Southbank Centre International Organ Series

Royal Festival Hall 29^th April 2019

Wayne Marshall continues to be an excellent ambassador for the organ and in this concert presented the RFH’s fine organ in its symphonic and improvisatory modes. There was a clear historic progression in the programme which consisted of works by teacher and pupil – Widor and Dupre.

The opening work, Symphony No 6 in G minor, Op 42 No 2, by Widor, was the longest in the programme, although Wayne Marshall’s tempo ensured that the music did not drag! Clearly in the Romantic vein this music shows just how varied a palette of timbres had become available in France thanks to the new technologies of Cavaille-Coll as the mid nineteenth century organ developed into the versatile and gargantuan instruments now in existence.

To my ear Mr Marshall’s tempo was more suited to the remainder of the programme but from the outset he was in command of the instrument and performed with great panache. Some particularly well selected registrations transported us from bombastic to the tremulant muted reeds and strings, so associated with the French instruments of that time.

Dupre’s Symphony No 2, Op 26 followed. Despite being linked to the previous piece through its form and composer we were very definitely in a different place with this music. With more angular melodies, and hugely developed harmonies, together with jazz and other influences this music speaks in a much more modern language. I particularly enjoyed this performance which reflected the performer’s love of different musical genres – a position I hold to myself! Once again the organ’s resources were used to the full with contrasting and sudden changes of registration producing some startling effects.

In introducing the work by Dupre Wayne explained that the basis of his previous Symphony was found in a large-scale improvisation which he then went on to reconstruct. The art of improvisation has for a long time been an integral part of the Parisian organist’s work. It was fitting, therefore, that the culmination of the evening came with a superb Improvisation on themes previously submitted via the Southbank Centre’s website. There seemed to have been some lack of clarity as to what was intended – the usual request to be for a musical theme – when the first suggestion on the long list presented was “climate change”! This produced a rather bemused response from our organist and was subsequently rejected along with many others, finally resulting in the choice of “Music of Beethoven” and “Happy Birthday to You” (in honour of someone in the audience).

The resulting improvisation, lasting around 15 minutes, ranging in style and content, showed to great effect how accomplished and inventive Mr Marshall is. Beginning with prominent – but disguised – repetition of the familiar opening motif of the 5^th Symphony it culminated with a combination of Happy Birthday combined with Ode to Joy. Along the way were many interesting twists and turns together with snatches of Fur Elise in a performance that wowed the audience and brought this very entertaining and educative evening – and sadly, this season – to a close.

SP

Barbican Hall, 14 April 2019

Kirill Gerstein’s account of Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto was very arresting. You could see and feel him breathing the music, especially in the first movement and he makes sure you notice every flamboyant, jubilant grace note in the finale. I liked the yearning intensity he brought to the beginning of the largo too, going on to play it with so much rubato that it sounded in places almost like a smoochy jazz arrangement. I was not surprised to read later in the programme that Gerstein originally trained partly in jazz piano before deciding to specialise in classical.

Gerstein – who looks more like a nightclub bouncer than a stereotypical virtuoso pianist – has a palpable rapport with Mark Elder on the podium and brings an intimate chamber music quality to the work as he leans round sensitively to look at the string principals. There was some splendid work from the orchestra throughout the concerto too. The impressively played bassoon and flute duet in the largo was a high spot, for example.

Then we nipped forward a century and went from a work I have heard performed many dozens of times (and twice played the second violin part in) to one I had never before heard played live: Charles Ives’ Second Symphony written in the early years of the 20^th century but not performed until Bernstein finally premiered it in 1951. As Elder observed in his illustrated introduction after the interval, Ives followed the advice of Dvorak in America ten years earlier, that American composers should exploit their own heritage rather than slavishly emulating Europe. The piece is so referential – hymns, band tunes, square dance music, popular tunes and more – that it’s almost more of a sectional medley than a symphony but the imaginative scoring and orchestration must mean it’s fun to play and it’s certainly engaging to listen to.

Elder brought out all the beauty in the central cantabile and I admired the warm richness of the string sound in the third movement. First violins did well with the square dance theme and getting the two trombonists on their feet to play the big, overstated tune at the end was an inspired musical joke like the cacophonous final chord – the traditional way a dance band indicates that the party’s over.

An interestingly programmed concert of contrasts from the LSO in good form.

Susan Elkin

Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury, 13 April 2019

You’d expect mature, measured work from octogenarian Herbert Blomstedt and that, in this enjoyably focused concert is what we got. Mr Blomstedt now moves stiffly when he reaches and exits the platform but his unshowy, baton-less conducting is free and fluid, mostly from the wrist, with little or no reference to the score in front of him and rarely anything as humdrum as beating time. He reminded me, in different ways, of both Boult and Klemperer – both of whom I caught live towards the end of their careers. And the Philharmonia clearly responds well to his understated style.

Rather unnecessarily entitled Musical Heroes, this two work concert brought together Mozart’s powerful 40th symphony with all its stirring G minor and Beethoven’s Eroica – larger forces on stage –  which unfailingly manages to sound ground-breaking over 200 years after it was written.

Blomstedt gave us plenty of understated elegance in Mozart’s opening molto allegro followed by an exquisite andante. I really liked the way he allowed the woodwind interjections to glide through the texture – which also speaks volumes for the pleasing acoustic in the Marlowe which, unusually, works just as well as a concert hall as it does as a theatre. There followed an incisive third movement and a fourth characterised by mercurial tempi and precision.

And so to a memorable Beethoven performance. Blomstedt had the Philharmonia configured with first and second violins facing each other with timps angled off to his right and basses to his left. This meant that the principal cello struggled for eye contact with the leader and, owing to the conductor’s forward position, the leader couldn’t see his face most of the time. It looked awkward but didn’t seem to affect the sound.

Blomstedt doesn’t do everything at “authentic” Beethoven prestissimo as Norrington or Eliot Gardener routinely do which means we were treated to a lot of detail – with every rhythmic and melodic nuance coaxed and shaped by his expressive hands. I especially liked the management of the tension preceding the convention-breaking horn discords in the first movement and its contrast with the lyrically evocative passages. The second movement was, frankly, eccentric with too many exaggerated dynamic and tempo changes but the nicely judged fugal section and the rich string sound in the scherzo made up for it. So did the grandiloquence of the finale in which friskier moments highlighted the strength of the legato, fortissimo sections.

Susan Elkin