The Dome, Brighton, 27 February 2016

Two very popular works seem to have been the main draw for this concert but it may equally have been that the two rare pieces attracted attention.

Mendelssohn’s incidental music for A Midsummer Night’s Dream will probably be heard even more often this year with the Shakespeare anniversary but its quality will withstand any number of repeats. Andres Orozco-Estrada takes a full-bloodied approach to the Overture. There is nothing delicate about these fairies and the rustics are distinctly raucous. However the piece came to a gentle restorative conclusion which was very effective.

Khachaturian’s violin concerto was written for David Oistrakh in 1940 and was an instant success, though it is hardly ever heard today. One can see why. Though Kristof Barati  brought outstanding technical finesse to his playing and indulged in the more lyrical passages, the work has little depth. As passing entertainment it may suffice but even in this popular programme it seemed out of place. His brief encore had more authority than the concerto.

Richard Strauss’ Macbeth is equally rare though this is presumably because it takes a very large orchestra and was superseded by even greater works. It should not however be overlooked as the writing is secure throughout and demonstrates a mature approach to orchestral colour. If the narrative has little relationship to the text – and there is no hint of Scotland in the melodic lines – this is probably all to the good. Enjoyed as an abstract tone poem it is highly successful and was given the extrovert enthusiasm it needs.

Stravinsky’s 1919 Suite from The Firebird may be a regular Classic FM favourite but, as with the Strauss and Mendelssohn, the quality of the writing and orchestral colour cannot be dampened by familiarity. This was a splendid conclusion which blazed from all sections after some of the most delicate playing of the evening in the Princesses’ Khorovod.

The LPO return to the Dome on 16 April with works by Rodrigo, De Falla and Prokofiev.

Opera House Pub, Tunbridge Wells

21 February 2016

Half the audience has not seen La Boheme before and a handful are opera virgins. We know this because musical director Harry Sever asks for a show of hands during his brief spoken introduction which includes a demonstration of Puccini’s signature music for each of the four main characters.

Kent-based Merry Opera Company has made a specialism of presenting opera accessibly for new audiences to enjoy, alongside the cognoscenti. This concise (two hours) bijoux account of La Boheme sung in English with a cast of eleven does that pretty effectively.

Lawrence Thackeray as Rudolfo brings pleasing tonal and dynamic range and makes young love seem fresh and interesting as he is gradually captivated by Andrea Tweedale’s excellent Mimi. Then he finds all the requisite powerful and moving lyricism in Act 4 as Mimi inevitably succumbs to her illness. Several audience members around me – taken aback by the plot itself maybe – were weeping at the end, exactly as Puccini intended.  Andrea Tweedale is deeply convincing, soaring the high notes in the famous Act 1 love duet and letting her voice, on lower notes, fade away almost to nothing in her prostrate death scene. All the quartet and sextet work was musically well balanced and realistically acted too – this is, after all, a pretty ordinary tale of nineteenth century life of artists (or would be artists) and their circle in Paris. It has to be naturalistic to work and director Christopher Cowell gets that absolutely right.

Sever is a very unusual musical director because, accompanying from digital piano, positioned stage right, he plays the entire opera from memory without music. That means that his eyes never leave the singers and action. It makes for striking focused and sensitive musical coherence. It is one of the factors which make this production so very watchable.

On the other hand, much as I applaud the decision to use language which the audience understands there are always problems with translation. In Chris Cowell’s libretto banal lines such as “no more waking up together” and “anxious on the landing” do not sit within the texture of the music as the original mellifluous long-vowelled Italian does. SE

Tour dates:

Kenton Theatre, Henley 27 February

The Theatre, Chipping Norton, 2 March

Millfield Theatre, Edmonton, 3 March

Sarah Thorne Memorial Theatre, Broadstairs, 5 March

St Mildred’s Church, Tenterden, 6 March

The Beacon, Wantage, 12 March

The Dome, Brighton, 14 February 2016

A Valentine’s Day concert and one of the largest audiences for a good while. Perhaps it was the popular programme which drew the numbers? It was certainly all very familiar and given with the enthusiasm to which we have become accustomed under Barry Wordsworth.

The afternoon opened with Berlioz’ reworking of Weber’s Invitation to the Dance – made famous in the early twentieth century when Nijinsky appeared as the Spectre de la Rose, covered in imitation rose petals, exiting the stage through a window with what was long held to be the finest jete in the history of ballet.

To calm us down a little we then heard the Intermezzo from Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana. This is a miniature master-piece and lovingly played by the strings.

The heart of the afternoon came with Melvyn Tang joining the orchestra in Chopin’s Second Piano Concerto. His cheeky good-humour belies the phenomenal technique and experience he brings to the work, making it sound charmingly easy. The gently flowing tempo of the Larghetto led straight into the joy of the final Allegro with the lightest of touches for the flourishes of the final pages.

He played a romantic Liszt encore and we could have easily stayed for more.

This being Valentine’s Day, he was presented with the usual soloist’s bottle at the end – plus a dozen red roses!

After the interval the single work in the second half was Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade. Almost over familiar thanks to Classic FM, it is nonetheless a good excuse for the orchestra to show off its range of colour, which it did with ease.

The penultimate concert this season brings us Brahms, Shostakovich and Mendelssohn under Howard Shelley on Sunday 20 March.

Mote Hall, Saturday 30 January 2016

This may not have been the coldest of winters but the long grey days seem to have been with us for an eternity. It was an inspired choice therefore on Brian Wright’s part to open this darkest of concerts with the full glory of Nielsen’s Overture Helios. Written when the Danish composer was living in Greece, it traces a full day in the life of the sun, opening with the deep C major chord which seems to reflect the open innocence of the sun for so many composers. There was a nobility to the playing, particularly from the horns who experienced many exposed passages across the evening and acquitted themselves with honour. Also worthy of note was the solo piccolo whose brightness draws us to the full brilliance of the sun before it starts to sink into its gentle rest.

An early Mozart piano concerto might seem a long way away from Greece but the clarity and lightness of touch which Martin James Bartlett brought to it was entirely convincing. Earlier that day he had been in Hamburg, playing for an International Piano Competition, but there was no sense of this being the end of a very long day in the enthusiasm and care he brought to the piano concerto No12 in A K414. It may be an early piece but the Andante is a mature and sensitive composition which drew even greater insight from the young pianist. He gave us a scintillating encore (Poulenc’s Toccata, No.3 of Three Pieces, Op.2) which was certainly well deserved.

Brian Wright argued that Dvorak’s Seventh Symphony is his finest and I have to agree in its complexity and muscularity, both of which the orchestra demonstrated with their usual aplomb. The shadow of Brahms is ever present but where the elder composer can become Teutonic ally weighty Dvorak manages to see the sun even when it is behind the clouds. The third movement danced with a Czech vitality though the writing is significantly complex, and the final movement returned us to the nobility we had caught in the Nielsen at the start of the evening.

A splendid way to drive out winter greyness – and a pleasure to see far more in the audience than at the end of last year!

Next time – Saturday 19 March, Barber Adagio for Strings; Arutiunian Trumpet Concerto; Mahler Symphony No 9.

Noteworthy Voices, St Nicholas, Pevensey, 23 January 2016

The first in the new season of events to celebrate the 800^th anniversary of the founding of St Nicholas Church in Pevensey certainly set a very high standard. Noteworthy Voices have only been singing together for a year, under their conductor Ansy Boothroyd, but already have established a high quality a cappella sound and balance.

Their performance was arranged around three very different settings of the verse O Magnum Mysterium opening with the familiar version by Victoria. The key structure in this work is allusive to say the least but the group found no difficulty in bringing the musical lines into play and setting the tone for the evening which balanced beauty of line against spiritual reflection.

Many may be only too happy that Christmas is over but we are still, liturgically, in Christmas until Candlemas so it was fitting to hear carols as part of the concert. Two settings of the Coventry Carol – the familiar one bringing great clarity and fine dynamic control, while the recent setting by Philip Stopford is gentler, more obviously a lullaby – sat comfortably alongside Tchaikovsky’s The Crown of Roses and the close richness of Pierre Villette’s Hymne a la Vierge.

The second setting of O Magnum Mysterium was by Poulenc, the ravishing beauty of the spun musical texture being finely honed by the group. If Cornelius’ The Three Kings lacked balance between soloist and choir, there was less problem in Jesus Christ the Apple Tree where Zoe Harris floated the top line with ease above the massed voices.

The third setting of O Magnum Mysterium, by Morten Lauridsen, with its gentle enfolding of the listener, proved to be as successful as the fine interpretation of Tavener’s The Lamb.

It was possibly a slight miscalculation to end with arrangements of two popular Christmas songs. They were actually very complex pieces in terms of both pitch and rhythm, and after the splendid spiritual intensity we had experienced earlier it was a pity to end of a less successful, if bright and happy, note.

The group will be performing again soon. They are certainly worth following and details can be found at www.noteworthyvoices.co.uk

The Dome Brighton, 16 January 2016

Indonesian conductor  Adrian Prabava was making his debut with the LPO at Brighton last night and very impressive it turned out to be. He led the whole evening from memory and showed a warm relationship with his players which allowed them some freedom while maintaining an overall control and tight sense of rhythm.

This was particularly true of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony whose dance rhythms were tight and joyous throughout. Though tempi, particularly in the final movement, were brisk, there was never any sense of rushing the players whose articulation was well up to the demands he made. The Allegretto was sombre without being too serious and set the scene for the extrovert enthusiasm of the Presto. Changes of tempi and dynamic were all carefully controlled without bring too rigid.

The opening Overture to Lucio Silla is hardly a masterpiece even if it is early Mozart. While well played, the size of the orchestra was over heavy for it and made for a lack of internal detail where the woodwind should have shone through more clearly.

The only problem of the evening came with Brahms’ Second Piano Concerto. It was obvious from some of the orchestral passages and the sublime cello solo (superbly played by Kristina Blaumane) that Adrian Prabava had a different and more subtle approach to the work than the soloist Stefan Ciric. His approach was forthright and aggressive from the start with little sensitivity to the nuances of the score or the possibilities it has for inner tensions and sudden moments of radiance. He seemed to put passion and intensity (to say nothing of volume) above all else. This may be acceptable in Liszt or Prokofiev but seemed ill judged for Brahms. The opening of the final movement brought some lightness of texture but even here it soon reverted to a strong dynamic intensity. His body language throughout was very tense and this showed in the playing. Most of the audience seemed to relish the approach, though there were voices overheard in the bar at the interval who seemed as disconcerted as I had been by the apparent disparity between conductor and soloist.

The next LPO concert at the Dome is on Saturday 27 February 2016 with works by Mendelssohn, Strauss, Khachaturian & Stravinsky.