Royal Albert Hall, Monday 6^th August 2018

An all American evening, this concert was an interesting reminder of just how intangibly distinct American music is. In its way it’s as recognisable as, say, almost anything Russian or French.

The highlight of the evening was Charles Ives’s second symphony. Written in 1902 and then substantially revised forty years later, it wasn’t premiered until 1951 when Leonard Bernstein took it up. It still doesn’t get as many outings as I now think it deserves.  It has been played only once at the Proms before (Leonard Slatkin with Pittsburg Symphony Orchestra in 2006) and was completely new to me.

Osmo Vanska achieved an impressive balance of sound (cellos next to first violins with seconds to his right) in the fugal minor key opening and nice lightness in the first chirpy theme. The adagio cantabile was delicately played and I loved the focus on all the melodies – some of them borrowed from elsewhere in the American tradition in the last movement. In many ways this symphony’s melodious and witty fervour reminded me of Dvorak and this orchestra and conductor has clearly made the work very much its own with lots of enjoyable panache from brass and percussion.

The concert was loosely themed on Bernstein, whose centenary is being celebrated this year. So we began with the Candide overture, which, of course, never fails. Osmo Vanska and his band cheerfully gave us all those syncopated tunes and ideas and played them with terrific polish.

In the middle was a workman-like performance by Inon Barnatan of the Gershwin F major piano concerto. His percussive broken rhythms in the opening movement were competent if a bit lacklustre but the adagio – with its elegant string quartet section and excellent trumpet solo – was enjoyable. Once Barnatan got into the third movement, however, there was plenty of very apt agitato and some impressive virtuoso playing. His encore was fun too – a set of deliciously showy variations on I’ve Got Rhythm.

The encore at the end of the concert was also fun – and moving. The Minnesota Orchestra is about to embark on a tour of South Africa to commemorate what would have been Nelson Mandela’s hundredth birthday. They played a short piece based on a traditional African tune with bold drum work followed by the whole orchestra singing rhythmically before they picked up the melody on their instruments. It made a rather joyful end to the evening.

Susan Elkin

Royal Albert Hall, Friday 3^rd August 2018

You needed to read the small print for this concert. What looked at first glance like a collection of some of our finest folk musicians was in reality a BBC Concert Orchestra concert under Stephen Bell , for they played in almost every number and at times the orchestral arrangements came close to drowning out the soloists.

Prom 27 Folk Prom
Photo by Mark Allan

As a cross-over experiment there were many splendid moments. Jarlath Henderson’s Uilleann pipes were captivating every time he appeared and the rendition of Dawns Soig with ALAW was the instrumental highlight of the evening. Julie Fowlis’ Puirt-a-Beul is captivating and was particularly moving when singing Lovely Molly with Sam Lee. His earlier singing of My Ausheen – a gentle strathspey – was effectively accompanied by the subtle underpinning of the orchestra.

At other times the orchestral arrangements simply seemed too invasive. The Unthanks gave us Gan to the Kye and Mount the Air in the first half and both seemed over commercialised in the romanticism of the orchestration to say nothing of its volume. Their singing of Magpie in the second half was far more successful in its wistful intensity, and they brought the evening to a rousing climax with some brief but exultant Northumbrian clog dancing.

Surprisingly, one of the most moving vocal items was Julie Fowlis’ singing of Camarinas in Galician and Scots Gaelic – genuinely romantic and superbly lyrical.

The orchestra gave us three brief pieces based on folk tunes of which Hoddinott’s Welsh Dances were the most appealing – the others drifting too easily into the realm of generic film music.

Prom 27 Folk Prom
Photo by Mark Allan

A welcome experiment with many memorable moments, but maybe there is room at the Proms for a more serious take on folk music in the same way as we have for Indian Classical music in the past. And for a long-standing resident of East Sussex it was note-worthy that there was no folk-music south of the Wash!

Tete a Tete: The Opera Festival

McCaldin Arts

Holy Cross Church, Cromer Street, London

He who tires of London tires of life. Well it’s certainly never short of surprises. This is “my” city and yet hardly a week goes by without my discovering a venue, space or place I didn’t even know was there. The rather beautiful Holy Cross Church in Cromer Street, King’s Cross, for example, was completely new to me. Built in the 1880s by Reginald Peacock it provided a surprisingly apt backdrop for a short operatic piece about Mary Tudor – aisle, pulpit, chancel steps and a handy prie-dieu all had a part to play.

Mary’s Hand, with words by Di Sherlock and music by Martin Bussey, is a musical monologue about Mary Tudor – a sort of autobiography in words (mostly sung but occasionally spoken) and music. It seeks to make us think about very familiar mid 16^th century events from the point of view of someone who has been, generally, demonised by history. Yes, Mary ordered the execution of the “protestant martyrs” (not what she called them) but as talented mezzo Claire McCaldin sings with angry passion. “Archbishop Cranmer? He made me a bastard.”

The piece is predicated on Mary’s passion for card games and McCaldin occasionally invites an audience member to draw a card which she then attaches to a display screen and moves on the next section of her story. This device determines the order in which the sections run but the 80 minute opera would have worked perfectly well without it.

It’s quite a performance from McCaldin who wears a fabulous brown and cream dress with fur sleeves, modelled on the 1553 portrait by Hans Eworth and paid for by crowd funding. The dress then gradually comes apart to symbolise what’s happening to its wearer. At the end she walks back down the aisle in a simple white undergarment (shroud?) carrying a candle like Lady Macbeth.

McCaldin is variously eye flashingly sexy, imperious, wistful, resigned and angry. And she maintains a remarkable level of energy given that this is effectively an 80 minute solo. Her voice includes some ruby red impassioned low notes and some fierce, sometimes hysterical, high ones.  She manages the emotional contrasts with verve.

She is accompanied by an all female  trio – hidden behind a pillar and therefore invisible from my seat, unfortunately – consisting of trumpet, cello and oboe/cor anglais. Martin Bussey’s evocative music uses some interesting effects including col legno cello, rapid pizzicato, lots of off beat blasts and a strange purring tongued effect on the trumpet. Words and music complement each other seamlessly. Don’t go to this if you want melody and “numbers” but it’s worth catching if you’re looking for passion and convincing acting within eloquent music.

Susan Elkin

Royal Albert Hall, Tuesday 31^st July 2018

Two London symphonies make a neat thematic pairing although they don’t really have much in common. Haydn’s last symphony was composed in London for London audiences but it isn’t in any sense descriptive of the city. Vaughan Williams’s second, in contrast, is effectively symphonic programme music complete with those haunting, evocative Westminster chimes. Had I been programming I might have started the concert with Elgar’s Cockaigne Overture for another take on London but perhaps there was a length issue.

It’s interesting to watch baton-wielding, time-beating Andrew Manze, unshowy and looking like a city banker in dark suit and tie, at work three days after seeing the flamboyant Teodor Currentizis on the same rostrum. Classical music is a far broader church than people who don’t engage with it usually realise.

Manze gave us a thoughtfully punctuated slow D minor opening to the Haydn symphony reminding us that Haydn was already in Creation mode. Then came a lot of cleanly picked out Haydnesque inter-instrumental dialogue. The mellow bassoon work against the delicate string rhythms in the andante was delighful and Manze allowed all the wit – including those all important general pauses – to sing out in the scherzo with imaginative flexibility of tempi in the nocturne. I liked the decisive resonance he found for the fourth movement too.

I’m reminded of a remark made recently by the professional who conducts one of the amateur orchestras I play in. “If I could choose to have dinner with a composer” he said, while we were working on symphony 103, “It would have to be Haydn. You’d never be bored!” This performance helped to prove his point.

And so, after the interval, on to Ralph Vaughan Williams’s London symphony and the enlarged orchestra it calls for, including six percussionists kept busy, two harps and lots of additional brass. You need a lush string sound to bring off this symphony of many moods. Manze coaxed plenty of richness out of the Scottish Symphony orchestra with memorable solos from the leader, Laura Samuel and principal viola, Scott Dickinson. Violas were, unusually, to the right of the podium where cellos traditionally sit which added to the tonal balance rather effectively. I liked the very evocative dying away to nothing at the end of the third movement nocturne and the grandiloquence Manze found in the fourth before the peaceful beauty of the epilogue.

There’s been a lot of quite polarised discussion lately – on Radio 3, in newspapers and elsewhere – about applause between movements. I’m firmly in the “fuddy-duddy” camp and want all appreciation saved for the end of the work – which rarely happens these days especially at the Proms. For some reason, at this concert, there was no inter-movement clapping. Sudden corporate enlightenment? Well it was certainly a very welcome change anyway.

Susan Elkin