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CDs/DVDs August 2019

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Bach: Toccatas BWV 911-916
Mahan Esfahani, harpsichord
HYPERION CDA 68244

There is a real buzz of excitement in this recording which I have certainly felt hearing Mahan Esfahani live but which does not always transfer to disc. Here it certainly does and the tight, dancing rhythms are never allowed to drop. These are not toccatas in the strictest sense of the term but more short suites, or expanded single pieces, often closer to a fantasy that the organ toccatas we are more familiar with. All the more engaging then because of their unfamiliarity and very much worth seeking out.

 

Risonanze: music for viola da gamba
Ibrahim Aziz, viola da gamba
FHR 83

The combination of classical pieces by Bach, Abel and Schenck alongside more recent works by Rebecca Rowe and Carlos Martinez Gil add considerable frisson to the recording and the warmth of Ibrahim Aziz’ playing is never in doubt.

 

Dowland
Michael Butten, classical guitar
FHR 84

Twenty short works by Dowland – each a gem and worthy of careful attention in its own right. The classical guitar brings a different tonal quality compared to the more familiar lute for these pieces and therefore brings a more nuanced perspective and demands a careful listener, which hopefully they will get.

 

A Life in Music: Vintage Tommy Reilly
Tommy Reilly, harmonica
CHANDOS CHAN 20143

This is a delight and brings back many happy memories of post-war radio programmes. However, alongside familiar popular tunes there are some unexpected classical items which demonstrate not only Tommy Reilly’s virtuosity but also the enormous range of his talent. To be able to encompass Jealousy and a Scarlatti sonata is no mean feat.

 

Puccini: Madama Butterfly
Glyndebourne Festival Opera, Omer Meir Wellber
OPUS ARTE OA 1167 D

Before you think oh dear, another Butterfly let me just say this is breath-taking on almost every level. Annilese Miskimmon’s production moves the period to the second world-war with the reality of American sailors returning to the USA with Japanese brides. The use of film clips set this scene clearly and uncomfortably from the start. Added to this the opening act is in Goro’s offices where he is almost literally selling brides to sailors. Joshua Guerrero’s handsome if naïve Pinkerton seems to want to take things more seriously and is happy to go through with the wedding ceremony even if he has no long term intention of keeping his vows. There seems to be enough money to keep Olga Busuioc’s Cio-Cio-San until her son is clearly about 4, and Yamadori is a more that acceptable second husband should she accept the offer. But she doesn’t. The inevitable climax comes and her death is as upsetting as it is unnecessary.

Throughout the score is driven by Omer Meir Wellber with a fierce intensity and lack of sentimentality which is always engaging. The singing is splendid and I particularly liked Michael Sumuel’s world-weary Sharpless.

Very well worth investing in, even if you have more than one Butterfly already.

 

Berlioz: Symphonie fantastique
Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Andrew Davis
CHANDOS CHSA 5239

What makes this worth investigating, in addition to a fine rendition of the familiar Symphonie fantastique, is the addition of the Fantaisie sur la Tempete de Shakespeare, written at about the same time as the symphony and subsequently incorporated into Lalio. It makes for an interesting and instructive combination with obvious links between the two emotionally as well as musically.

 

Schubert: Die Schone Mullerin
Roderick Williams, baritone; Iain Burnside, piano
CHANDOS CHAN 20113

Roderick Williams goes from strength to strength and one wonders if there is anything today that he can’t do. The sensitivity he brings to the text and the sheer joy in his musicality shines throughout. He is superbly supported by Iain Burnsides mellifluous piano accompaniment. An absolute delight!

 

Stanford: overture in the style of a tragedy; Verdun; A Welcome March; Fairy Day; A Song of Agincourt
Ulster orchestra, Howard Shelley
HYPERION CDA 68283

A surprisingly eclectic collection ranging from the charm of Fairy Day – which is as unsentimental as Mendelssohn’s Dream while maintaining a real lightness of touch – the more overtly bombastic A Welcome March for Edward VII’s visit to Ireland. Alongside this sit the Verdun Solemn March and Heroic Epilogue and A Song of Agincourt – a fantasy reworking the familiar medieval song with a romantic take on heroism in its opulent orchestration.

 

Brahms: Symphony No 4
Haydn: Symphony No101
Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Otto Klemperer
BR KLASSIK 900717

These recordings from 1956/7 come from a period before I first heard Otto Klemperer live in London and they certainly bring back the wonderful attention to detail as well as the often ponderous approach to tempi. These are not as slow as I had feared they might be but there is still a weight to the Brahms and a slightly pretentious attention to phrasing which is now very much out of fashion. As such it is a useful reminder of how much fashion does actually control our thinking about the way a work should be performed and that, in another fifty years, what now sounds vivid may simply sound superficial.

 

Beethoven: The Creatures of Prometheus – version for piano
Warren Lee, piano
NAXOS 8.573974

Beethoven issued the piano arrangement himself before the orchestral scores so that this is not a reduction from the full score so much as the composer’s own approach to the work in the process of composition. It works extremely well and Warren Lee’s playing is engaging and alive throughout.

 

Wagner: Siegfried Act 3
Lise Lindstrom, Stefan Vinke
Deutsche Radio Philharmonie, Pietari Inkinen
SWR MUSIC SWR 19078CD

This has been released as an abridged version of Act 3 and, for some of us at least, it leaves out much of the best music! In essence this is the final duet from the awakening of Brunnhilde, but includes the Vorspiel to the act and the transition fire music. The orchestral playing is excellent under Pietari Inkinen. Some may find the vibrato in Stefan Vinke’s voice difficult to take but he has no problem or sense of strain with the higher lying passages. Unfortunately Lise Lindstrom suffers from the same problem in terms of a marked vibrato in the voice which I found uncomfortable throughout. A pity – but when there are so many other versions to choose from I am not quite sure what this has to offer.

The John Sheppard Ensemble

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Christ Church, St Leonards-on-sea 6th August 2019

The John Sheppard Ensemble gave a most impressive evening of a capella singing which deserved a larger audience.  Unfortunately, because the St Leonards’ venue was a fill in before their performance in Guildford, the event wasn’t advertised as widely as it should have been. However, those who did attend had an enchanting and splendid evening. We heard choral singing at its best and most harmonious.

The 25 person German choir sang two pieces from German composers and two from English.  The German Brahm’s Funf Gesange and Rheinberger’s Cantus Missae had distinctive emotive flowing tones and movement.  After a brief interval, we heard four of Parry’s Songs of Farewell, delivered enchantingly with the right emphasis on his usual swell and ebb of sound.  Then, Vaughan-Williams Mass in G, which included parts for soloists. These were executed exceedingly well. Overall the choir’s harmony seemed effortless.

Two words came to mind during the whole performance. Firstly, Choreography; the voices danced, flowing and weaving together, each voice complementing the whole with no one being too loud, faltering or out of step.    Secondly, Control; the conductor, Bernhard Schmitt, though his musical direction and conducting appeared light, had a control with the choir which gave them a superiority to be envied and admired.

As an encore we were treated to an extra piece from Rheinberger where the choir surrounded the audience. It was beautiful and enchanting.  Thank you and well done indeed!

Whatever happens after Brexit, please, please, come again. Sorry, that’s an in joke.

Reverend Bernard Crosby

A Fool’s Paradise & The Happy Princess

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Garsington Opera at Wormsley

The Happy Princess by Paul Fincham and Jessica Duchen, loosely based on an Oscar Wilde story, is a mini-masterpiece. In the directorial hands of the very talented Karen Gillingham and the Garsington Opera Youth Company it is a fine hour of opera by any standards, anywhere. I hope very much that this piece is soon published and licensed so that other youth groups elsewhere can have access to it.

Of course the smallest children (from nearby Ibstone CE School)  were show stealers as the city birds, flapping their wings and singing with terrific concentration and clarity, skilfully supported by conductor Jonathon Swinard,  but there is much more to this show than cuteness.

The thrust of the story is that pair of swallows (Owain Boyd-Leslie and Maia Greaves, both very young and very tuneful) undertake three errands for the statue princess (Lara Marie Muller – lots of gravitas and a fine voice). That takes us to some big ensemble scenes: sweatshop workers, a school and a group of refugees. Duchen is a fine story teller.

The singing is, from the very first note, incisive, dynamically well controlled and set against accomplished movement. And it all looks very natural – rather than rehearsed and that makes it all feel very professional and interestingly edgy.

Five stars too, if I were awarding them, for Fincham’s score which uses an eight-piece orchestra. It is highly atmospheric, nicely paced and varied, providing lots of opportunities for small solos along with some string choral numbers including harmony. I loved, for instance, the mysterious minor for the repeated trio between the Princess and the swallows with a rising scale motif – simple but very effective. It’s all unashamedly melodious too.

I suppose Offenbach is melodious too but, sadly, A Fool’s Paradise is definitely not his best work. Garsington Opera Adult Company (directed by Gillingham) had clearly gained a great deal from working on it but this 25 minute staged medley with narrated links never achieves lift off although the professional baritone, Robert Gildon, does his best to cut through the pedestrian woodenness.

It is a mistake to separate the adult and youth companies. In the recent past Garsington has commissioned works (Road Rage 2013 and Silver Birch, 2017 for example) in which the adults and young people work together as a single community and that works much better. It means that everyone can learn from and complement everyone else so that standards spiral upwards.

Susan Elkin

Cilea: L’arlesiana

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Opera Holland Park, July 2019

Education is a progressive realisation of our own ignorance, as Einstein said. The same applies to classical music and especially opera. The more you hear and see the more you discover. Francesco Cilea’s L’arlesiana (1897) was completely new to me but this production won’t be the end of my relationship with it because it is a fine piece.

Federico, (Samuel Sakker) who lives with his mother and younger brother on a Provencal farm, is besotted with an “unsuitable” woman he has met in the nearby city of Arles. It would be more sensible for him to marry and settle down with the very suitable Vivetta (Fflur Wyn) a local girl but of course this is opera and things don’t ultimately go right for any of them. L’arlesiana herself dominates the plot but never appears except, in this production, in a dream sequence.

One of the best things about this work is the quality of the dramatic orchestration: brooding basses to connote anger, oboe melody for calm sublimity, pianissimo upper strings for sadness and despair, for example.  And there’s a magnificent Verdi-esque ending to Act One to accompany Sakker’s high level anguish number as he sees the letters which confirm L’arlesiana’s infidelity. The music is in good hands with City of London Sinfonia under Dane Lam.

Sakker is outstanding in the central role, his rich tenor voice laying bare every emotion. Yvonne Howard finds lots of mezzo warmth and despair in Rosa, Federico’s anxious mother. Keel Watson, who has a very attractive gravelly bass voice, stomps about convincingly as family friend Baldassare and, once she gets going there’s delightful, soaring soprano work from Wyn as the hapless Vivetta.

One of Opera Holland Park’s (many) great strengths is its fine chorus work. It’s a huge, awkwardly shaped playing area but the  massed voices of a large ensemble combine excellent crowd acting with a lovely vocal sound and the off-stage interjections are eerily atmospheric.

Susan Elkin

Jonathan Biss: 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth in 2020

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“The idea of Beethoven as the grim, set-faced perpetual striver, far too intent on storming the heavens to allow himself the luxury of even a passing smile, has fortunately taken a bit if a knock in recent years.  There is also playfulness, wit…and nowhere more so than in the piano sonatas.  Not only is American pianist Jonathan Biss a highly refined and intelligent musician, but he also understands this aspect of Beethoven as well as anyone performing today… it’s hard to think of another pianist who communicates such a sense of sheer delight.” 

BBC Music Magazine, July 2018

Renowned American pianist Jonathan Biss’s fascination with Beethoven dates back to childhood and the composer’s music has been a constant throughout his life. His deep musical curiosity has led him to explore Beethoven’s music in a multi-faceted way, through concerts, recordings, teaching, writing and commissioning.

As Jonathan explains, Beethoven cannot be ignored: “Our relationship to Beethoven is a deep and paradoxical one. For many musicians, he represents a kind of Holy Grail: his music has an intensity, rigor, and profundity which keep us in its thrall, and it is perhaps unequalled in the interpretive, technical, and even spiritual challenges it poses to performers. At the same time, Beethoven’s music is casually familiar to millions of people who do not attend concerts or consider themselves musically inclined. Two hundred years after his death, he is everywhere in the culture, yet still represents its summit. ”

Starting in September 2019, in the lead-up to the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth in December 2020, Jonathan will perform a whole season focused around Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas, with more than 50 recitals worldwide. This includes performing the complete sonatas at the Wigmore Hall and Berkeley, multi-concert-series in Washington, Philadelphia and Seattle, as well as recitals in Rome, Budapest, New York and Sydney.

Jonathan’s ambitious nine-year project to record the complete cycle of Beethoven’s piano sonatas, reaches its conclusion in 2019 with the release of the final disc in his nine-volume set. Considered the cornerstone of the pianist’s repertoire, the cycle comprises thirty-two sonatas in a range of emotional expressions. For Jonathan these sonatas have been life-long companions and a source of constant inspiration as articulated in his 2011 publication Beethoven’s Shadow. The first Kindle eBook to be written by a classical musician, Beethoven’s Shadow explores the rationale behind the recording of the sonatas and gives an insight into the power of Beethoven’s music. Jonathan writes: “I am recording all of Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas: Because he takes my breath away. Because he does so frequently, and in a way no other musical or life experience can replicate.”

Jonathan is passionate about bringing Beethoven’s music to a wider audience. In 2013 he launched Exploring Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas, a collaboration between Jonathan, the Curtis Institute of Music – where he both studied and now teaches – and Coursera, the leading provider of “massive online open courses.” The free course continues to be updated and has reached over 150,000 learners in 185 countries. The lectures take an inside-out look at the 32 piano sonatas and are aimed at a wide range of abilities – from musical novice to expert.  To aid greater understanding and to answer students, Jonathan has hosted meet-ups and Google Hangout “office hours”. These continue into 2019/2020 when there will be a Coursera meet-up attached to each one of his Wigmore Hall Beethoven concerts.

Beethoven’s contemporary legacy is just as important for Jonathan, who initiated Beethoven/5, a project to commission five piano concertos as companion works for each of Beethoven’s piano concertos. The resulting pieces, from some of today’s most important composers, re-imagine Beethoven for the twenty-first century: Timo Andres The Blind Banister (2015), Sally Beamish City Stanzas (2017), Salvatore Sciarrino Il sogno di Stradella (2017), Caroline Shaw Watermark (2019) and Brett Dean Gneixendorfer musik – Eine Winterreise (2020).

 

London, Wigmore Hall, Beethoven Piano Sonatas Cycle

Date:        29 September 2019
Programme:    Beethoven    Piano Sonata No. 1 in F minor, Op. 2 No. 1
              Beethoven    Piano Sonata No. 9 in E major, Op. 14, No. 1
              Beethoven    Piano Sonata No. 13 in E-flat major, Op. 27 No. 1
                           Quasi una fantasia
              Beethoven    Piano Sonata No. 12 in A-flat, Op. 26 Funeral March
              Beethoven    Piano Sonata No. 21 in C major, Op. 53 Waldstein
              Post-concert talk Jonathan Biss

 

Date:         19 December 2019
Programme:    Beethoven    Piano Sonata No. 4 in E-flat major, Op. 7
              Beethoven    Piano Sonata No. 17 in D minor, Op. 31 No. 2 Tempest
              Beethoven    Piano Sonata No. 5 in certain minor, Op. 10 No. 1
              Beethoven    Piano Sonata No. 23 in F minor, Op. 57 Appassionata
              Post-concert talk with Belcea Quartet

 

Date:         26 January 2020
Programme:    Beethoven    Piano Sonata No. 15 in D major, Op. 28 Pastorale
              Beethoven    Piano Sonata No. 20 in G Major, Op. 49, No. 2
              Beethoven    Piano Sonata No. 3 in C major, Op. 2 No. 3
              Beethoven    Piano Sonata No. 27 in E minor, Op. 90
              Beethoven    Piano Sonata No. 28 in A major, Op. 101
              Post-concert talk with Brett Dean

 

Date:        28 February 2020
Programme:   Beethoven    Piano Sonata No. 6 in F major, Op. 10 No. 2
       Beethoven    Piano Sonata No. 10 in G major, Op. 14 No. 2
             Beethoven    Piano Sonata No. 18 in E-flat major, Op. 31 No. 3
                          The Hunt
             Beethoven    Piano Sonata No. 29 in B-flat major, Op. 106 Hammerklavier
             Post-concert talk with Sally Beamish

 

Date:        20 April 2020
Programme:   Beethoven    Piano Sonata No. 25 in G major, Op. 79
       Beethoven    Piano Sonata No. 11 in B-flat major, Op. 22
       Beethoven    Piano Sonata No. 14 in C-sharp minor, Op. 27 No. 2
                          Moonlight
             Beethoven    Piano Sonata No. 24 in F-sharp major, Op. 78
             Beethoven    Piano Sonata No. 30 in E major, Op. 109
             Post-concert talk with Jan Swafford

 

Date:        9 May 2020
Programme:   Beethoven    Piano Sonata No. 19 in G minor, Op. 49 No. 1
             Beethoven    Piano Sonata No. 1 in G major, Op. 31 No. 1
             Beethoven    Piano Sonata No. 7 in D major, Op. 10 No. 3
              Beethoven    Piano Sonata No. 31 in A-flat major, Op. 110
       Beethoven    Piano Sonata No. 2 in A major, Op. 2 No. 2
             Post-concert talk with Mitsuko Uchida

 

Date:        25 June 2020
Programme:   Beethoven    Piano Sonata No. 8 in C minor, Op. 13 Pathetique
             Beethoven    Piano Sonata No. 22 in F major, Op. 54
             Beethoven    Piano Sonata No. 26 in E-flat, Op. 81a Les Adieux
             Beethoven    Piano Sonata No. 32 in C minor, Op. 111
             Post-concert talk Jonathan Biss
Tickets:     £40, £35, £30, £25, £18
Box Office:  020 7935 2141
Online:             https://wigmore-hall.org.uk/whats-on/whats-on

Prom 14

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Royal Albert Hall, 29 July 2019

I first encountered Haydn’s Creation, never mind how many years ago, at school. A group of us were then selected to play and sing in a London Schools performance under David Willcocks at Caxton Hall. I played second violin and it was one of those life changing, never to be forgotten experiences. I’ve sung it many times since, too.  I was, therefore, thrilled to see and hear the 200-strong 2019 Proms Youth Choir  making a terrific job of it. I know, from experience, that whatever these young people go on to do in the future, this performance, and the rehearsals for it, will have changed them for ever. And how wonderful to hear a choir with such an enormous body of fine tenors and basses.

Conducting from the harpsichord, Omer Meir Wellber gave us a sensitive Introduction – effectively an atmospheric overture and Haydn was, of course, very good at atmosphere – before the warm magic of Christoper Pohl’s voice filtered in with Im Anfange schuf. It was an inspired idea to have the choir sing the first number off book too because it meant that the cohesion was electric from their very first note.

Pohl is a charismatic and cheerfully empathetic performer. As well as singing with warmth and colour, he frequently looks round at the choir and orchestra and watches other singers attentively. There was a nice moment, for instance, which made the audience chuckle aloud, when he reached the words der himmlische Chor in the Sixth Day section and he gestured to the choir behind him as if to introduce them.

Tenor, Benjamin Hulett and soprano, Sarah-Jane Brandon both put in pleasing performances too. Brandon’s top notes are especially rich and I enjoyed the unexpectedness of Hulett’s suddenly breaking into English for four lines of spoken word near the end. The three work together for trios and duets too and one or two glitches passed almost unnoticed.

But really this performance belonged to the choir (chorus master: Simon Halsey) whose precision, discipline and controlled energy was outstanding especially in the joyous Die Himmel erzahlen. Youth, confidence, insouciance, talent and good training are a powerful combination.

There was also some fine playing from the BBC Philharmonic. This score is fun and we were never allowed to forget that. The gelenkige Tiger, Das Rind in Herden and das Gewurm were all clearly there and enjoying life in the newly created world.

I wasn’t quite sure why the harpsichord was changed during the interval except that I couldn’t hear the first one in Part One but I could thereafter. Perhaps there was a fault on the one Wellber began on. It didn’t detract, however, from a highly enjoyable performance of one of the finest works in the canon.

Susan Elkin

Parkinsongsters

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St John the Evangelist, Hollington, 29 July 2019

A welcome return for the Parkinsongsters to St John’s for another afternoon of popular songs and music-making.

 

Introducing the event, Jane Metcalfe said we were in for an afternoon of English songs but immediately launched into When Johnny comes marching home! This slightly tongue-in-cheek approach set the tone for a highly enjoyable session which had opened with The Sun has got his hat on and concluded with Bring me sunshine. In between we had folk songs – Oh no John and Linden Lea – alongside extended excerpts from The Pirates of Penzance and a wistful rendition of Steal Away. We were back in America towards the end of the programme with a selection of mid-twentieth century hits following an up-beat version of Bernstein’s America.

To give the singers a slight respite we heard two solo operatic arias – Vivaldi’s Vieni, vieni o mio diletto and Mozart’s popular Voi che sapete – before the choir gave us La chi darem la mano from Don Giovanni.

A large audience on a warm afternoon were understandably enthusiastic, which was certainly deserved, for all involved, not least Jane Metcalfe galvanising her forces but also Duncan Reid at the piano. We look forward to a regular series here.

The John Sheppard Ensemble

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This well acclaimed choir from Germany are doing a tour in England which will start here in Hastings at Christ Church, St Leonards, next Tuesday 6th August at 19:30. This concert has free entry. 
They will be performing:

Parry: Songs of Farewell I-IV
Vaughan-Williams: Mass in G
Brahms: Fünf Gesänge I-V (auswendig)
Rheinberger: Cantus Missae

DUDOK QUARTET AMSTERDAM

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HAYDN’S OPUS 20 STRING QUARTETS TO BE RELEASED ON RESONUS CLASSICS

Release date: 4 October 2019 (Quartet Nos 2, 3 & 5)

Following three acclaimed discs on Resonus Classics, Dudok Quartet Amsterdam is soon to launch the first of two CDs featuring Haydn’s six quartets composed in 1772, collectively known as Opus 20 and considered a milestone in the history of composition.  After almost a decade of playing his works together and developing and defining their own feeling for Haydn, the Quartet instinctively decided the time was right to focus on a sole composer for these new recordings which are supported by its 2018 Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award.

With its imaginative approach and curiosity about programming, along with arranging repertoire outside of the string quartet oeuvre, the Dudok Quartet has set itself apart from its peers. Previous recordings with Resonus Classics established something of a pattern: Metamorphosis, Labyrinth and Solitude were all ‘concept’ albums featuring a classical work, a contemporary work and their own arrangement of work from a different genre. These Haydn recordings mark a significant change of direction.

The Dudoks also entered the recording studio with the added confidence that their new classical bows, specially commissioned for the project, had an important role to play. Tailored to their individual personalities and instruments, the bespoke bows were crafted by Netherlands-based Luis Emilio Rodriguez Carrington.  The Quartet believes they have made a dramatic difference to its playing of these highly emotional, virtuosic and experimental works and that they contribute another voice to its interpretations.

Haydn’s quartets 2, 3 and 5 were recorded at Muziekcentrum va de Omroep in Hilversum (Netherlands) and will be released on 4 October 2019 to coincide with the 2019/20 concert season when some of these quartets will feature in recitals in America and Europe, including a Wigmore Hall debut on 6 October. The remaining quartets 1, 4 and 6 will be recorded at the same venue in August 2019 for release in 2020.

The Quartet is named after celebrated Dutch architect Willem Marinus Dudok (1884-1974) who was also City Architect of Hilversum.  He came from a musical family and composed in his spare time, saying “I feel deeply the common core of music and architecture: after all, they both derive their value from the right proportions”.

To coincide with the CD release, the Borletti-Buitoni Trust will release a short film made during the recording, featuring interviews with the Quartet and with the bow-maker.

Prom 9

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Royal Albert Hall, 25 July 2019

The evening began with a crisp but warm account of Till Eulenspiegel. There’s something about the acoustic of the Royal Albert Hall and the raked positioning of the orchestra which helps to bring out the detail and colour both melodically and dynamically. The trumpet solo and a couple of contrabassoon entries added noticeably to the spiky drama here, for example.

Stenz is a baton-less conductor with unusually expressive wrists and fingers which he uses balletically to coax what he wants from his players. In the familiar pieces which opened and closed this concert he used no score and rarely did anything as prosaic as beating time.

It was different, though in the trumpet concerto by Swedish composer Tobias Brostrom – played here in the UK for the first time. Stenz used a score and conducted more conventionally as you’d expect in music which is new to every orchestral player. There was a different sort of concentration and tension.  The piece is structured in two halves but three broad sections with the middle “movement” equating approximately to a traditional concerto adagio. The other-worldly percussion in the first section was impressive as the two solo trumpets (Jeroen Berwaerts and Hakan Hardenberger), mostly in thirds or echoing canon, played their haunting rather than melodic parts. It wasn’t a piece which I warmed to particularly although this orchestra played it well and both soloists did a fine job.

And so to the safety of Brahms’s first symphony which Stenz delivered with cohesion and colour especially in the andante which brought some really beautiful work from guest principal oboist, Chris Cowie and from Philippe Schartz on trumpet. The pizzicato passages were as vibrant and pointed as I’ve ever heard them and the finale (Stenz by now in whole arm, windmill mode) was both grandiloquent and moving.

Well done, BBC National Orchestra of Wales. It was a pleasant concert and what a sensible decision on the second hottest London day on record to play in shirtsleeves and tie-less.

Susan Elkin