{"id":5948,"date":"2020-03-09T09:23:15","date_gmt":"2020-03-09T09:23:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.larkreviews.co.uk\/?p=5948"},"modified":"2020-03-09T09:25:01","modified_gmt":"2020-03-09T09:25:01","slug":"philharmonia-orchestra-8","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/?p=5948","title":{"rendered":"Philharmonia Orchestra"},"content":{"rendered":"
Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury<\/strong><\/span><\/h6>\n
Sunday 8 March 2020<\/strong><\/span><\/h6>\n

Young British conductor, Alpesh Chauhan, was new to me but I\u2019m sure I shall see a lot more of him before long. He has the Philharmonia totally under his baton with which – against the current fashion –\u00a0 he beats time clearly. He also has a very expressive left hand, each finger on which seems to communicate its own message. And I expect, in time, he\u2019ll learn to smile. He certainly had plenty to feel proud of in this all Russian concert.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

We began with Tchaikovsky\u2019s The Tempest<\/em> \u2013 an early piece which doesn\u2019t get performed as often as it deserves to. There are some terrific brass passages and lots of intense hard work for strings and piccolo. It sounded pretty good in this performance with a strong sense of story telling.<\/p>\n

Shostakovich\u2019s second piano concerto is much more familiar and\u00a0 Valentina Lisitsa made it sound fresh and exciting especially in the frenetic first movement in which she delivered almost every one of her thousands of high speed fortissimo notes. I enjoyed her quiet smile at the recapitulation too. She\u2019s an unshowy performer, and here she was accompanied by some fine, incisive orchestral playing complete with crisp col legno<\/em> bowing, vibrant pizzicato and snare drum. The contrast as we moved into the warmth of the lyrical andante<\/em> was delightful.<\/p>\n

Pictures at an Exhibition<\/em> is always a showstopper. The sheer colour and verve of Ravel\u2019s orchestration sells itself. This was a \u00a0pleasingly energetic but well controlled performance, particularly in the arresting glissandi moments, perfectly punctuated by the percussion section\u2019s whip. There was also some lovely solo work from wind and brass. When we finally reached the Great Gate of Kiev<\/em> the tubular bell moved me, as it always does. And if the intonation was fractionally wonky in places and the timing was awry once or twice then it simply didn\u2019t matter. The grandiloquence of the piece carried the day and ensured the audience left feeling uplifted.<\/p>\n

One gripe though: Why doesn\u2019t the Philharmonia list the names of its players in the programme \u2013 perhaps on a slip for each concert? I would like to cite some of the players for especially strong solo work but I can\u2019t because I don\u2019t know who is who.<\/p>\n

Susan Elkin<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury Sunday 8 March 2020 Young British conductor, Alpesh Chauhan, was new to me but I\u2019m sure I shall see a lot more of him before long. He has the Philharmonia totally under his baton with which – … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5948"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5948"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5948\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5951,"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5948\/revisions\/5951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}