Birmingham Symphony Hall, 25 August 2014

Klaus Florian Vogt is probably the finest Wagner tenor we have today. There may be one or two other contenders for the position but few who have the heady lyricism combined with the sheer power to thrill the largest of venues.

His strongest characters over the last few years have been Lohengrin and Parsifal, and the evening drew on these. After a very subtle reading of the Good Friday Music from Parsifal under Andris Nelsons, he sang Amfortas! Die Wunde! and Nur eine Waffe taugt, the first so fresh and vulnerable that the pain of Kundry’s kiss seemed eminently real and the final narration radiated nobility as well as the cleanest of diction.

Changing the mood rather drastically we heard the concert version of the Prelude to Act3 of Lohengrin followed by two narrations also from Act3. Hochstes Vertrau’n proved to be heroic as well as deeply human, but it was the glorious outpouring of In fernem Land that galvanised the evening. His lingering over eine Taube, the high clear tones seeming to melt into the air around him, was breathtakingly beautiful. If only we had been able to hear at least the whole of one act, rather than these truncated sections.

Unfortunately this was the one slight draw-back of the evening. I had thought that we had disposed of bleeding-chunk concerts almost fifty years ago, and Wagner is now normally performed, if not whole, then at least in significantly large units and without sudden-death endings. Surely it would have been possible here to have created segues between the items to allow at least the three Parsifal pieces and the two from Lohengrin to be linked without the trauma of sudden endings and bursts of applause?

No such problems after the interval where we heard Elgar’s Second Symphony. The opening movement had great urgency with the music coming to us in warm waves of sound which made the quieter sections all the more poignant. Throughout, Andris Nelsons drew attention to the militaristic under-pinning of so much of the score, with its hints of violence and destruction beneath the potential for celebration. The second movement took this in its stride with a sense of both nobility and loss, looking backwards rather than dare to look ahead. However the future stares us in the face in the driven fury of the Rondo where odd moments of calm don’t last and the military percussion is ever present. The final movement brought some relief but often seemed on a knife-edge as if everything could still go wrong at any moment. A fascinating reading which made much of the wide dynamic range of the hall.

Before the Elgar, Andris Nelsons spoke to us about harpist Robert Johnston who, after 42 years’ service with the orchestra, was giving his final performance in this country before retirement. Alongside the anecdotes, he praised not only Robert’s long service with the orchestra but the sense of community within the orchestra itself which has seen a large number of conductors over nearly half a century while managing to retain its own sense of continuity and integrity.

Unitarian Church, Brighton, 24 August 2014

Christine Messiter joined the regular string players for the final concert in the summer series, rounding off the afternoon with a bright and fast paced reading of Mozart’s Flute Quartet K285. The brief second movement allows the flute to indulge itself in a lyrical development which floats above pizzicato strings before the more buoyantly brisk Rondo finale.

The performance had opened with Mozart’s Dissonance Quartet, its slow opening section poised between Haydn and Beethoven, a dichotomy which Mozart relishes as the work progresses. Rich, often very dense writing, suddenly flowers into the lightest of lyrical moments. The warmth of the Menuetto  gives way to a rather old-fashioned but none the less attractive Allegro molto which has just enough fire to challenge us.

Between them came the premiere of a work by a Sussex composer – in this case Adam Swayne’s Reaches. Written for string quartet, the nine short pieces flow in to each other to trace the course of a day at sea. The composer’s introduction was helpful in pointing out key ideas though the work is atmospheric rather than narrative. The regular use of pizzicato, often against long held notes on a single instrument, was very effective and the slap of strings against the shifting shimmer and sense of openness was moving. The piece is dedicated to Leo Dawkins and, as with other works in this summer series, let us hope it is not the last time it is heard.

The quartet have done a very fine job this summer bringing us a wide range of familiar works alongside more challenging recent compositions. The large and very responsive audience at each event shows there is a real appetite for concerts like these and let us hope they return next summer.

The Winter season of the Brighton Philharmonic Orchestra opens at the Dome on 5 October with works by Glinka, Rachmaninov and Shostakovich. www.brightonphil.org.uk

21 August 2014

It was inevitable that we would find Britten’s War Requiem at this year’s Proms and after the superb performance by BBCSO last autumn I had expected a repeat with those forces. However, last night we heard the CBSO with the BBC Proms Youth Choir under Andris Nelsons. The same conductor and orchestra recorded the work in Coventry Cathedral, with different soloists, for the fiftieth anniversary of the first performance in 1962. That last night did not come up to the levels of either of these was obvious but the reasons were not as easy to detect.

The opening sections seemed oppressive, almost melancholic and despairing, with the boys’ choir so far removed as to be unemotional. Only the first conclusion, with its finely resolved cadence brought any hint of peace. Both of the men, Toby Spence and Hanno Muller-Brachmann, have warm voices but neither had the cutting edge to chill us with the impact of Wilfred Owen’s verse. Recalling both Peter Pears and Philip Langridge one was aware of the sort of sound Britten expects here. One ever hangs and the conclusion of So Abram rose were effective but other moments went for less than anticipated. Susan Gritton has a soprano to carry over the large orchestral forces and the Lacrimosa and Libera me both made a fine impact.

The Choral forces had a brightness of tone which was pleasing but lacked the precision and cutting edge the work requires. There were also some strange tempi. The Dies Illa after Be slowly lifted up seemed unnecessarily slow and calculated, lacking the emotional impact the score seems to require.

The final passages of the Libera me brought back the melancholic despair of the opening which was not countered in the final pages. The most poignant moment came with the reference to better men and greater wars as if Owen could sense the on-going bleakness of human existence.

At the end, Andris Nelsons held an extended silence, almost uncomfortably long. There are times when performances naturally require a time to recover before we applaud but this seemed to be out of keeping with what we had actually heard. An uncomfortable evening then, but perhaps, this year of all years, a good thing.

Saturday 16 August 2014

A delight as always to welcome Bernard Haitink to the podium and a surprise to find that so renowned a Mahlerian should be conducting the 4^th symphony for the first time at the Proms. The combination of Mahler’s Fourth and Schubert’s Fifth Symphonies may look somewhat strange on paper but they work remarkably well in performance. Both symphonies were overlooked for many years and it was not until Charles Grove reintroduced the Schubert in the early years of last century that its popularity began to grow, and enthusiasm for Mahler was only just beginning when I started going to the Proms in 1960. What is more, neither symphony requires trombones, understandable in Schubert but unexpected in Mahler.

Bernard Haitink did not go out of his way to stress the similarities but they grew out of the performances. Though tempi in the Schubert were on the fast side there was an intimacy, a delicacy, throughout which was captivating. The hints of early Beethoven – Schubert’s own orchestra had played the first two symphonies – are there alongside the more obvious Mozart, but above all, the later Schubert is there in essence.

The approach to the Mahler was equally relaxed with wind solos particularly impressive – a lovely bassoon solo in the first movement. There was an innocence to the second movement despite the occasional tensions, but these never resolved themselves into threats. The gentle inevitability of the slow movement was spell-binding with details subtly etched but never over-spun. Camilla Tilling was the soloist for the final movement drawn from Des Knaben Wunderhorn. The programme note implied a potential dichotomy for the composer faced with a vision of heaven which includes death and even Herod, but this has always seemed to me to be the magnificence of the vision which is so inclusive it is forgiving of all. Heaven – this seems to say – is for everyone without judgement, and so it seemed to be for us.

Brighton Unitarian Church, Sunday 10 August 2014

Recent works by Rob Lane formed the heart of the third summer concert last Sunday the first of which, Evocations, was commissioned by the Brodowsky Quartet in 2012. Dedicated to Rosalind Kelly, the work shifts across a number of musical memories as if the listener is recalling a distant if elusive past. The strongest section is the central dance motive, finely focused in contrast to much of the rest of the work, which often seems to be just beyond our grasp. It would be worth hearing again if only to unpick the obviously sensitive internal connections.

Three poems by Sylvia Plath formed the second item by Rob Lane and were here being given their first performance. Edge is by far the most successful setting, its simpler lyricism seeming closer to the text and a more direct emotional experience for the listener. Mirror has an angularity to it which distances us from the text, possibly intentionally as the mirror itself seems devoid of emotion. A gentle waltz underpins Morning Song though its warmth rarely moves into the vocal line.

The instrumental setting for these songs was almost inaudible at times given the power of Katie Thomas’ voice. This was a problem throughout the afternoon, affecting the concluding Mozart. When she sang more quietly or in the lower register the voice was pleasing, but in the upper register and at greater volume the intensity of sound was simply uncomfortable and often painful. I am sure her voice would be fine in a far larger venue, but within the close confines of the Unitarian Church it needed reigning back to maintain comfort for the audience.

The afternoon had opened with a warmly spirited reading of Mozart’s Hunt Quartet K458, and concluded with his Exsultate Jubilate, which was enjoyable for most of the time, given the concerns noted above.