Mote Hall, Maidstone, 21 March 2015

The Spring Equinox seemed to have encouraged a new level of risk taking for Maidstone Symphony Orchestra in a programme which may be familiar but is fraught with potential pit-falls. As Brian Wright noted in his genial introduction, In Elgar’s Violin Concerto even the corners have corners – not that this in any way inhibited the players.

The evening opened with a breezy account of Berlioz’ overture Le Corsaire, the strings skittish but under tight rhythmic control and the brass enjoying the choral fanfares of the conclusion.

It was good to welcome back Bartosz Woroch as the soloist in Elgar’s violin concerto. After the brash orchestral opening his first solo line was touchingly melancholic though with warmth and depth which promised a reading of great intimacy. In the first movement it was those intimate moments which made the most impact, at odds with the more frantic outbursts of the orchestra. I don’t recall realising how close these extrovert moments are to the Rondo in the Second Symphony, at times straining the very structure of the music. After such tension the second movement took time to relax but the flashes of nobilmente and the gradual influence of gentle reflection moved slowly towards a sense of peace. The final movement burst on us with passion, the various strands gradually coming together for a hushed and highly introvert semi-cadenza before the wistful conclusion. A splendid, if rightly challenging, performance from soloist and orchestra.

Brian Wright takes a dynamic and extrovert approach to Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. The tempi are fast and there are no pauses to take a breath. At times it seems almost reckless yet the players never lost confidence in their ability to meet the challenge. Solo playing was excellent and let me draw attention to bassoonist, Philip Le Bas. Beethoven writes wonderful solo lines for bassoon, too often overlooked, but not so here as they were all so mellifluously effective. Similarly Keith Price, using beaters with very small heads, created an original-instruments intensity from the tympani.  The crescendo opening the final movement was splendidly controlled before the extended passage in C major blazed around us – the brass once more wallowing in the joy of the moment.

The final concert this season is on Saturday 16 May with works by Tchaikovsky and Dvorak. Details are also available for next season. www.mso.org.uk

Birmingham Hippodrome, 6-7 March 2015

The mid-season productions may both be revivals but there was little sense of cost-cutting where the musical presentation was concerned. As with previous seasons, operas have been grouped around themes and this one is concerned with magic, though there were some far more serious overtones.

Dominic Cooke’s production of The Magic Flute draws on the surreal for all of the action which has the great benefit of helping us ignore the many incongruities and problems of the libretto. Where other directors tie themselves in knots to make the work relevant, here we are required simply to enjoy – and the audience certainly did. A packed house for a Friday night, with significant numbers of younger people, followed the English text with ease and responded with relish. Much of the credit must go to Musical Director Lothar Koenigs whose approach was brisk and extrovert throughout. There was little sense of high spiritual values here, more of people finding ways to deal with the inevitable rough and tumble of life. Benjamin Hulett’s honest, open Tamino has the clear top for the range without ever seeming too precious. His Pamina, Anita Watson, was affective in Ach, ich fuhl’s and strong minded when dealing with Monostatos. Jacques Imbrailo’s Papageno has a strong South African accent, which normally would not notice but in the longer spoken sections clashed rather with the cut glass English around him. His singing however could not be faulted and the final duet with Papagena was a delight. As the Queen of the Night, Samantha Hay took a little time to settle but Die Holle Rache was cleanly and precisely projected.  Scott Wilde certainly looked the part as Sarastro but the wobble in his voice was distracting when all around was so cleanly sung. Small parts were cast from strength and the small chorus projected easily within the single setting.

The following night brought a revival of Richard Jones’ Hansel and Gretel. Also sung in English, this is a dark account of the fairy tale, closer to the original Grimm than to a child’s story book. The sets are grey and claustrophobic throughout, the forest being a nightmare version of the children’s house and a precursor of the witch’s. The action is often uncomfortably naturalistic, and with missing children, child abuse and food-banks being such current issues the whole took on a far more sinister edge. The children dream of food at the end of Act One and the chef-angels bring a banquet for them. They stuff themselves when encouraged to do so in the witch’s kitchen from simple hunger.

Richard Jones highlights the Wagnerian overtones which are deep within the score. The children in the forest seem to reflect Siegmund and Sieglinde in Act Two of Die Walkure, and Adrian Thompson’s terrifying witch has much of Mime about it. This is also true of Lothar Koenigs conducting which reflects his approach to Die Meistersinger in its complexity and yet lightness of touch.

Singing is on a high level throughout with a magnificent mother from Miriam Murphy (when will we hear her as Brunnhilde?) and Ashley Holland convincingly warm as her husband. Ailish Tynan brings childlike glee to Gretel, combining comic flair with lyrical outbursts. She is never embarrassing and a convincing younger foil to her brother, a more ambivalent Jurgita Adamonyte who is never sure just how brave he actually wants to be. The final scene manages to use all the tricks of the kitchen scene from a pantomime yet keep the tension throughout, as we are only too aware of the lethal intentions of Adrian Thompson’s witch. He is a fine singer and actor but I doubt if he has ever done anything as convincing as this before. It was hilarious and terrifying at the same time.

Chorus – a chance for the fine WNO Chorus to show off their talents – will be reviewed in two weeks’ time when they are in Southampton.

London Coliseum, 4 March 2015

Purcell did not complete The Indian Queen and its history is complex with no really satisfactory version emerging. Add to this that it includes a considerable amount of dance and spoken text and the challenge facing any director might seem insurmountable. Peter Sellars takes a radical approach, moving away from any archaeological or musicological concept to make the work speak more directly to an audience bombarded on a daily basis with news of massacres and racism. He adds in other music by Purcell and text by a range of writers both 18^th century and modern.

Individual moments work very well. The four dancers, with choreography by Christopher Williams, are a delight, their movements always apt, engaging and joyous, even if at times incomprehensible.

The solo singers are emotionally convincing, with some very beautiful arias. Lucy Crowe’s O Solitude and Anthony Roth Costanzo’s Music for a while are stunning in their impact. Choral singing, together with the signing which is a familiar feature of most Peter Sellars’ productions, is bright and clear even when they are lying flat on their backs. The pit is raised so that the small baroque ensemble is in full view and carries with unexpected impact. Under Laurence Cummings the musical sections are a delight throughout, with fine playing from the three theorbos and a goodly range of percussion.

With all these elements working so well, why did the evening ultimately fail? Put simply, the individual parts, no matter how good, did not add up into a whole. Whereas a through composed opera maintains its dramatic intensity, and even the narrative line of a singspiel does not let the tension drop, here the changes in atmosphere were simply too abrupt. The evening opens with the sounds of the jungle, electronically amplified through the theatre’s speaker system. We jump cut to the orchestra and then, as quickly, back to the jungle. Rather than have the Indian Queen, warmly sung by Julia Bullock, speak for herself, an actress, Maritxell Carrero comes on to address the audience out of character and fully amplified. The constant change of oral impact is disconcerting and ultimately alienating. This is also true of the design panels which float in and out by Gronk. Rather than, as suggested, providing another world, they remain uncompromisingly flat and often irrelevant to any action taking place in front of them. They are paintings not stage sets.

Peter Sellars has done a great deal of good for ENO in the time he has been with them and nobody could doubt the technical and musical finesse of this production. It was just a pity it failed to move us in the way intended.

The Dome, Brighton, 1^st March 2015

It may have been St David’s Day but the music on offer was distinctly northern European in Stephen Bell’s deft handling. The programme opened with Beethoven’s Egmont Overture, gently hushed at the start but quickly finding its voice with controlled crescendi building to a brisk and business-like conclusion.

Tamsin Waley-Cohen was the soloist in Bruch’s Violin Concerto No 1. So regularly is this the No1 favourite on ClassicFM that it is possibly surprising how rarely it is actually performed live. A pity really for it is a fine work which easily outlives the possible problems of over popularity. Tamsin Waley-Cohen plays a 1721 Stradavarius and her tone was warm and appealing throughout. The second movement was lovingly phrased without ever seeming indulgent. The finale was fast paced and exhilarating, with exceptional clarity from the soloist. A pity we did not get an encore.

We were in much cooler climes after the interval with Sibelius’ First Symphony. Though the influence of Tchaikovsky is ever present the Finnish elements which were to dominate the rest of his symphonic output are there in equal measure. The soulful clarinet opening, the shimmering strings and crystal clear harp notes are all elements the composer would return to later, while the lush melodies would fade away as compositions became more astringent and crisply defined. Stephen Bell drove the work hard, the third movement being particularly edgy, with very clean ensemble even in passages which can easily fall apart. The final movement, even allowing for the more romantic second subject, looks towards Lemminkainen and the conclusion – two plucked notes – is entirely Sibelius.

A fine afternoon and a full house with many younger members of the audience – all very encouraging.

The final concert of the season on 22^nd March sees the return of Barry Wordsworth with works by Lord Berners, Walton and Holst.

Saturday 21 February 2015 – Gabrieli Consort & Players in Bath Abbey

The real surprise of this final concert was the impact of Handel’s early Italian cantata Donna, che in ciel, written in Rome in 1707 for a celebration of the safe escape of the city from an earthquake. There is no hint here of the composer’s Lutheran upbringing as he immerses himself in the world of Italian opera and a Catholic theology which most Catholics would find difficult today.

The work is built around four arias, originally for castrati, but here sung by soprano Gillian Webster. The first and third arias are heroic pieces which use all the tricks of the baroque castrati and which caused no problems for Gillian Webster’s fluid coloratura. The second aria however is in a very different vein, its gentle softly unfolding melody as fine as anything he was to write in later operas.

A slight, unannounced, change to the order of the programme meant that the concert had opened with Corelli’s Concerto Grosso Op6 No4, which sparkled like sun off the Venetian Lagoon. The acoustic in the Abbey seemed to be particularly sympathetic to the light string writing and the heady counterpoint which Corelli creates.

Handel’s Dixit Dominus is more familiar to us but it is rare to find it as vibrantly attacked as it was under Paul MacCreesh and his Gabrieli forces. The opening chorus caught fire instantly and this seemed to carry through with an unstoppable force right up to the vibrant in saecula saeculorum.

This year’s Bath Bach Fest has proved yet again that small scale festivals can have all the excitement and quality of much larger events. Long may it continue!

Saturday 21 February 2015 – Angela Hewitt at the Assembly Rooms

The Art of Fugue is one of a small number of works which stand outside the usual canon because of their intense spiritual impact. As such they are not heard as often as one might expect and performances are all the more important. Angela Hewitt recently recorded the complete work and here gave us a peerless performance as well as a fascinating insight into the composition from the performer’s point of view.

Reminding us that this was no walk in the park she took us through the twenty sections with succinct illustrations to allow us to follow the musical narrative up to the point where Bach died before the completion of Contrapunctus XIV. While many performances end at this point she made a strong case for including Vor deinen Thron tret ich hiermit BWV668 as a conclusion to the work, as Bach was certainly editing the chorale immediately before he died and the text I stand before Your throne seems eminently fitting given the context both spiritually and emotionally.

A sold out Assembly Rooms was unusually hushed with a deep sense of concentration throughout. She brought an innocence and lightness to the opening fugues, the third being more reflective and the fifth wistful with a sense of yearning. The French style of the sixth moves us into new pastures, almost a new start before the seventh returns us to the more puritanical tones of the earlier fugues and a re-launch into pastures new with the eighth. The splendid articulation of the ninth hardly prepared us for the complexity and chromatic wanderings of the eleventh which marked a high point of emotional intensity of the cycle. By contrast the twelfth felt almost monastic in tone before the headier cantabile of the thirteenth.

The cool lines of the first canon came as something of a relief after the previous intensity with the simple clarity of the third canon being balm to the spirit. All of this prepared us for the final, fourteenth, fugue. Is there a sense of resignation here, a hint of the inevitability of death? The inclusion of B.A.C.H. woven into the fabric of the musical structure sounded like a voice from outside calling within the work itself. A magical, no mystical, moment – and nothing ever prepares one for the sudden catastrophic end.

The quiet confidence which permeates Vor deinen Thron tret ich hiermit more than justified its inclusion as a farewell to the cycle.

Angela Hewitt seemed tired at the end and it took more than a couple of recalls to the platform before she regained her sunny disposition. There are few performers who can get to the heart of Bach’s masterpiece today and we were privileged to hear it in a live performance.

Thankfully the CD is available for those who were not able to attend in person.

Friday 20 February 2015 – Academy of Ancient Music at the Assembly Rooms

The Assembly Rooms were full for the first concert devoted entirely to J S Bach this year. The Academy of Ancient Music under Bojan Cicic opened with a brisk account of Suite No 3 in its original version for strings. The great benefit of having a small ensemble, only seven string players plus harpsichord, is the clarity with which musical lines emerge, drawing attention to themselves as the work progresses. There was some lovely ornamentation from the first two violins in the Air and Jane Rogers demonstrated that there are no dull lines in Bach with the beauty of the viola melodies which lift out of the ensemble. The enthusiasm which pervaded the final Gigue was intoxicating.

The Double Violin Concerto is normally heard with full orchestra but here, again, it was given with a small ensemble and benefitted greatly in terms of tempi and clarity. The intense beauty of the Largo was almost overwhelming and the headlong rush of the Allegro could not dispel its impact. Rebecca Livermore and Bojan Cicic were finely balanced in their individual approaches to the solo lines.

We needed an interval at this point and the second half did not make so great a demand on the emotions.

Flautist Rachel Brown joined the ensemble for the Triple Concerto BWV1044. The heart of this work is the rolling, fluid articulation from the harpsichord to which Nicholas Parle brought finesse and a sense of humour as well as technical aplomb. The gentle Adagio for soloists alone leads to a final Allabreve which also draws attention to the harpsichord, with most of the forward movement of the musical line dependent upon the instrument. Presumably Bach wrote the part for himself!

The evening ended with the Overture in G minor BWV1070 which is probably not by J S Bach though was for many years assumed to be so. Certainly the writing often seems less complex and the inner voices – look only at the viola part – lacks the lyrical intensity of the other works heard this evening. That is not to say that the work was not highly enjoyable; if anything it was a welcome relaxation after the first half. The Aria comes to a sudden end before the dancelike Menuetto and Capriccio.

This morning Angela Hewitt plays the Art of Fugue at the Assembly Rooms.

Friday 20 February 2015 – Soloists from the OAE at the Guildhall

Works for flute, violin, viola da gamba and harpsichord made up the lunchtime recital in the Guildhall, opening with Handel’s B minor Trio Sonata HWV386b. This is a remarkably sombre work and the low lying flute part was at times lost towards the back of the hall. Even the final Allegro seems to have a cloud hanging over it, no matter how well played as it certainly was here.

Telemann’s Nouveau Quatuor No6 in E minor had both grace and charm, with lovely echo effects in the gentle Gracieusement and a reflective concluding Modere.

Bach’s Musical Offering deserves a concert to itself but it was good to hear the Trio Sonata if only for the way the individual musical lines enfold each other with such skill and sensitivity. In the Allegro we hear Frederick’s theme slipped into each instrument in turn, only to we spirited away in a mist of variations. It was the highlight of the afternoon though not the end of the concert.

Bringing us some warmth at last, Rameau’s Troisieme Concert in A major brought a smile not only with the enthusiasm of its rhythms but also the extrovert energy of the two concluding Tambourins.

The four soloists drawn from the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment were Lisa Beznosiuk, flute; Alison Bury, violin; Jonathan Manson, viola da gamba, and James Johnstone, harpsichord.

This evening brings The Academy of Ancient Music to the Assembly Rooms for an all Bach programme.

Thursday 19 February 2015 – Vivaldi at St Mary’s

It may have been a wet February evening in Bath but La Serenissima wafted us to the Chiesa della Pieta in Venice to indulge ourselves in works for strings especially composed for the orphanage. It is too easy to dismiss Vivaldi’s works for strings as all being rather too similar, but the attentive ear can pick up nuances to delight and details which can all too easily slip past the inattentive.

The opening Concerto in D RV123 may recall the Four Seasons in its intensity but the Adagio floats like a passage from Gluck – way ahead of its time – and the joyous fugue of the final Allegro brings the work to a dancing conclusion.

There were two concerti for solo violin, in which leader Adrian Chandler was the adroit soloist. The F major concerto RV286, the so called concerto for the Feast of St Lawrence, has a gentle cantabile opening before an unexpectedly forthright attacking Largo and a rustic Allegro non molto which brought smiles to the faces of the players. The second concerto in G major RV307 somewhat disconcertingly opens in very much the same vein as the previous one but then moves into a more dynamic mode, the Adagio having an insistent pulse to it before the extrovert nobility of the final Allegro.

Between these we heard two motets, sung by soprano Mhairi Lawson. Anyone familiar with Vivaldi’s operas would immediately recognise the dense coloratura and passages of intense complexity which were obviously written with a fine operatic voice in mind. Both RV627 and RV632 focus on storms at sea, though the latter is lighter weight and has a strongly Handelian line in the third part. Both have concluding Alleluias which, while in keeping with the religious intentions of the text, seemed out of context with the dramatic flavour of the arias and recitatives. The exacting nature of these works brought no qualms for Mhairi Lawson who gave them the flair and authority they demand.

La Serenissima have the advantage of many fine soloists including essential support from Lynda Sayce on theorbo and James Johnstone at the chamber organ.

This lunchtime at 1.00pm at the Guildhall, soloists from the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment play Handel, Telemann, Bach and Rameau.

Royal Festival Hall   7 February 2015

Rex Lawson(pianola ), Johannes Moser (cello), Denis Hall (presenter)

Q) How is it possible for a pianist who died over 70 years ago to appear “live” in concert?

A) When that pianist was a prolific recorder  of piano rolls.

This free matinee concert was presented by the Pianola Institute. Whilst some may take issue with the “live” billing it was an enthralling experience  to hear the two Steinway pianos come alive with the playing of such a master composer-pianist. On entering the main auditorium the audience was greeted by the unusual sight of two “pull-up” pianolas in front of the Hall’s two Steinway grand pianos, and a similar “pull-up” reproducing instrument waiting to be substituted for the second half.

The concert showed something of the range of rolls that were produced and the differences between the two main systems of recording and reproduction. To explain this very basically “ordinary” pianolas simply allow the pitch and rhythm of the performance to be played back, with the pianolist expertly controlling dynamics and speed whereas the more sophisticated reproducing piano captures these details on the roll and everything is played back without the need to reinterpret.

We heard solo pieces of both types as well as hearing an accompaniment roll played together with live cello from soloist Johannes Moser in two movements from the Cello Sonata, Op 19. Johannes’ playing was superb but sadly, at times, was a little eclipsed by the sound of the piano. The conclusion to the concert was a rendition of the 2^nd movement of Piano Concerto No 2 with Rachmaninoff’s solo played on the reproducing piano and Rex Lawson controlling the pianola with a transcription of the orchestral part. A lot of skill is involved in matching the orchestral part to the solo – it was fascinating to watch the performance.

The programme began with The Isle of the Dead. The length of the piece necessitated the loading of two rolls over two pianolas. Rex moved from one to the another to make for a swifter “join”! There was also lighter music including Polka de W.R. and Rachmaninoff’s concert arrangement of Kreisler’s Liebesfreud.

There were anecdotes, a humorous poem & background information on the various systems of recording and playback. There was some explanation of the way modern MIDI technology has been utilised to enable rolls to be transcribed from one commercial and incompatible system and played back on another. I would have liked slightly more explanation as to how the reproducing piano had been adapted to be played back in a less conventional way. The enthusiasm and expertise of the two presenters was evident throughout.

This was a very good introduction to the world of pianolas and reproducing pianos but also an entertaining and immersive musical experience in its own right. Congratulation to all involved. I hope it will have helped to raise the profile of this musical genre and that there may be similar future events. SP