Daily Archives: 3 February, 2019

Maidstone Symphony Orchestra

Posted on by

Mote Hall, Maidstone, 2 February 2019

Three big works meant an enlarged orchestra (85 players) which included four percussionists, piano, celeste and harp as well as big string sections. And they were all in pretty good form despite the off-puttingly cold weather (which had cost the orchestra a rehearsal, Brian Wright informed us at the beginning) and the sparser than sometimes audience.

The star of the evening was American soprano April Fredrick who sang Wagner’s gut-wrenching Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan and Isolde followed by Richard Strauss’s Four Last Songs. She is an unusually charismatic performer, engaging herself emotionally from the first bar of that arresting Wagnerian string passage – nicely played here by MSO players rising in a body to the occasion. By the time Fredrick actually began to sing (off-book) I was mesmerised by the power of her voice, her control and her communication of musical passion. She had me on the edge of my seat and in tears.

Strauss’s Four Last Songs is a very special valedictory work and it was quite a treat to hear (and see) this final homage to the composer’s soprano wife and their long marriage performed so well. Fredrick sang Fruhling (Spring) with smiling eyes and joy in every note before finding mellow melodiousness in the lovely low register, sostenuto notes of September. She then gave us poignant assertion of that beautiful tune in Beim Schlafengehen (Going to Sleep) which she sang through tearful smiles. Finally came a resolute, immaculately sung, sombre Im Abendrot (At Sunset) with Andy Bridges doing a splendid job with muted tuba and Wright managing the pianissimo ending with adept tenderness as it dies away.

And so to Shostakovich’s magnificent fifth symphony. Wright provided masses of D minor mystery in the opening movement and made sure we heard lots of orchestral colour including drama from the xylophone and fine flute and clarinet solos. Also noteworthy was the crisp pizzicato work in the allegretto and the sensitivity the orchestra achieved in the largo. Shostakovich, of course, knew a thing or two about contrast and Wright took the loud, rhythmic, grandiloquent finale at a suitably cracking pace. This striking movement is always a field day for the timpanist whose part is anything but subtle and Owain Williams was clearly enjoying himself. No wonder he looked exhausted at the end.

Susan Elkin

Hastings Philharmonic: French Chamber Music Concert

Posted on by

Christ Church, St Leonards, Saturday 2 February 2019

Marcio da Silva is such a tour de force in the local music scene it is difficult to accept that there are times when even he will fall ill. He was certainly present with us on Saturday but his voice was suffering and in the event he was only able to sing one cycle – the briefly moving Le Bestiaire of Francois Poulenc. It would be too easy to present these as tongue-in-cheek verses but – perhaps because of the throat infection – they came across with the innocent naivety which the composer intended – charming and ultimately very moving.

As a result of Marcio’s difficulties the whole evening was gently reordered but such was the quality of the playing I doubt if anyone would have complained.

Pianist Andre Dolabella had flown in that morning from Germany but seemed bright as a button throughout. He opened with his own arrangement of Debussy’s Prelude a l’apres-midi d’un faune – delightfully impressionistic and setting a standard for the whole of the evening – clear, wistful and engaging. Clarinettist Boyan Ivanov then joined him for Debussy’s Premiere Rhapsodie. Written originally as a test piece for the Paris Conservatoire, it is fiercely difficult but its gentle opening and exultant climax were more than easily encompassed in Ivanov’s deft handling.

After the Poulenc song cycle the first half ended with Debussy’s familiar Suite Bergamasque setting the quintessential beauty of Clair de lune within the context of the more austere baroque flavoured movements.

After the interval we heard Saint-Saens’ romantically charged Sonata for clarinet and piano which moves from the heady textures of the opening movement to the playful Allegro animato and the lovely fluidity of the final Molto allegro. The evening ended with Poulenc’s Sonata for clarinet and piano, a favourite of Boyan Ivanov, and obviously so in the loving detail he brought to his reading. The florid jazzy rhythms of the finale reflect the work’s first performer, Benny Goodman, but this is a work which sat very comfortably within the spacious acoustic of Christ Church.

If the size of the audience seemed to reflect the outside temperature rather than the enthusiasm of the welcome, I am sure numbers will pick up strongly as this fine season progresses.

The next concert is on Saturday 23 February when the Chamber Choir and Baroque ensemble will give an all Bach programme again in Christ Church.