Lloyd as Pitti-Sing and Yvonne Howard as Katisha.

Miller’s iconic vision of a 1930’s English, sea-side hotel was immaculately captured by the late, celebrated stage designer Stefanos Lazaridis, a frequent collaborator with ENO during the 1980s.The creative team includes costume designer Sue Blane, choreographer Antony van Laast (revival choreography by Steven Speed) and lighting designer Davy Cunningham.

The Mikado opens at the London Coliseum on 1 December for 12 performances – 1, 5, 7, 8 December and 21, 25, 26, 30 and 31 January at 7.30pm and 1, 8 December and 26 January at 2.30pm

London Philharmonic Orchestra

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Royal Festival Hall, 31 October 2012

Osmo Vanska is one our finest conductors of Scandinavian music and his wealth of experience was brought into play in this somewhat unbalanced concert. It opened with a delicate and light reading of Sibelius’ Third Symphony. No Nordic depression here, just a series of beautifully crafted images. Osmo Vanska shaped, cajoled and smiled the music into life. The gentle warmth of the Andantino was like a slow circle dance at sunset. If the final movement seemed almost over-playful at first, the strong cello line brought things together and ended the performance with real joy.

What are we to make of Carl Nielsen’s Sixth Symphony? He may have called it simple yet it is anything but. However, the music is totally accessible even when confusing. The Humoreske  may sound like a group of music students messing about but the rapid shifts of mood and texture are uncomfortably close to atonalism and even modernism. In the final movement we could be at a Hoffnung Music Festival. And yet there seems to be something far more profound here. It seems as if Nielsen is forcing us to face the reality of our emotional reactions to music. He lures us into a romantic string section only to drop it, almost like Charles Ives, and force us to accept we are being manipulated. Are we so weak-willed that we give in to any emotion thrown at us by a composer? It makes for an exhilarating and challenging half-hour, and one we should investigate more often.

Between these two fine works we heard Mozart’s Violin Concerto No 3 in G major. I feel like asking – why? It was out of step with the rest of the programme and seemed uncomfortably light weight. Maybe part of the problem was the soloist, Christian Tetzlaff. Technically accomplished, his platform demeanour is distracting with its swooping movements and bodily contortions. Luckily I had somebody tall sitting in front of me and I was able to block him out visually for most of the time. The Adagio was the better section and this brought something closer to equanimity, though the dancing returned in the finale. BH

WNO in concert

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The Orchestra and Chorus of Welsh National Opera will be performing under guest conductor Christoph Poppens’ baton as part of St David’s Hall International Concert Series, on Friday 16 November 2012 at 7.30pm .

The repertoire includes Mozart Masonic Funeral Music and Mozart’s Requiem which features Elizabeth Watts, Márie Flavin, Andrew Tortise and Neal Davies as soloists. Between these works, the Orchestra is joined by two soloists from WNO, pianist Simon Phillippo and Principal Trumpet Dean Wright, in three movements from the Requiem by Hans Werner Henze .

The music in the evenings’ programme reflects on humans complex responses to death, moving from grief to celebration of lives.

Babar the Elephant

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Paul Guinery(piano) & Peter Barker (narrator)

Lunch-time Concert; Holy Trinity Church, Hastings, 24 October 2012

These two well-known names from Radio 3 gave a delightful performance of Poulenc’s musical interpretation of Jean de Brunhoff’s  childrens book (in translation by Nelly Rieu). This originally improvised music is certainly not childish and shows a wide range of influences including popular and jazz stylings. This provided a further link with the second part of the concert – five selected movements from William Walton’s musical arrangement of the poems of Edith Sitwell, Facade.

I have long been a fan of the use of the pairing of spoken word and music and it was a real joy to listen to the combination of Peter Barker’s radio-honed enunciation together with Paul Guinery’s highly accomplished piano playing.  This proved to be an uplifting, enchanting lunchtime interlude, appreciated by a large audience. SP

TIME LORD TOM’S TERRIFYING TALES

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Stables Theatre, Hastings 14/10/12
 
A capacity crowd at the Stables Theatre was entertained by an imaginative, varied and deeply satisfying blend of words & music spanning the gently macabre to the wildly hilarious. The first half of the evening was a good old fashioned variety show. Ex- Blake’s 7 star Paul Darrow was interviewed and then gave a chilling performance of Edgar Alan Poe’s verse-story The Raven. There were extracts from Sweeney Todd, Les Miserables & Chicago from local musical theatre group Renaissance, all given with great energy and conviction. The star turn Tom Baker gave a highly entertaining and, at times, mesmerising reading of his own short story, specially written for the occasion.
 
The second half of the evening was given over to a question and answer session with Tom being interviewed by the show’s organisers, Steve Corke and Oliver McNeil. The questions, although well put, were at times quite incidental as Tom took command of the proceedings regaling us with often very personal, and at times, hilarious anecdotes from his varied life experience. The evening’s compere, Toby Hadoke, known to Dr Who fans for his affectionate stage tribute to the show, also joined in the proceedings, having kept the audience entertained throughout the first half.
 
The whole evening was a delight and the disparate elements worked very well together. The organisers and participants are to be congratulated on such an enjoyable event which was also a fundraiser for St Michael’s Hospice. SP
 
 

London Philharmonic Orchestra

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Congress Theatre, Eastbourne, 28 October

The London Philharmonic Orchestra has been associated with Eastbourne for over eighty years now, and their regular seasons at Glyndebourne have kept the relationship even closer. If two thirds of the programme was very familiar, the central concerto was not and proved to be the most interesting item. Saint-Saens’ Second Cello Concerto was the last of his ten concerti and one of the most demanding. The cellist is faced with double-stopping from the start and there are some fiendishly difficult passages.

None of this seemed to worry soloist Jamie Walton who brought genuine lyricism to the Andante sostenuto and fire to his extended cadenza. The work makes its way from an introverted D minor to a blaze in D major. It was very enthusiastically received and one hopes we might hear it more often.

The afternoon had not opened with this level of enthusiasm. The performance of Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings was accurate but sleepy, with little sense of life or warmth. Thankfully the concerto seemed to have woken everybody up and the performance of Dvorak’s Eighth Symphony after the interval was finely paced and brought well moulded changes of mood. Climaxes were well built in the Adagio, and there was an excellent flute obbligato in the Allegretto. The cello section had shone throughout, even in the Tchaikovsky, and came into its own in the final movement of the Dvorak with a warm, romantic line for the main theme.

Michael Seal, a regular conductor with the CBSO, was making his debut with the LPO this afternoon and showed increasing confidence as the performance progressed. BH

The next concert in the series is on 9 December with works by Brahms, Mozart and Bruckner  eastbournetheatres.co.uk  01323 412000

Rhodes Piano Trio

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 Vinehall School Music Society 27 October 2012

The sudden arrival of winter seemed to be reflected in the concert given by the Rhodes Piano Trio. All three works were set in minor keys and have troubled hearts. They opened with Beethoven’s Op1 No3 in C minor – the trio Haydn advised Beethoven not to publish. One can see why, even in the opening movement, where the hints of Schubert and later romanticism seem light years away from the classical norm. Although Beethoven trims his material so as not to upset the listener the darker side constantly troubles the surface to make a much more exciting and demanding piece. The Rhodes Piano Trio found these depths with ease, particularly Robert Thompson’s mellifluous piano playing on Vinehall’s beautiful Bosendorfer, so much more appropriate to early romantic music than other concert grands, as we heard in the second work.

Schumann’s Piano Trio No3 in G minor is densely written almost at times to the point of obscurity, and it was a tribute to the players that we could follow the musical line with ease. This was particularly true of the intense sensitivity of the Ziemlich langsam second movement. The frenetic scherzo leads to a final movement the composer thought of as Humorous. Though marginally lighter than the earlier movements its skittish shifts and diverse melodic fragments make for an uneasy transition.

After the interval Mendelssohn’s Piano Trio No1 in D minor was something of a relief as the composer is never far removed from good humour, and the work allows all of the soloists to demonstrate their individual skills. Violinist, Michael Gurevish introduced all of the works, showing an easy rapport with his audience as well as technical prowess. The acoustic in the hall allows the lower parts for the cello to sing beautifully, and David Edmunds made good use of this, particularly during the Beethoven.

The next concert in the series is on Saturday 24 November when the Zemlinsky quartet of Prague will play works by Mozart, Janacek and Dvorak. Details from geoffreywhitehead@vinehallschool.com BH

 

GOTHIC HORROR IN WESTMINSTER

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“Nosferatu” (1922) with live improvised organ accompaniment  by Otto Kraemer; Methodist Central Hall, Westminster.

This special event was a part of the series of Monday Gala Organ Concerts with visiting organists performing on the Hall’s recently restored and reconstructed Hill /Harrison organ. Otto Kraemer, guest tutor on the London organ improvisation course, breathed life and emotion into the film through his wonderful interpretation. The sheer scale of the organ was demonstrated to remarkable effect – at times through well-chosen solo stops and combinations across the whole pitch range. At other times there were spine-tingling sequences with full-bodied chorus work. We also heard Tremulants and celestes as well as imaginative use of mutations. The versatility of this truly orchestral organ was shown to the full.

Otto Kraemer showed himself to be a master of improvisation. Sometimes the music was to the fore, at other times in the background, but always enhancing and enlivening the action on the screen. There were clever quotations from popular music – Rod Stewart’s Sailing, Sur le pont d’Avignon and even The Magnificent Seven! Each was expertly and seamlessly woven into the soundtrack. As the film ended the organ built to a thrilling climax to what had been an immensely enjoyable evening. What a pity that there were only about 30 of us in the audience – in a hall advertised as seating up to 2160.  SP

Brighton Philharmonic’s new season

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Trafalgar Day and what a glorious start to the new season. Worries about cost seem to have been tossed aside to make a real impact from the word go. The Brighton Festival Chorus and a full range of international soloists joined the orchestra under Barry Wordsworth for Haydn’s Nelson Mass. The unusual conception of the work, scored without woodwind but with a strongly written organ part and full brass, makes for a very lively impact. The weight of choral singing is matched by the intensity of the orchestra which at times seems closer to late Beethoven that early Mozart.

Soprano Elizabeth Donovan impressed with a lyric but forceful coloratura but did not overshadow her fellow soloists. Alistair Young spun a fine organ line without over-egging the texture, given the potential of the Dome’s organ. Barry Wordsworth was clearly enjoying himself and it showed in the liveliness of the tempi and the sense of fire throughout.

After the interval we were in a different sound world altogether with Elgar’s Sea Pictures. Where the Haydn had been extrovert and thrilling, the Elgar was as intimate and heart-catching, even in what can be more extrovert moments. Barry Wordsworth and soloist Elizabeth Sikora understand the delicate balance within these songs and the need to cherish the music as it opens to us. Her wide vocal range was ideal but she never allowed the voice to push itself too far. There were times when it almost disappeared, like the waves themselves, only to resurface even stronger a second later. The naiveté of In Haven and Where Corals Lie were beautifully captured and the rapture of Oh brave white horses was thrilling.

Maybe we earned a moment of relaxation at the end. Certainly Barry Wordsworth thought so as he gave us a rollicking rendition of Henry Wood’s Fantasia on British Sea Songs. These are so familiar from the Proms that it seems strange that they are actually very short in performance. All the more reason to let us sing Rule Britannia twice! Roll on the rest of the season which continues with Mozart Piano Concerto No 23 and Sibelius Symphony No 5 on 11 November. www.brightonphil.org.uk  BH