| Concert Season | Next Concert | About | Reviews | Booking Info | Conductor | Committee | The Players | Joining Us | Support Us | Contact Us | Links |
Reviews
|
SAD LOVER STEALS THE CHRISTMAS CONCERT "Let Voices Sing to the Heavens"
This was a concert that certainly mixed but didn't always match. The Scarborough Choral Society joined the orchestra in the opening number, Haydn's Te Deum. This is rich, late Haydn and cheerful with it. The choir brought the cheer, with the full Latin vowels clearly audible, and the orchestra followed suit, timpani and trumpet interjections leading the way. There was good control in the slower section before the dramatic orchestra/singers exchanges that herald the end of this quite short work. It should be said that from the floor of the hall the choir, grouped to one side of the instrumentalists, was scarcely visible but, as usual, the women's voices dominating, audibility was not impaired. A Christmas carol (with audience) followed and then Gluck's Dance of the Blessed Spirits. It took a while for the long, legato lines of this delicate piece to emerge. The flute solo was played with wonderful sinuousness and gave, in its expressiveness, an indication of what the strings didn't always achieve. And the Mahler: Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen. From the very first phrase it was clear we were in the presence of an authoritative voice, one that knew its German and was in step with the melodrama of this work. The first of the four songs showed Miranda Sinani's expressive range. The second song, with its changing speeds and moods, was well taken by orchestra and a rapturous soloist. The manic, suicidal third song set off at a terrifying lick before collapsing into self-pity in its final lines. The final song with its slow march-like opening is again self-tormenting. Again the soloist relished the opportunity the composer gave with a powerful versatility. The Lindenbaum section, with its sad reflections, was sung with great appeal. Shaun Matthew's reading of this cycle was not in the least romantic. There were hints of rich harmony but fleeting; rather instrumentalists and ensembles were separate, fragments rather than parts of a whole. Clearly this suited the changeable psychological state of the lover at the centre of the drama. That the songs were so well received owed much though, to the cohesive imagination of such a fine solo voice. After the interval, Variations on a Christmas Carol (Men of Good Will) was sandwiched between two further carols. This is short, imaginative, colourful: a show-piece. From the brass confidently pealing out the theme at the start this was almost a mini concerto for orchestra. From harp to xylophone, from woodwind to lower strings, there was plenty going on and Shaun Matthew managed the contrasting moods, ranging from tender cradle-song to boisterous, salty flamboyance well. A performance to recommend this little-heard set of variations from a master of the form. The official programme ended with a suite from Aaron Copland's opera The Tender Land, a relatively short offering of three linked movements. A jumpy, jaunty, jolly central section, very laid-back and ready-for-fun (it is titled Party Scene) in its mood is not far from Hoe Down in Rodeo. The orchestra gave it plenty of strutting and rhythm and there was a memorable tuba passage. The outer sections feature arching, soaring 'love' themes frequently in gradual crescendo over firm bass statements. It is with one of these that the suite ends, Shaun Matthew having guided the orchestra in an unfolding tutti. For completeness, the carol settings that drew full-throated singing from the audience and choirs were those by David Willcocks. As an encore chorus and orchestra gave us Shepherds' Farewell from Berlioz's L'Enfance du Christ. For all its helping of Christmas fare the concert seemed slightly unfocused, perhaps because its pulsating heart was undoubtedly the Mahler song cycle with its self-obsessed and very un-Christmassy lover and it was over by the interval. David Smart |
|
THE BULL AND THE CHINA "Literary Inspirations"
Brahms' Academic Festival Overture, chosen to open the orchestra's first full season at the Spa, stood, in more ways than one, at rather a tangent to the rest of the programme. It was played rather tentatively and the cantabile sections between the perky students' songs were underpowered. Perhaps it was rather under-prepared; there were far better things to come. To follow the overture, the two main works in this concert were pertinently contrasted. Mendelssohn's exquisite Violin Concerto is utterly typical of the man and his best compositional style but the Shostakovich of the Fifth Symphony is elusive, elliptical, hidden: now you see him and now you are not at all sure what you do see, or rather, hear. Liz Rossi, soloist in the concerto, worked admirably with Shaun Matthew and the orchestra to give us an interpretation of much character. We were made well aware that this was a fine-honed, fine-boned piece. All the typically Mendelssohnian scamper was there in the first movement together with the brief rhetorical fanfares that remind us that at his best this composer is a miniaturist, a composer of the shades of moonlight rather than of sun. Rossi's playing was fluid and singing against the shimmering orchestra. Woodwind and strings created the light-grained bed-rock across which the lyrical soloist could scurry or create brief, statuesque shadow-play. The mood of the Andante was 100% silver moonlight. Rossi made plenty of the pleading melodies' rise and fall. Sympathetic pizzicato contributed to a rapt mood that harked back at times to the music for Midsummer Night's Dream. Strings and whispered woodwind gave much as did the well-judged light-weight punches of brass and timps. Rossi's was a porcelain performance, perfectly in keeping with the personality and mood of the work. This is no Brahms concerto, no Beethoven or Elgar either, yet it has its own total integrity and classic, bone-china beauty. Shostakovich's Symphony No.5 seemed to come from a different solar system. Sadly, however, it does not. This is a most enigmatic symphony; there seem to be as many readings of it (by conductors and listeners) as there are performances. But, without going into details, the feeling is that things are not quite what they seem, especially in the second and third movement of this 'answer of a Sovet artist to justified criticism' written in the time of Stalin's worst Terror Purge. The big first movement packed plenty of portent. The string opening could have had more depth and resonance (though things were to improve) and tuttis were justly jagged and hurtful. There was good rhythmic underpinning. Beautifully breathed flute solos stood out most movingly against the strident, march-like episode set up by side-drum and trumpets. This music eventually subsided to tightly controlled final bars with solo violin and xylophone, very hushed. The second movement is strongly inspired (as is the whole symphony) by Mahler. The pastiche element is strong and it seemed Shaun Matthew worked to stress the artificiality of any humour here created. He marked up contrasts of orchestration and tempo intelligently implying that any lightness of mood in Stalinist times was not to be trusted. For the Largo he shaped the strings in the opening pages to present, slowly breathing, the impression of a sleeping giant. Cellos were particularly rich. Genuine tension in the strings allowed soloists to make chamber music patterns above them. Attention was held throughout a long movement without any big themes. The music button-holed by its sheer intensity. The move to the last movement is deliberately harsh and clashing. Brass bellow out a coarse, catchy motif that a Hollywood epic studio would be proud to use. Matthew drove things along so well he managed a sense of the music falling over itself to be bright, heroic, cheerful: very loud, very fast. A respite section (which one does trust) allows strings to climb skywards with harp prominent below. To close, the orchestra clearly relished the brasher-than-brash writing that encompassed brass and timpani con forza. Surely it is all too much to be sincere triumphal rejoicing. Too much bull perhaps, too over-the-top. But this had been a fine peformance, well read and executed and, as for the Mendelssohn, the Spa Grand Hall rang with foot-stamping and applause. David Smart |
|
PATRIOTS? USSR AND USA STYLE
This enterprising programme brought together two American composers and one Russian; all their works were from the twentieth century. Whether the Soviet Shostakovitch could have escaped Russia had he wanted to, as his friend Rostrapovitch did, is debatable; that he almost certainly would not have done so is, I feel, far less in doubt. His situation, vis-a vis the Russian people in the Stalinist era, would not have allowed him to. Though hugely an independent voice, he spoke, through his terrors and neuroses, for a people he could probably not desert. But we began with Aaron Copland. His suite Billy the Kid is a great pleasure but, ultimately, in the best sense, superficial. Which is not to say it has surface faults: orchestration is colourful, vigorous and not merely, as with another kind of American music, catchy and flashy. After a rather raw-sounding Prairie, a beautifully breathed flute solo led us into warmer waters. The Mexican Dance was neatly shaded, percussion (who were in for quite a big night) seizing the syncopation infectiously. In more pensive moments trumpets could sound lonely and desolate. The Gun Battle was, as perhaps it should be, almost a concerto for percussion (very loud!) and Shaun Matthew caught the Celebration after Billy's Capture with fine, ironic, cheap swagger. Horns announced a rich elegiac chorale for the doomed outlaw. The weaker moments were in the more nuanced passages when Copland's French studies were to the fore. But the performance had movement and brightness. It was assertive, refreshingly outdoor, It is clearly the work of a composer easy with himself and his country: youthfully confident. Many of these are the very qualities we most associate with American music itself. Charles Ives still raises fears in the concert goer of cacophony, loud and unlimited, but his Second Symphony is a late Romantic lamb with very few gambols in it. We recognise some of the American tunes grafted into its structure and we miss many more than we have known, yet it is, at least for the European listener, the European models from which Ives works, that we identify. His five movement symphony began Adagio moderato with astringent, austere, jagged string writing. Solo work from viola and oboe together with warming effects on horns moved us into the second movement, Allegro. Here Shaun Matthew picked out the American marching tunes to give a certain playfulness to proceedings. Winds were much involved here; there was lovely solo flute work and, increasingly as this movement advanced, the real presence of Brahms and Dvorak was felt. Some bars were pure Czech! Final pages built up, with percussive cross rhythms and brass increasingly enlisted, to a strangely unresolved final bar. In the Andante cantabile strings began etherially, gently paced, and with a cello solo. Again the ghosts of Brahms and Dvorak hovered near. The condutor kept the flow firmly structured and unfolded its rather beautiful route to its dying fall. The Lento maestoso that follows is brief and very Brahmsian. Ives is looking across to him as Brahms himself looked across, in his first symphony finale, to Bach. But it was quickly into the finale, Allegro molto vivace. Horns re-established a more recognisably American feel here and the movement is almost over-textured with lots of rich sound. Once again there was excellent solo cello work with help from the flute and for a few bars we brushed very close to Dvorak's cello concerto. The orchestra builds to a fugal mode and and brass were prominent with their percussion allies. Ives gives an exciting, if slightly jarring end to his symphony but it had been a thrilling experience to hear it. Perhaps, for an enthusiastic audience, not the most American sounding music around but a valuable experience nevertheless. Shostakovitch was born in Russia but in comparison, he seems, quite wrongly, to have come from another planet. His First Violin Concerto was played between the two American pieces: music of the land of the free set against that of the allegedly unfree. The nature of the quality of life that produced the concerto is utterly different from that which produced the other pieces. Long, broadly slow movements are set off against short, fast ones. Soloist Dania Alzapiedi, joining the lower strings at the beginning of the first movement, Nocturne, drew almost viola-like tones from her instrument. The soloist is an intense, serious, lonely voice over the night-tones of lower stings, harp and ominously soft drum-roll, cymbal and contrabass. Alzapiedi's playing was often passionate, rising with the swell of the orchestra, a striving towards some lyric beauty built out of darkness. The harp, ticking like a menacing clock helps to close the movement. The Scherzo which follows begins with dark orchestration but gradually, the soloist leading, a more frantic element emerges with jumpy rhythms and ever fuller orchestra. There is a break-out from darkness into a furious dance, flute threading its way with the soloist, helping drive the music to its conclusion. In the Passacaglia dark tones again establish the early mood. Here horns were particularly effective. A woodwind choir suggested a lightening of textures before warmer tones from the soloist signalled a singing passage played against growing orchestral sound with fine solo horn work. There was good accompaniment here with cellos particularly noticeable. The soloist was tender against brass chords and her interchange with pizzicato strings was strikingly beautiful as it was in the high passages against percussion. The violin cadenza that follows was pleadingly played, committed, full of struggle - a spellbinding soliloquy. Eventually, hesitatingly, the main theme of the final movement begins to dawn and then, we were into it. Good orchestral detail was maintained despite the break-neck speed. The conclusion was certainly thrilling but not without that sense of hopeles desperation Shostakovitch must have felt always accompanied any kind of escape. The foot-stamping and applause greeting this riveting performance was totally justified. If Shostakovitch had been born American, would he still have written music like this? Of course not. He would have had a different world to reflect and he would have held a different place in it, a less universally relevant one perhaps. He was and remains, always Russian, but mostly, always human. David Smart |
|
FOUR TRIUMPHS AND A DECAPITATION "Fantasy Land"
On paper alone, this concert had promise: two musical fairy tales as brackets to two orchestral works with soloists. Reality was more than mere promise; a great deal was achieved. Let us take the brackets first. Ravel's Mother Goose Suite found conductor and orchestra unflinchingly confident. From the pin-drop enchantment of Beauty in the Sleeping Forest, through the delicate view of Tom Thumb, from the flute set against contrabassoon of Beauty and the Beast, to the splashes of colour from harp, xylophone and warm strings, this short suite came skillfully alive. The shimmering, glass-like textures were there throughout, even to the ringing triangle of the climax. The effect was to create a childhood world, one colourful and imaginative surely, but ultimately brittle and dangerously breakable. Dvorak's Water Goblin is a tale to terrify the toddlers. Shaun Matthew and his band gave us a truly excellent performance to end the concert. The players were fine but the conductor's telling of this story of abduction and decapitation (!) helped hearers to pick their way through the unfolding score. The insistent theme of the Goblin was stamped on the piece from the start and it underlies even the bucolic, love-sequence at the heart of the work. At one point this theme becomes a menacing, frenzied march with brass and percussion driving home the creature's unpredictable temper. Tuba gently hinted at the depths of his anger prior to the final pages. Flute was more than plaintive before the bustling, boiling anger of the lower strings. An oddly understated vesper-bell introduced brass bellows of fury before the appalling quiet of a really nightmarish end. This had been the Scarborough Orchestra at pretty much its best. They have done good work with Dvorak before, but it was never as good as this. Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez was first of two works with soloist. Robert Ellis, guitar, was always audible, a quiet, nimble stream against the humorous cuckoo-calls of the woodwinds. The first movement, full of such details, highlighted the quiet warmth of the soloist as well as a fine cello solo, stabs of brass colour and languorous wind phrases. Soloist and orchestral players echoed each other in typically winding Spanish phrases but the mood was, thankfully, rather more astringent than lush. The delicious Adagio with its early lanquid, beautifully controlled cor anglais solo rose and fell with melodies, soloist offering comment and ornamentation with understanding, always clearly heard against orchestral restraint. An evocative horn solo caught the ear before the reflective, cadenza-like passages for the soloist. The movement built to a controlled yet passionate coda, as intense as the whole wrapt movement had been. In the light-hearted Finale flutes and trumpets were prominent. First reactions were that this might have been given a more joyful, carefree treatment, for it seemed just a little inhibited. Yet the composer's instruction is Allegro gentile. Perhaps what I had in mind would not have been gentile enough and that what we had on the night was right. Either way, a very good performance: a real treat to see as well as hear this deservedly loved piece. In so many ways, Dohnanyi's Variations on a Nursery Theme could have been written with Frank James in mind. Its mixture of flourished keyboard fireworks and open humour fitted his abilities ideally. Shaun Matthew and the orchestra could not have sculpted the Introduction better. It was thunderous (positively explosive percussion), climactic, (blistering brass) and left the soloist totally isolated with his pathetic five-finger Baa, Baa, black sheep exercise. There was plenty of amusement as the soloist fumbled (deliberately) through his innocent party piece. In succeeding variations Frank James was quickly reinvented as a pianist who could roam the keys at will: no beginner after all! But his humour never deserted him. In the quick-march variation there was plenty of witty repartee while in the musical-clock variation tuba under xylophone and high piano produced comedy enough. In the waltz parody the soloist launched the theme with aplomb while relishing the relaxed moments. The orchestra had plenty of schwung here. In the Sorceror's Apprentice variation bassoons, flutes, oboes all shared the joke. The chorale section gave the best feel of a genuine concerto, a serious, sustained mood descending here. The finale brings together some outlandish instrumental effects and the simplicity of the theme again. Somehow, it was the farting contrabassoon that said it all. It must be added that during the Ravel and the Dvorak, artist Paul Barratt painted on several large boards, his reactions to the music played. To speak only for myself, I found the playing of the orchestra sufficiently commanding to absorb almost all my attention so that there was really little chance to put together sound and developing painting. David Smart |
|
SUN RISES ON A CONCERT OF SHADOW AND LIGHT Northern Lights
There were no seats spare for Jamie Watson’s performance of Dvorak’s Cello Concerto. It was keenly anticipated and the rising young star did not disappoint. Many years ago I heard Nigel Kennedy perform Elgar’s Violin Concerto in the Spa Hall and felt he had convinced me that I had somehow had a revealing audience with the composer himself. Last year, in Jamie Walton’s excellent account of Shostakovich’s First Cello Concerto I felt the same closeness to the troubled author. This time it was Dvorak whose character he unfolded to us in an ultimately melancholy, lyrical and insightful interpretation. The first movement’s dark opening grandeur with its beguiling horn-calls gives way to an unforgettably wistful tune, full of characteristic regret. Walton made the very best of this theme but he could vary moods too: pensive to almost pompous. There were fine exchanges with the orchestra, the mood throughout predominantly sadness-laden. He played with great delicacy but could break into large, urgent, raking chords. The tutti that closed the movement pealed like a celebratory, massive bell. But this mood hardly held. In the second movement, the cello, after a fresh woodwind opening, was back in a mood of aching regret, though beautifully phrased. Walton’s rich intonation gave this section an especially Slavonic feel. At times he commented on orchestral material, at times headed off into lines of his own thought. The writing is very intimate and close-up here. In the ‘cadenza’, the presence of the flute was particularly effective, the two of one mind, yet independent. The movement ended with Walton fixing again that sense of sober, serious sadness. The finale’s almost over-jolly march (complete with triangle!), was picked up by the soloist but even as he attacked it, there was always the fall back into heart-easing melancholy. There was an expressive urgency about the soloist’s repeated phrases. Trumpets were a major force in the final pages where the cello seems loath to end matters, preferring to continue the lyrical, graceful, regret. Our tour inside the mind of Dvorak had been revealing and, with this soloist’s sound tone, always supremely singing and musical. Orchestral accompaniment had been a touch harsh at times, over-loud and occasionally we lost the soloist’s line. But, overall, a decent, exploratory performance that the audience received with enthusiasm. And so to Scandinavia. The opening Helios Overture by Nielsen proved a real test. Not always smooth and with intonation awry at times, it was gloriously lifted by the tutti sunrise. (The piece describes a day’s passage of the Aegean sun.) There were good woodwind contributions and the tuba was rock-steady but it took the much finer performance of the other two works to really set us back on a more confident keel. Sibelius’ Second Symphony began with an intelligent interpretation of what can seem a disjointed first movement. The mood Shaun Matthew achieved was of expectation. Just where were those broken, detached phrases for oboe and bassoon et al taking us, those hints of rich darkness? The scene shifts between full orchestra and solo instruments. There was a sense in which we were receiving powerful hints. Here was a groundswell suggesting much bigger things to come. The slow second movement was effective. After an evocative start with plucked strings and a drum-roll, the Nordic feel was extended. Like ominous thunder the superbly elemental percussion rumbled around. Over this Shaun Matthew, in tight control, built the great outbursts of snarling brass and screaming woodwind. It was a forceful brass contribution that together with strings gave a warm feel to the flowing major theme that emerges over plucked violas at the close. There is an unease about, which the vivacissimo third movement does not dispel. Strings broached it well, giving that agitated feel to which the booming tuba added disquiet. Woodwinds were eloquent voices amongst the restlessness. The repeated-note trio deserved more bark from the brass but they, together with percussion, set us firmly down in the finale where the famous big theme broke out and horns called across the orchestra. This theme, though highly memorable, can sound ‘vulgar, self-indulgent’ as it seems Virgil Thomson found it, but Shaun Matthew kept it well reined in, no drawling or drooling. Lower strings growled excitedly and the conductor kept the brass fanfares clipped in. Tuba here, quite excellent. The final statement of the theme brought soaring, passionate string playing and committed brass wonderfully together once more. It was a tumultuous, even triumphant end indeed to a concert of at least some mixed fortunes. David Smart |
|
DANCES WITH SOME MUSIC OF TIME Christmas Flavours
In Winter Solstice, receiving its world premiere, Emmanuel Vass has given us 15 or so minutes of musical reflection prompted by the December passage from invading cold and darkness to the confident expectation of warmth and increased light. But this is not achieved merely by descriptive writing suggesting a landscape or event: the real movement of the piece is emotional, psychological. From an opening with woodwinds over gentle, bell-like strings to the picking out of a carol-type theme on the oboe to the much later ‘bird’ flutings and the flowing, if at times angular, string melodies, the piece has progression. Winter is not static. Vass’ orchestration is memorable: the use of muted trumpets, cymbals, harp and flute (a lush episode this), solo violin, trombone to recall but a few. The strings though, gave the piece much of its character. Their agency brought a decidedly English pastoral quality, (hinted at in the composer’s notes which speak of Vaughan Williams and a ‘folk element’). A moving score that provoked sympathetic listening and a warm reception! It was a special pleasure to find it working within a tradition that has too often been far too vilified. A little later in the first half we passed from 17 year old Vass to music of the 16 year old Mozart, his motet Exultate Jubilate. Wendy Goodson’s performance soon gained confidence and commitment. Her voice has darkened and, especially in the Recitativo and Andante, there was more than mere bright innocence to this praise-song. The Andante looked forward to the music of a certain abandoned countess in an opera to follow later. Phrasing and control were fine. Strings, ably shaded by oboe, gave their colour very delicately, but this was the singer’s achievement: a truly memorable performance. Two items of ballet music made up the main programme. Walton’s arrangement of Bach’s Sheep May Safely Graze was glowingly played throughout. Set up by Anthony Mason’s solo violin, flutes sensitively introduced the famous tune. Shaun Matthew kept the pace steady and drew, at times, an almost ethereal sound from the band. Inevitably, a suite from Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker offered more colour and variety. These are dances mainly for toys, sweets, fairies and mice, in other words, not humans. The treatment required here, and attained, is to keep them in that miniature world. There must be lightness, delicacy, at times a certain rigidity and the humour of the abrupt final bars of so many of these pieces must be allowed for. Shaun Matthew did it well. At times there might have been a little more pp from the strings but so much here was right. Brass was bright and accurate, punchy and never over-loud. In the Sugar Plum Fairy Dance, celeste and flutes were beguiling. The Arabian Dance gave us sinuous woodwind over fine, throbbing strings. Tambourine effects were excellent as indeed were other little percussion touches throughout. They, almost more than anything else, helped establish the toy/miniature element. Bassoons with their stepping rhythm brought comedy to the Chinese Dance. In the Dance of the Mirlitons Shaun Matthew held back the speed to let the humour through and brass showed great self-restraint. It is only at the close of Valse des Fleurs that the orchestra was allowed to expand. As the piece progressed there was more sing and swing to the melodies and in the final bars, passion gloriously broke through in the tuttis, restoring, perhaps ironically in a dance for flowers, a human scale again and throwing all the preceding miniaturism into relief. Beyond the applause, there was an encore to come, Leroy Anderson’s Sleighride. Crackingly played, high-stepping and jolly, it made the perfect conclusion. But no review of this excellent concert would be complete without mention of the three carols the audience sang to the wonderful orchestration of none other than Geoffrey Emerson. They were rousing good fun and, it is hoped, may set a tradition. David Smart |
|
DVORAK STOKES UP A SYMPHONIC SCARBOROUGH SPA EXPRESS Heroes v Anti-Heroes
In a new one-off venue and with a new name, the former Scarborough Orchestra looked pretty cramped on stage; not much leg-room but perhaps just enough elbow-room for the strings. After the interval, with the piano moved aside, matters appeared a little more comfortable and indeed, they were very at home with the concert’s final item. Dvorak’s Symphony No.9 "From the New World" is beautifully written for orchestra. Utterly democratic, it divides its symphonic riches even-handedly between strings, woodwind, brass and percussion. In this performance all sections shone though some were occasionally untidy. It was Shaun Matthew’s urgent drive and pulse that held things together for which we must be grateful, as well as an orchestra more than willing to take risks in the interests of fire and commitment. The first movement opened with lower strings caught, perhaps, unawares. The woodwind entry improved matters hugely and when the allegro molto began there was plenty of stride and reach. Horns beautifully supported the rich exploration of the movement’s varied landscape. Fanfares shuttled across the weave of sound from one section to another in an excellent observation of details. Of all the movements the well-loved second was best played. Brass intoned the introduction well and the cor-anglais solo was warmly shaped within a very spacious tempo. Strings were hushed, horns gave a softly rocking, lullaby feel. There were many jewelled details here. Peter Walser’s oboe playing complimented his generously breathed cor-anglais phrasing from earlier. Shaun Matthew shaped the closing pages with real heartfelt sensitivity and the brass choir ended matters much as they had begun. In the Scherzo percussion urged on the biting Czech rhythms. Trumpets were splendid, woodwind reliable, and the triangle was played with delicious and delectable effect. Strings skirled along in what sounded to me like an authentic Czech accent. The finale, often dismissed as the weakest movement, got off to a blazing brass start, despite some slight waywardness. A slower paced clarinet solo persuaded the orchestra to halt the headlong attack. But the suspenseful drive returned and horns and trombones bellowed out the blunt main theme with much relish. The conductor did not neglect the tender passages: the bassoon contributions being clearly picked out. The long final tutti was carefully and cumulatively constructed in a huge unleashing of sound that was a head of steam for Dvorak as well as something Bruckner would have been proud of. The symphony ended the concert for which the first half began with Panufnik’s Heroic Overture. The piece starts with brass and massive percussion giving a rowdy treatment of a syncopated march. Strings did struggle to be heard against the onslaught. The musical statements are rather staccato, rather bald: raw, primeval almost, but hard on balance. Smetana’s Vltava, the picture of a river, was impeccably insinuated by flute, and woodwind companions added warmth to the flow. Brass, including tuba, built up the weight of water. The central polka was kept contrastingly light and uplifted, lower strings being particularly effective. This was a brave shot at a romantic favourite that somehow never gave quite enough in sound or colour. Andrei Ivanovitch (returning for his third year) must be thanked for consenting to play something of a Prokofiev rarity, his First Piano Concerto. It is also his shortest being barely 16 minutes long. From the start the soloist went for a percussive, driven interpretation, opening phrases motoric and forceful. Any perky, catchiness of tunes was not dwelt on and we were soon in the second section where a more mercurial approach from Ivanovitch was winningly answered by the xylophone. Sections are very short and in some ways the final one offers most variety. The soloist, after a telling opening from strings and woodwind, was at his best. There was, though, still fantasy to be found. A flute solo took us in the right direction. Despite undoubted delicate passages I felt the pianist could have sought more humour here. The final bars, piano soloist ringing through the tutti orchestra, are reminiscent of Tchaikovsky’s earliest piano concerto (with a modern twist) and together they brought this brief, often fierce little concerto to a rousing close. David Smart |
|
"SCHOENBERG SURPRISE TOPS SYMPHONIC SALAD" Exotic Flavours
Two sets of dances framed the first half of this concert and sharply contrasted they were too. Respighi’s Ancient Airs and Dances, Set 2 were played with plenty of character and humour and, overall, a polished accuracy prevailed for these essentially transparent pieces. Solemn and august when they needed to be, Shaun Matthew’s elegant, stickless conducting could also tap the simplicity at the heart of these dances. There was clear solo trumpet work before the cheerfully syncopated final movement wrapped everything up neatly. Arnold’s English Dances, Set 1 come from a different parish. They are, by nature, a less smooth ride and there were unsteady passages here. The orchestra seemed happiest with the second and fourth dances, brass exulting and rollicking through them with palpable delight. The tuba was happily prominent. The harp made telling contributions in the quieter sections where, at the other extreme, timpani kept the raw brass outbursts well fuelled. Between the dances came Griffes’ White Peacock, his orchestration of his own piano piece. The work has a Debussyesque feel and in this spirit woodwinds were effectively rhapsodic. On either side of the climax there was fine flute solo work bridging over generous string sound. Indeed, it was the flutes’ descending phrases that dominated the final pages against the strings’ misty, veiled effects. All ended with a well-shaped oboe solo against the quiet thrum of the harp. Schoenberg’s Theme and Variations had the special distinction of being introduced by the conductor. We learned about ‘inversion’ and ‘fragmentation’ etc. but once the music began, it spoke for itself. The plaintive trumpet tune proved more than capable of attractive treatment. Shaun Matthew stressed rhythm well and the audience was offered variations that were jolly, jerky, cheeky and even mock-martial. The ghost of Mahler’s Nachtmusik was never far away – the fine, and varied percussion contributions underlined this. Woodwind too provided excellent solo work and the cellos’/ violins’ exchange was memorable. This is a brittle musical sound world of opulent but edgy harmonies. It is crowded with far too much detail to take in at one listening but the audience welcomed it gladly so that further chances of a hearing may, perhaps, be not too far off. After the interval, Borodin’s Symphony No. 2: the work of an amateur, taking some seven years to complete, so hardly written in white, all-consuming heat. Yet this is misleading. It remains an icon of the Russian symphony. In its emphasis on gesture and orchestral colour rather than theme development it, especially in the first movement, pre-dates Shostakovitch’s Leningrad Symphony’s equivalent section. Borodin’s Allegro is dominated by the motoric opening which creates (typically Russian), a fierce, dark, melancholy. Lower strings and brass were prime movers here. Development, such as it is, has that Shostakovitch inexorability with touches of terror from nervous woodwind passages. Shaun Matthew brought plenty of mood and tension to much of this forward-looking movement. The Prestissimo that follows has echoes of Mendelssohn with the restless woodwind phrases over a rhythm admirably set by a fast, oscillating figure for horns. The bridge to the trio was untidy but there was broad string playing to come, especially from cellos and basses. The slow movement proved difficult to unify; there were loose moments and the big tune didn’t quite glow. Yet there was, undeniably, a sense of vast tranquillity so needed after the preceding movements. Violins shimmered well and horns and harp made atmospheric contributions. The final Allegro again featured a rather straight-edged tune but it swung along with help from colourful percussion. Shaun Matthew kept the momentum well and there was plenty of orchestral enthusiasm. A great, granite block of a theme appears towards the end but it was brushed aside in a fine concluding blaze. We had had an interesting encounter with an important work. David Smart |
|
"SPRING TO SEVENTH HEAVEN VIA THE STRATOSPHERE" Old & New
To focus critically on a piece you’ve not heard before is not easy. It is more difficult still if its composer is known, if at all, for the avant-garde nature of his work. The John Foulds websites had led me towards Percy Grainger for comparison but I think, at least on the evidence of April – England, Frank Bridge is the nearer spirit. Much of Bridge’s intentions behind his Enter Spring must have been close to Foulds as he wrote his impression of springtime England. There is something slightly nautical about the lilt of the opening theme though it never quite deserts rural England. It is treated to quite flashy embellishments, rumbling percussion and strong brass chorales. At one point solo trumpet cuts edgily across. The ring of the sound world is different, the chords built unusually. The impression is of keen, unresolved freshness; we are on a bright spring day with a slight cut to a strong wind. Brass were forceful in the bracing tuttis. We were hearing a distinctive sound here giving a personal twist to interpreting the English countryside. The coda provided a thrilling end to a brightly lit, blustering possible world first performance of this tone-poem. Weber’s Second Clarinet Concerto was played by Scarborough Orchestra principal, Peter Gibb. He brought clarity of sound throughout and to the first movement’s well-known tune a perky inflexion and, in its development, a bubbly, joyous fluency. The passages in the minor that followed found him in darker tones for a while until the stratospheric leaps which seem such a feature of this piece led us to a lighter conclusion. The steady tread of the orchestral accompaniment set the scene for a sadly undistinguished second-movement theme for clarinet. Don’t misunderstand; warmly, feelingly played but Oh that Weber had given his soloist something to go at. The rhetorical, central section with orchestra was given presence by both the players and soloist and the fading quiet at the movement’s end was a tribute to both voices. The Polish dance finale was all it should have been. The soloist shrugged off great leaps and scale passages with easy glee and again the orchestra was much more than mere cipher. Bassoons and percussion had their moments and the airiness of string playing was commendable. All built to the energetic last pages in which the soloist cavorted seamlessly over the orchestra. With last concert’s Brahms First still fresh in the memory many in the interval must have been wondering – confidently – what Shaun Matthew would make of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony, another of the great bastion symphonic works. It was to be one of those occasions when live music became something special. This was not Carlos Kleiber with the Vienna Phil., but it was a mature statement, not so much volcanic as oceanic, the great rhythmic tides of the piece breaking again and again on the ear. The long introduction to the first movement is full of scarcely controlled power. It was a time of some nervous restraint for the players who perhaps, knowing what was to come, wanted to get on with the job. But when it did come and the Vivace arrived Shaun Matthew let nothing go unrestrained. He hovers over every bar, building fortes carefully, keeping forces together, allowing just that tiny bit more energy to manifest itself on each repeat. He made much of the mysterious, slower, strings-only sections. There was a sense of huge, held energy in the tuttis. It was not energy suppressed; it was energy on a strong leash. Woodwind, especially oboes and clarinet came through with a delicate beauty before the relentless rhythm, backed by brass and driving strings, reinforced the forward impulse. Offbeat accents were thwacked down most memorably. In his pre-performance talk, Frank James told us that, in accordance with the ‘apotheosis of the dance’ tag that Wagner had (misleadingly, I suspect) given to the symphony Shaun Matthew felt that the slow, second movement had the quality of a stately pavane. And indeed, it uncoiled smoothly in that spirit at the hands of the lower and then, later, full strings. In contrast the conductor gave tuttis full measure to keep the movement in touch with the mood of the rest of the work. Woodwinds phrased sensitively and clear, string textures added to rhythmic interest. The Scherzo third movement is as difficult as any to bring off and the horn writing particularly demanding in the trio. Shaun Matthew, stick down, negotiated this white-water music remarkably well. Tuttis were gloriously deep and colourful, emphatic percussion behind them binding them together. The movement pounced and bounced with huge energy and the horns rose to the challenge of Beethoven’s scoring formidably well. We had just had the Presto; now came the Allegro con Brio and that contrast we got. The ramping rhythms were ever on the edge of breaking out but equally, under control. There was a storming fire burning here and you could feel its heat, but it was behind bars. Horns were superb, yet not everything was blazing, syncopated splendour. There was space for sharp-cut details from reeds, moments of relaxation before the impulsion returned. Brass blew their hearts out (not least the added ingredient, trombones)! This rhythmic culmination climaxes, before the final silence, with a couple of last, loud metrical statements from full orchestra. The audience reaction was immediate and sustained, foot-stamping included. Again these fine players had given a cornerstone performance of a cornerstone work. Leaving an over-hot Westborough church for the cold, heavy blown rain was just too much of a shock to the over-loaded system. David Smart |
|
"MIGHTY HANDFUL" A Solid Tradition
This concert programme for a fully professional orchestra would have been a huge undertaking. For an informal provincial orchestra it must have been even more so. All involved on Saturday evening certainly deserved their beds after such a brave meeting of such a daunting challenge. Let’s get the Mozart Impresario Overture out of the way first, as did the concert: brief, skirling and rushing, over almost before it had started. But it is as well it was included because the genius of Mozart was to rise again before the evening was done. He was the inspiration for the later tradition that was Beethoven and Brahms. Frank James joined the orchestra for Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5. We might know this as The Emperor but there was no overwhelming imperial grandeur here. Shaun Matthew and the soloist had a different agenda. Their tempo for the all-important first movement was urgent, driven forward by timpani and horns. Orchestral tuttis were stirring, though I’d not have objected to more assertive brass. Lower strings gave the all-consuming main theme a distinct menace when they got their hands on it. E-flat, the key of the concerto, seems to have been associated in Beethoven’s mind with nobility but there were enlightening passages in this interpretation to remind us that nobility is more often apparent than real as the composer himself had discovered with Napoleon. The orchestra supported the soloist with plenty of energy and direction but the artist here was not working with a perfect instrument. It could clang at times but generally it managed to convey the force of the soloist’s interpretation. The menacing, long octave passage came over very well and when there were chances to exploit delicacy and more expressive thematic developments Frank James could conjure well moments of relaxation amongst the turbulence so much of the movement created. The orchestra, as for example in passages with plucked strings or woodwind, listened to the soloist and not a note was lost. Collaborative, intelligent, not headstrong music making. The second movement began with a beautiful exploratory feel to the string playing. It was like the first steps in a new landscape. The arrival of the piano continued this sense of wandering in a rarefied atmosphere as it moved quietly over the orchestral accompaniment. Frank James plays Mozart well and the mood was distinctly Mozartian. It is regrettable that what should be a delicate, hushed transition to the third movement broke the spell a little. In this section the brief, broader sections were highlighted well by soloist and orchestra but the sense here was of bounding gusto. Energetic scale passages and trills sparkled against the orchestra. The dependability of the horns was not always echoed by others who at several points were given exposed fanfares. The arrival of trombones beefed up the tumult but once again lower strings had the chance to point back to that menace they had touched on in the first movement. Before the abrupt close, a drum playing under the solo piano had its chance to underline something of the same mood. The audience had listened with breathless attention. So ended a most characterful performance, enthusiastically received. Brahms’ First Symphony begins with the drum again, this time beating like a great heart. It reminds us that this is to be a human as well as a personal drama. It is the story of a spiritual victory in a way not dissimilar to Beethoven’s own C minor symphony, the famous Fifth. Nevertheless, this is unmistakeable Brahms. At the beginning, something gigantic is stirring, slowly, ponderously. The oboe (very important in this work) gets its first plaintive spotlight and then the heavy dam bursts, a great psychological weight is released, unstoppably. There was sensitive and often magnificent horn playing and the frequent crescendos were carefully built and released. A strong, muscular tension dominated as the four-note motto theme passed between the sections. The established mood was restless, unquiet, angular, and the final tuttis explosive, gripping. Shaun Matthew and the orchestra had indeed established an uneasy tension that needed to be resolved. Strings and a sensitively played oboe solo established the thoughtful feel that opens the slow movement. The clarinet contribution too was delicately shaped. Shaun Matthew moulded this sometimes thickly-scored chunk of musical stone into something lyrical and deeply felt. Horn and violin briefly achieved chamber music clarity. The third movement was played with lithe rhythms and woodwinds were alert and wove their typically Brahmsian melodies deftly. The conductor whipped up the middle section into a veritable storm linking back to the first movement. The outer sections of this fragile movement could have been quieter and the ending less untidy but we were ready for the finale. Its brooding prelude was well caught with the piling up of tension and muscularity. Across this darkened landscape broke the horns and woodwinds, like a dawning. Brass intoned the chorale to introduce the warm, broad Beethovenian theme that carries the hope of resolution. A clear-voiced flute gave respite from the rushing power of the now triumphant tuttis. There was a huge forward drive, even more palpable here than in the first movement, as it should be. As the final pages approached timpani rolled like a great sea, underpinning the clamorous, stabbing, jabbing propulsion of the entire orchestra. The excitement of the last bars was exceptional even for these players. There was no doubt here about the victory of the spirit in the great battle the symphony’s opening movement had laid out. The audience hugely relished the experience and cheers and stamping greeted the final chords. Totally deserved. David Smart |
|
"PRAISE FOR MENDELSSOHN'S BIG SONG" CELEBRATORY MUSIC
In the film of Kingsley Amis’s story Only Two Can Play the Welsh arts critic of the Aberdarcy Herald has printed a review of a performance which he did not attend, being otherwise engaged at the time, (Peter Sellers – reviewer – and Mai Zetterling – his posh bird – being hilariously entangled that same evening). Unfortunately, this was just at the time the theatre chose to burn down and the same newspaper that carried the ‘review’ headlined the story of the tragic immolation of the property. In some respects – definitely not in all, mine is a similar situation. This review is based on reports entrusted to me by nameless, shadowy spies who were present at the concert when I was not. Weatherwise, this Saturday evening was wicked. Snow had fallen much of the day; Filey Road was ungritted, traffic stuck, Queen Margaret’s Road was ungritted and the snow was starting again. Our car turned round and headed for home. Next day I had to depend upon my network of aural spies. It seems that, amongst other factors, the weather had helped reduce the forces taking part in the concert. Some choir members hadn’t made it and some players from the orchestra were missing too. Still, the performance went ahead, though played to a smaller than usual audience. Shostakovitch’s Festive Overture opened proceedings. This dashed-off piece was played with apt dash of its own, elasticity and bounce. The ‘extra brass’ coda was added by the Swinton Band. This though was a bit underwhelming. Shostakovitch liked his loud passages pretty deafening! The main item, Mendelssohn’s Symphony No.2, ‘The Hymn – or more correctly - Song – of Praise’ (Lobgesang) began with solidly intoned trombones sounding out what is a kind of motto theme for the piece. Full orchestra, large chorus and soprano and tenor soloists share the work, the text taken from Martin Luther. Throughout the choir sang full-throatedly and with confident commitment. There are some rousing tunes for them to sing and occasionally one felt a slight lack of lift and drive. The chorus The Night Is Departing was an example of this. The group’s accompaniment of the soloists was outstanding, particularly sympathetic and understanding. The second soprano soloist, Lynne Haigh, drawn from the ranks of the choir, was excellent. Frank James had clearly worked hard and his efforts were well rewarded. Wendy Goodson was on her usual clear-voiced, topping form but the late replacement tenor had some intonation difficulties. Sympathetic support from the orchestra helped solve some problems. The orchestra, especially considering the strains mentioned earlier, under which they had to play was sterling: woodwind as dependable as ever, brass, reinforced by the Swinton players in the role of organ. Trombones particularly enjoyed their important role with the big tunes and all responded well to Shaun Matthew’s reliable beat and elegant shaping of phrases. My spies all agree that this was a very genuine, convincing performance of a work dedicated to praise, joy, light and the Lord. And on a pretty joyless night, when so much seemed stacked against them , all involved gave of their best and gave this work an appropriately uplifting impression. I wish I had been there! David Smart |
|
"SYMPHONY STEALS THE SHOW" MORE RUSSIAN ROMPS
We wanted to hear the sound of the new conductor but we had to wait for it. Only with Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No.4 did we really get an idea of what may lie before us; it was then that the voice of the orchestra spoke. In the first movement Shaun Matthew was warming to his task. Individual sections of the orchestra caught attention for their rightness: some very hushed playing by violins, rich brass details in tuttis, the horns stamping out their motif, the bassoons ever reliable. Matthew shaped sound and dynamics architecturally, drove home the syncopations, and, at his most successful in this movement, put his baton down and punched out the final pages with abandon. He kept the loudest until last, leaving a tension in the air to be resolved. The second movement might have been a little more beguiling, with a little more lilt, but again individual sections and soloists gave good accounts of themselves. The oboe persuaded the ear but flutes were striking too. Matthew worked hard to delineate the orchestral contributions and there was a good rapport that brought rewards; the spell was duly woven. And, mentioning spells, the almost Mendelssohnian third movement was a total delight. Pizzicato was alert, alive, sharp, humorous even, double-basses supporting beautifully, plucking in a firm bottom line. The flute was again outstanding and helped add an outdoor and sometimes elfin feel. In the Finale there were delicious moments, the woodwind with triangle passage being memorable and the wisps of persisting melancholy were also feelingly played. But in a way, the movement belonged to the tuttis; the stick was down again, and the conductor let the forces rip. With plenty of impulse, strings and brass took the loud passages by the scruff of the neck. The motif of the first movement came back strong and rich and the closing minutes were a wild Russian romp indeed with everybody throwing everything they had into the cauldron. One cannot say this symphony is easy to understand. The discredited so-called ‘programme’ Tchaikovsky wrote is no help. It is, though full of captivating, glowing music, full of flickering, and blazing emotion and we were given more than a flavour of that. Rachmaninov’s concertos are categorically not his best works. We have had wonderful performances by the Scarborough Orchestra of his symphonies to put that beyond doubt so it would be interesting to see what kind of case Andrei Ivanovitch and the new conductor made of the Third Piano Concerto. If you like your thrills loud, fiery and clear and are not looking for too much lyricism or indeed melancholy (surely a diagnostic feature for this composer) then you would have been happy with this performance. Perhaps the first movement was best but it gradually became clear that the piano was dictating terms. This was soloist as hero stuff. Ivanovitch rarely looked to his conductor and although he left no one in any doubt that he could more than manage the taxing score of the piece, I would have liked to have been more aware of collaboration, the orchestral contribution counting too. The deeply sad opening to the second movement was so well sculpted we would have liked to hear more. It is, after all, a concerto, not a series of Preludes for solo piano. I would have liked the work to breathe more, be more rhapsodic. Qualities I found in last year’s performance of the Second Concerto I felt were missing this time. Obviously, others got a lot out of this performance which was warmly received. I was left feeling there was more to Rachmaninov, and maybe it is with him that some fault lies. We were in contact with an interesting but certainly not a great work. Glinka’s overture Ruslan and Ludmilla had opened the evening with good surge on the tempi and lively decorative detail. It was however, the Tchaikovsky that gave us the best of our new helmsman. His promise is surely great indeed. David Smart |
|
"A GRAND FINALE" MIDSUMMER REVELS
Mendelssohn’s music for A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a minor miracle of composition; he gets inside the Shakespeare uncannily well. He produced a score from the same shelf as Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker, not exactly for children, but with a fairy tale, lighter-than-reality world in mind. And from a performance a certain deftness, a supernatural feel is needed, a fantasy. The louder, big forces pieces were solid enough but the glitter of stardust was absent. In the overture, horns were stalwart and pizzicato strings were delicate. The rarely used ophicleïde under rushing violins gave a special rustic colour quality, which underlines how seriously Mendelssohn felt about the sound world he was creating here. A short reflective passage cast a little moon-glow. But it was the sensibly paced Scherzo with its taxing field-day for woodwinds that allowed a more pert range of dynamics to conjure the desired mood The two vocal contributions were associated with the best moments, female voices pointing the words trippingly over strings buzzing like bees or caressing their sensitive accompaniment. In the Nocturne horns gave a brave lead, exposed but largely in tune. Strings were warmed by perhaps the most passionate melody in the piece; well shaped, certainly, but as with many of the sections, the ending not quite hushed enough. Odd perhaps in a piece featuring so many marches, that the short, mini-Mahlerian Funeral March most impressed. Woodwind and percussion put together a sad, pathetic salute to Pyramus and Thisbe. Over all, a courageous venture into a devilishly difficult, elusive world of sprites, moonbeams and forests by starlight. Glimpses of sylphs between the tree-trunks were rare – perhaps as you might expect – but there were some. After the interval Holst’s Mr Shilkret’s Maggott begins with a wistful viola solo, soon joined by piano and later the fuller orchestra. A march breaks out, very English in character, but nothing lasts long. After a few tuba interjections the thing is over. Holst, in America at the time of its composition, called it his ‘jazz band piece’; strictly perhaps, but there is very little jazz about his writing. For that one had to wait for Shostakovitch’s Tahiti Trot, his well-known spoof on Tea for Two. The great Russian is smoochy and bluesy. His famous individualist humour is to the fore with clicks from the percussion and over-swoony langour from the strings. Trumpets with their bright, jazzy edge showed that Shostakovitch, not Holst, was the one who knew a thing or three about jazz. A great success. And things got better, if definitely different. Conductor Emerson’s final collaboration with the Scarborough Orchestra, Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier suite makes its demands. The players met them magnificently. From the climactic blood-rush of the opening, horns yelping and baying across the surge and shimmer of strings to the melt-down of love in the Presentation Scene, the imploring oboe solo, the strings somehow letting us feel the decay of a scintillating society, they gave their best. The sad glow of the woodwinds said it all and the slower than breathing speed was just right. The famous Waltz sequence is set up, the woodwinds suddenly alert now, strings portentous. Emerson managed to capture the hollowness at the heart of these dances. The warm solo violin of Anthony Mason led off one rather hesitant waltz but the full orchestra took the rhythm up and with it the death-rattle of the mechanical-sounding side-drum rolls. Music from the last scene was lovingly played, woodwind and brass tender. Strings might have throbbed with yet more emotion, but the whole built wonderfully well to the mighty climax, magisterial with drum rolls under full-on brass. In the coda pizzicato strings were the hand of time passing, so potent a theme here. The main waltz returns; there are orchestral screams from all sections and the dance becomes a burlesque. In the frantic final pages the rattle joins in to grate against the sweep of the waltz that, having gone on for so long, must, at last, come to an end. The work closes like the crashing fall of a great chandelier in thousands of glittering pieces. Brilliant. CODA For me, Richard Strauss was just the right composer for Geoffrey Emerson to bow out with. Some years ago now he included a few Strauss songs in a concert. I was impressed enough to ask Geoffrey if he would appreciate a review of his concert for the local press. His enthusiasm started me off and I’m still with the pleasurable task today, though the local press is not. And no reviewer could ask for more. Geoffrey’s programming has been enterprising, not to say amazing. His performances have built up not only the orchestra but also the audience. He has brought in celebrity soloists as well as local excellence. His ear for orchestral colour and, - though much denied – his understanding of the character and psychology behind the music have been real strengths. He has been impressive with Russian music: not just Rachmaninov. I remember fine Prokofiev and the recent superb Shostakovitch First ‘Cello Concerto. He gave us, with Frank James, an excellent Ireland Piano Concerto and some cleverly-turned Mahler. He has a good ear for musical humour as many of his ‘vignette’ pieces proved. He is perhaps happiest standing in the middle of a final tutti, everything on the boil, in particular, his beloved brass. He has made a perhaps under-valued but definitely major contribution to music and the arts in Scarborough and more widely to the town’s culture. We will be much the poorer without him. He will be an enhancement, a welcome addition to the more vibrant arts scene in Scotland. David Smart |
|
"THEM OUTSIDE AND HIM INDOORS" MORE EMOTIONAL EXTREMES
Of the three pieces one was very much ‘in camera’ and the other two were about ‘getting out more’. Rimsky’s skittering strings and blocks of brass were memorable in a fresh-sounding May Night overture and some fine, strong percussion finished the work off nicely. In Dvorak’s Symphony No. 5 that we were still outdoors and in open spaces of fields and trees was immediately apparent. This was Green Man territory. There was the essential relaxed feel that is such a quality of the composer’s music, the freedom of movement and good, open humour. Throughout, themes uncurled like spring leaves. High spirits alternated with bird-song and perky fanfares with occasional pauses for breath after exertion. Themes had a fine lilt as in the second movement and the contrast between quicker sections with their sharp, hard accents and the quieter pulsed passages were well made. Swirl and skirl epitomised the scherzo with its obligato triangle and deft detail from drums. Horns and woodwind were commendable throughout. The final movement soon became wild and uninhibited. Trumpets and trombones added stabs of colour as Emerson whipped the entire orchestra into bold, explosive form to romp the piece home to its crashing furore of a finish. Shostakovitch did not live in a field; he lived in a small Moscow flat to which a regular visitor was the ‘cellist, Mstislav Rostropvitch. The composer, very much a marked man in Soviet days, lived his life within his head. He was a man of passionate seriousness, a sort of musical Shakespeare and in his First Cello Concerto he gives us a drama, a tragedy, an extended soliloquy in which the soloist could well be Hamlet. The work is a tour of a human mind, in this case one living under a repressive regime, attempting to be honest with itself, playing a life and death game. The first movement begins in unease with sharp, thorny, broken-glass accompaniment to the almost continuous flow of the cello. Woodwinds yelp, the horn answers the main theme of the soloist. Jamie Walton and Emerson took this Allegretto very briskly indeed. The shortish movement was driven, mechanistic with the gorgeous tone of the cello always promising a way out of the mayhem created around it. The second movement takes us to the centre of Shostakovitch’s earth. A beautiful horn solo over sensitive strings set up a serious, considered stage for the soloist to enter. His marvellous tune begs and pleads for respite, an alternative vision from that of the first movement. The mood was of deep regret as dark lower strings gathered. The soloist produced a strong, aspiring, pondering tone yet one that could be passionate as the moment took him. Walton produced a truly human sense of surge and retract and the feather-delicacy in the harmonics of the highest strings was tragic and fragile. This movement had the audience on their seat edges, wrapt, involved and, as the thunder rumbled from percussion to end it there was so much more to come. The third movement is a cadenza. Our soloist took it freely, intensely, themes emerging as thoughts might, some to pass, some to stay and develop. These were based on ones taken from previous movements and revisiting them became a matter of great emotion and struggle. Strong pizzicati signalled a growing certainty in the engagement and the last movement was entered with a will. This was very fast, driven by percussion and leaping echoes of foregoing themes. Again woodwind screamed and shouted, derided even, but our final glimpse of our soloist at the end of his centre-stage performance had at least the stuff of tragic hero about it. We had heard a fine, committed interpretation of one of the great pieces of the twentieth century. Its pitting of man against history hit the audience hard. As the bow left the strings for the last time there were split seconds of hiatus, silence before the cheers, bravos, the applause began. Soloist and conductor had been outstanding in their endorsement of the genius of Shostakovitch. It seems even more deeply a reason for sadness that this excellent evening of music-making should have opened with the conductor’s announcement that he was soon to leave the Scarborough Orchestra and, indeed, the country! David Smart |
|
"CESAR IN GALLIC TRIUMPH" The Scarborough Orchestra : Saturday, April 16th, 2005 ‘Gallia est omnis divisa in partes quattuor’ to amend what a certain Roman general wrote, and so was our Gallic ‘French Connections’ concert. Berlioz set the scene with his Royal Hunt and Storm from The Trojans. A very brave stroke of programming, for this piece is tense, on the edge, bristling with sensitivity to mood and setting. The opening should have been more whispered – the woodwind birds hardly had clear air in which to sing - but the hugely evocative horn solo was beautifully taken, full of romantic anticipation and fervour and really setting the scene. Trombones and tuba responded lushly and the tuttis were well driven home, if a little raw. This rawness suited the pounding storm, horns and brass echoing through the swirl of the strings, lower strings especially moody and strong. The throes subsided to quietude and pastoralism, the haunting horn-calls hanging in the air like mist between pine trees. Schmidt’s Intermezzo is from his opera Notre Dame and is undoubtedly orgasmic, its excitement mounting on the strings, supported by intoning brass and woodwind and capped by the smash of cymbals. Conductor Emerson rightly thinks much of this composer and it showed. That you can almost never have too much luscious richness is inevitable but the string players, who carry the burden here, gave their best and we got more than a glimpse of the power of this fine, if short, piece. Faure’s Dolly suite constitutes a complete change of tack: back to childhood, the miniature, the almost affectedly delicate and innocent. The first of the six little movements featured mellifluous woodwind and the second (Mi-a-ou) warm purring horns. Lots of delicate detail from woodwind, horns and strings caught the ear in the third movement and in the Kitty Valse the middle section was jewelled. The fifth part passed between impassioned string playing and clear, perky woodwind, leaving trombones to add the last full stop. The finale is Spanish, but à la francaise; it was energetic, snappy, stamping with percussive effects from triangle and tambourine. Bassoons were pertly prominent in the final bars. Never easy to bring off, these cameos elicited a sensitive approach from all players. César Franck’s single symphony was a serious, directed venture from the start. We had a reading on our hands, not a play-through. Agitated strings flickered against brooding brass; crescendos and forte chords were bright and hard. There were good, dark details and punchy brass contrasted with expansive, always nervous strings. Woodwind were sympathetic and shapely in phrasing, and together with big, solid brass, offered some sort of harbour before the collapse into nervy unease again. The final pages of the movement shone with stunning, blazing force. There was tension here for the rest of the symphony to resolve. The firm pizzicato opening of the middle movement can make life hard for the harpist but ours came clearly through helping set the stage for the cor anglais solo. Perhaps intentionally this lacked the coy warmth that some performers try for. Strings gestured gently and we were into an almost Mendelssohnian scherzo: scampering strings, short wood-wind interjections. Tuttis were cleverly restrained to allow maximum contrast with the foregoing (and indeed, upcoming) movement. The fast sideways sliding theme punctuated by brass announced that we are back in the world of the opening movement. The restlessness and agitation are transformed into more coherent themes with cor anglais again on the scene. Hints of a big climactic theme came thrilling through, woodwind holding their own against the rest. This grand, four-square, so-called ‘Faith’ theme seems to offer a way out of the nervous urgency of the first movement. Amongst all the noisy excitement it was good to hear the continuing presence of the harp. The symphony’s end is uplifting and confident. The sideways theme sounded happy and flambuoyant, and trumpets and brass gleamed through. This was such a committed, dedicated performance I found myself saddened that Franck had only written one symphony. This Belgian Bruckner – there are frequent reminders of the Austrian throughout- really ended the evening with satisfying polish and style. David Smart |
|
"WEIRD BUT NOT A LITTLE WONDERFUL" BUT NOT AS WE KNOW IT
The orchestra loosened up with Beethoven’s Prometheus overture, strings sprinting, brass punctuating. The off-beat accents so typical of the piece were well caught. After the over-loud opening, balance came more under control and gave us a thrilling lead into the real curio that was Item Two. A true Emerson choice, this. Some time in 1807 Beethoven was persuaded to transcribe the solo part of his violin concerto, then definitely under-performed, for pianist and orchestra in the hope of its generating more programming – and money – in its new format. There are, of course, fundamental differences between the violin and the piano but perhaps the most important one is that the former can sustain notes very much longer. This has consequences for the tempi chosen. It is almost comic at first to hear the piano assuming the (now) very familiar violin part – a kind of Hoffnung pastiche, but the quite brisk pace chosen by Emerson created its own integrity as it proceeded. The four-note rhythm drove it on and the pianist had to work hard at this speed in some of the more florid passages. Tuttis were thrilling but undercurrents were not lost. The sympathetic playing of Frank James in the expansive passages stirred memories of the ‘Emperor’ piano concerto (as yet unwritten). A very long cadenza of swirling scale passages led to the enigmatic section shared with the timpani, an almost humorous touch by Beethoven with the four note motto exchanged between them. The second movement of the violin concerto has been described as ‘static’ and ‘dreamlike’ and as terms indicating beauty they are valid for this treatment but this tempo moved at a true larghetto best suited to the change of instruments. The opening was finely played by strings, horns and woodwinds. The piano could not quite sing against this backcloth (this piano certainly could not!) but Frank James, a true Mozartian, coaxed its dubious tones into real beauty for the gently rocking section at the heart of the movement, the soloist really in his favoured element. The pizzicato episode with piano was charmingly achieved. Another wittily-done cadenza led to the Rondo Finale. In fact, wit and rollicking fun were its qualities. Bassoons aided and abetted the humour. The prominent return of timpani signalled that the end was approaching but there was still one last cadenza, full of sound and fury (easy!). Light-hearted interchanges between soloist and orchestra followed with fanfare-like flourishes through to the final punch-line bars. This performance of a musical freak was rightly well-received: a far more than merely creditable achievement. But does the work deserve an independent life of its own in the concert hall now that the violin concerto is unassailably established? It seems a matter for doubt, and that may account for its almost total neglect. But occasional performances are surely justified; it is an interesting survival throwing light on the violin concerto and the piano concertos as well as Beethoven’s circumstances in early nineteenth century Vienna. If it is to be played it must be as persuasively as here. Geoffrey Emerson’s cabinet of curios yielded a remarkable survival and we were lucky to have a chance to examine it. The concert continued with Dvorák. To smoothly shape his rapidly changing dynamics can be no easy task. He moves speedily from quiet passages to firing on all cylinders, brass at full tilt. Despite having their seating raised in this performance of the Symphony in D minor, woodwind could be virtually obliterated in tuttis. With less competition flutes and the others, so important to this bucolic composer, could be delightful in the ‘natural world’ qualities they brought. The final extended tuttis of the first movement were improving and orchestral sections were better matched even with the trombones pushing through. The close of the movement, when all drops back to quiet, could have been more rapt. The second movement featured fine soulful string playing and some delicate amalgamation and separation from horns and woodwind. There was always room for strings to sing out more but the restful end to this section was more successful than that to the first. The Scherzo, despite its complexities, demonstrated greatest orchestral clarity. With its strong rhythmic fire this was totally irresistible. Lots of energetic drama was thrown at the Finale. Despite its lack of really insinuating tunes it was forced forward with lots of bounds and leaps. When the climactic surges fell back woodwind added several atmospheric touches. The stamping conclusion was given full rein, gathering momentum and volume as it built to its towering last bars. Cheers greeted the performance and it was certainly a more than business-like statement of the symphony. There is more Dvorák to come this season and one looks forward with interest. David Smart |
|
"LE MAHLERIAN MALGRE LUI" BACKWARDS OR SIDEWAYS?
Geoffrey Emerson has told us all many times that he does not greatly admire the symphonies of Gustav Mahler. He has implied that the man had a torrid imagination and a less than stable mental state. Still, he was prepared to conduct his Fourth for which he softened us up by telling us in programme notes that this is his most cheerful symphony. But, truth to tell, Christmas coming or not, there was little cheer about in the performance he and the band gave us. From the outset this was a reading full of tension, restless and unsettling. He went straight to the centre of Mahler’s troubled, philosophical soul. The first movement was played more briskly than is often the case and it was none the worse for that. The movement belongs to the woodwinds and they were fine in establishing, with strings, the child-like, clear-eyed innocence Mahler sets up. But there were always sinister hints. The clarinet, bassoon and double basses and, later, strident interrupting trumpets, blew away the sugar dusting and the childlike vision was found to be played out against a grimmer reality. Horns threaded amongst the chameleon moods created. There was delicacy, warmth, but never without a threatening brutality. The scherzo second movement was played with eerie, tip-toe fragility: the solo violin (leader Anthony Mason) well accented the 3/4 rhythms. Timpani added their own well-judged accents to the subtle fabric of nervous, knife-edged sound. The third movement, marked ‘full of quiet ...’ is the heart-land of the piece and far from peaceful; it is also the longest section, possibly the most disturbing. It began meltingly with a theme for cellos and basses over which a shapely oboe theme crept. Perhaps this is the moment to mention that Guy Johnston, soloist from the first half of the concert, to his eternal credit, joined the ranks of orchestral cellos for the symphony. As the other strings joined in to give strength and darkness, the oboe – for which Mahler writes superbly here – remains poignantly prominent. There was plangent solo violin work, some ribaldry from the clarinets, the other spot-lit woodwind in this symphony. In those bars when the orchestra was at its most relaxed we did not trust the mood; subversion is imminent. And for the great fortissimo that exposes the hinted blackness, the orchestra was superb, brass and timpani explosive. At the other extreme, the plaintive pluck of the harp characterised the dying away of this remarkable movement. The brief last section in which the orchestra accompanies a soprano soloist singing a child’s view of paradise continues to be undercut by subversive comments. It is ominous that the clarinet starts things off but it is a while before the interruptive comments of squealing flutes, low horns and waspish muted trombones and friends trouble the comfortable, blind confidence that Wendy Goodson so well captured. Towards the end did a note of pleading enter her voice? The final word belonged to the harp: a gentle persisting heartbeat, a last reminder that this symphony is about the full experience of living life, that happiness, innocence are precious commodities and not to last forever. Shortly after completing the Fourth Mahler wrote Kindertotenlieder – Songs about the Death of Children – after death had indeed struck his own young family. This performance was, quite simply, one of the very finest this excellent orchestra has given. Individual contributions were outstanding, each section giving of its best. Emerson not a Mahler man - don’t believe a word of it! This was just about the most understanding interpretation of the piece I have heard. Only the dead acoustics of the hall impaired things. The strings, especially, would have benefited from the lift and lushness a more sympathetic acoustic would have given: the contrast between happy, hopeful expectation and darker forces would have been made still more forcibly. Earlier a robust reading of Beethoven’s under-performed King Stephen overture had begun the evening with brass – on whom much in this work depends – on decent form. Tchaikowsky’s Variations on a Rococo Theme with Guy Johnston as an outstanding soloist was played with a fluid, honey-coloured tone. From the merry to the pensively sad, the emotions were there. The orchestral accompaniment never threatened to overpower and woodwind were especially delicate. The mood of melancholy never entirely lifts and it haunted Johnston’s fine improvisatory, first-time-out playing. He could caress a theme or, in the lower registers, bully it. Flutes kept him good company in the energetic coda. Flash bulbs greeted his performance – one worth remembering – but they shone again later, for the Mahler too. David Smart |
|
"RADIANT BRIDE, GLOWING BRIDESMAID" RUSSIAN ROMPS
Like aspiring actors with children and animals someone should have told young Kalinnikov not to appear on the same concert programme as Rachmaninov’s Second Piano Concerto. International soloist with a Russian connection, Steinway specially imported for the event, encores at the ready, Andrei Ivanovitch’s contribution to the evening was unlikely to be overlooked. This orchestra plays Rachmaninov well; it is only a few months ago that we heard a really outstanding Third Symphony. They play him with enthusiasm and lyricism but do not indulge his Russian leaning towards the sentimental and lugubrious. The piano concerto was played with similar virtues to the fore. Rachmaninov is a climactic composer building, as in the first movement, from an almost stately opening tempo to towering tuttis. This scaling up gave us a chance to sample the rich string tone as well as the soloist’s less flamboyant abilities before the tremendous pounding climax in which all concerned gave everything they had. Part of the success was due to the conductor’s restraint in constructing the climaxes; wave after released wave of sound more exciting than the previous. The soloist needed, and had, wide dynamic range combined with crisp finger work, the big tunes articulated with shape and good propulsion. We were ready for the second movement. Although the three movements are of roughly equal length this seems the longest. Though there are bursts of bravura the lasting impression was of a soloist listening to his accompaniment; solos from flute, clarinet, oboe and others were not over-played but ornamented sympathetically. Above the shimmer of strings Ivanovitch was quiet and unshowy, logical, a collaborator not a separate voice. In the last movement the obvious pianistic fireworks were not allowed to overshadow the spritely interchanges between soloist and orchestra which rose and fell in intensity with the expanding contours of the piece. There was a marvellous moment for violas amongst all the helter-skelter but generally strings sang deliciously throughout. There was a brief sadness-tinged section for soloist and orchestra before the headlong tumble into the explosive final pages. With brass and timpani making a strong contribution the entire company wrung out the very last possible drops of excitement. Soloist, conductor and all sections of the orchestra had committed themselves with intelligence, energy and eloquence. I suspect these are amongst the very qualities such music most requires. The melodies of Rachmaninov’s Second Piano Concerto with the assistance of advertising and the silver screen have become part of many a subconscious but Kalinnikov’s First Symphony that was to follow it contains a dominant melody that is their equal – at least. The cyclic work moves largely between rhetorical, chromatic gestures and extreme lyricism. It begins with the former but it is the first movement’s second subject that sets the work alight. This tune epitomises youth, confidence, a love of the landscape of life and the strings soared into it. The fine, fugal writing of later pages was played at a fine lick with the help of incisive brass until the theme was back again this time with harp accompaniment. Woodwind were excellent in the second movement; flute arabesques, slightly acerbic oboes and cor anglais amongst others set off the cantabile strings. The Scherzo is a jollied affair with a Trio straight out of the Arabian Nights or the Polovtsian Dances. Woodwind was again dominant in creating atmosphere. The Finale brings back themes from earlier, amongst them the beauty from the first movement. Phrases skipped around the orchestra and there were touches of humour. The conclusion was a mad whirl under bellowing brass, the triangle ringing throughout like an urgent telephone. A great performance by Geoffrey Emerson and his merry men! A little known piece by a man who died young, it deserved a hearing. And that second theme may well prove, for me at least, indelible. As a paradoxical footnote almost, the concert opened with Rimsky-Korsakov’s Maid of Pskov overture. It was well enough played and conjured an eerie, suspenseful atmosphere. Splendid drumming, warm strings and secure winds contributed. The piece proved a more than adequate appetizer for the feast that was to follow. David Smart |
|
"LIFE IN THE OLD DOGS YET" EXOTIC GEMS
Our concert began with Wolf-Ferrari’s overture to Susanna’s Secret: its frothy, throw-away, good humour proved rather elusive though. Bassoons chortled, woodwind and brass interjected pertly and strings manfully maintained a fair pace but the final carefree wit that enervates the piece was kept as secret and under wraps as Susanna’s passion for fags was from her husband. Was I the only person disappointed on hearing that unavoidably Bruch’s First Violin Concerto was to replace Dohnanyi’s? The chance to explore a work all but new to me was lost. But, against the odds perhaps, soloist Martin Hughes and conductor Emerson managed a performance of character and no mere cipher. For all that it did not over-indulge the material this was an expansive interpretation of a more than familiar work. From the beginning the soloist’s tone was rich, eloquent, mellow. He soared over the orchestra’s throbbing accompaniment and together they built up a considerable head of steam. Then, as quiet fell, what the Bruch fan has been waiting for occurs, the inward, romantic, slow themes are unfurled. They were played with some objectivity and never ‘milked’. The orchestra shaded but never swooned and the horn contributions were particularly beautifully made. The Finale, Allegro energico, is arguably the best of the three. It was given a lively, dark treatment, soloist and orchestra always alert to dynamics. A heroic struggle developed, the orchestra making the most of its tuttis and the soloist not sweet but virile and fully engaged with his accompaniment; very satisfying. In all, a good experience – a potentially tired classic given a shake-up. A final point needs to be made about the elegance of the soloist. While he played, his whole body language was choreographic. The great slow arc he made in the air as he took away the bow from the violin was geometrically perfect. Good to hear him, rewarding too, to see. After the interval the second programme change looked even more worrying. Sibelius’s Third Symphony had given way to Mendelssohn’s, Finnish forests to Scottish glens, raw sound to smooth romanticism. But the orchestra made a good attempt to breathe something more into this as they had just done with the Bruch. (Incidentally, the soloist was now a guest member of the first violin section.) Conductor Emerson gave the first movement dynamism, drama and colour and his driving tempo made it rollick along. He created a shadowy, thrilling quality always enhanced by the (specially thickened) brass and timpani flourishes. Not far from the end of the movement ‘cellos had a memorable tender passage contributing much to a reading of structure and stature. The Scherzo with its twisty themes was lively but rather over-loud too often to allow sharp contrast with the preceding movement. The slow movement also was marred by over-loud moments but was played almost seamlessly with flow and lightness. It never wallowed, always went forward. Brass and timpani were again formidable, yet passages of misty wistfulness made their mark too. The Finale, played as Mendelssohn requested, and as the other movements had been, immediately after its predecessor, was energetic, rousing and full of nervous fire. Timpani and brass added sharp detail but the effect was a joint effort. The mysterious, collected calm before the closing pages was an effective counter-balance to the coda in which horns (à la Beethoven’s Seventh) rang out powerfully. A distinctive reading to close an evening that could so easily have been predictable. But then, this orchestra and conductor are never that. I should have known by now! David Smart |
|
"CONCERT ASKS, MUST MUSIC BE MODERN?" REAL SOUL MUSIC
It took quite some time for the magic carpet of melody that is Borodin’s Prince Igor overture to unroll fully. Despite the opening work’s fine beginning with creamy, heavy, Russian richness from the strings it took a while before the listener could relax his ear once more. But the piece ended bullishly; strings were supported by fine tuba work and we anticipated keenly the piano concerto to follow. For many this work proved an unspoilt pleasure. Even at the end of the concert many would have voted it their favourite piece of the evening. And you could hear why. The soloist is active and extended throughout, but despite the E flat major key (as for Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto) the work has no bravura heroics and is more often ruminatory, emotions rising and falling on a gentle swell. There was good interchange between soloist Frank James and a sympathetic orchestra each, as it were, picking up hints from the other. The first movement then, was very satisfying. The second found a romantic pulse in the long solo piano passage near the start. There was a delectable section when the solo piano was accompanied by flute. But the mood of the final movement is prefigured by the arrival on the scene of whirling strings and percussion – wood-block prominent. Tension comes simultaneously with good humour as a trotting rhythm sets in. Interchanging moods of lyricism and fast-fingered toccata carry the piece to its end. A friend sitting beside me exclaimed as the last chords came down, ‘Well worth the money for that alone!’ Neglected masterpiece? Perhaps not, but well deserving its place as a beacon for John Ireland. Written in 1930 his concerto has a modern feel about it, but set against contemporaries such as Walton, its modernism is mild enough. So what are we to make of Rachmaninov’s Third Symphony which ended our concert? First performed six years later than the Ireland its musical language is light years from Walton, Stravinsky and Shostakovitch. Rachmaninov draws his sonorities from the Russian Symphonic Sound laid down in the nineteenth century and, instead of subjecting it to a fearless imagination and rhythmic daring, he works with it, adds extra quantities and stirs slowly. But he does produce music worth hearing, even a feast for the ears. The Third is a long work for a large orchestra, making demands on everyone involved. (Frank James, having just finished with the changing rhythms of Ireland was now seated at a rather lack-lustre celeste.) Conductor Geoffrey Emerson said afterwards that the symphony presented the hardest challenge the orchestra has yet faced. Let it be said from the start that it gave a fine performance. The three movements all had their purple passages; from its first appearance the sumptuous, soaring and flowing second theme played by warm strings and topped out by high brass was a delight first to anticipate and then to enjoy. The second movement’s charms are there from the outset where horn is accompanied by harp and where solo violin is featured. This Adagio seems to me to lack a firm melodic line (Geoffrey Emerson disagrees!) but the musicians were wonderfully alert to details and held our attention throughout. The Scherzo middle section was given full percussive vigour, with stinging ‘bumble bee’ effects from violas and some impressionistic contributions from woodwinds. Conductor Emerson drove hard into the beginning of the third movement and horns answered other brass thrillingly across the staccato orchestra. Everything recalls a great Russian bell with the deep clang of its tolling harmonics. The orchestra paced its closing pages well giving us a tremendous, rousing end. The cries of ‘Bravo!’ were not misplaced. There may have been something uneasy about the world of such a symphony composed in the spirit of the past century in a Twentieth Century already moving towards war. But this was a performance to convince us otherwise. In a wonderful phrase Richard Capell has described the piece as ‘a palace without royalty’: very perceptive indeed. A truly memorable and thought-provoking concert. I am quite sure the gentleman who came up from London to hear the Rachmaninov returned home very pleased indeed that he had made the trip. David Smart |
|
"CURATE’S EGG HATCHES INTO BLAZE AND BRAVURA" EMOTIONAL EXTREMES
We began with Vaughan Williams’s Symphony No 2, the ‘Pastoral’, Constant Lambert’s ‘cow looking over a hedge’. How could he be so insensitive? This is a work of sustained melancholy, inventive in its expression, that signals the final throes of the rural dominance of the British, (more specifically English) economy as surely as do the works of Thomas Hardy. It is, to me, a symphony of withdrawal, walking away from the fields and the woods. a setting off for the urban way (with many backwards glances) towards mechanised production and perhaps dehumanisation. It is the view of a man who has experienced and survived World War One. The orchestra gave us some insecurities, some muffed solos, some ragged ensemble, but as is so often the case with this band and this conductor, there were many numinous passages too. Violas contribute much, with ‘cellos, to the character of this piece, and they were fine. Winds passed fragments of tunes, like foreshortened bird songs, between them, oboes being particularly eloquent. In the second movement the regretful tone evoked the kind of suppressed, soft-voiced desolation that ends the sixth symphony, itself, arguably, a reflection on the Second World War. There was some threatful deep brass in the third movement and in the last the ‘invisible‘, clear-voiced soprano soloist, Catherine Fox, was precise rather than floating with her wordless line. Conductor Emerson urged warmth into his strings and a kind of nobility flickered but the orchestra had the mood of tearfulness well; on the one hand the tuttis were heart-wrenching, on the other, over hushed strings, the soprano’s final phrases were an anticipation of the wordless chorus in the Sinfonia Antarctica, a fading wisp of humanity before the icy storms cover the earth. In all, Vaughan Williams’s themes remind one of Wilfred Owen’s assonance rhymes; they are muted, blurred, unsharp, ultimately uneasy. After the interval the mood change cannot have been more total. For sodden, war-haunted fields and melancholy read heat, Spain and exuberance – Rimsky-Korsakov’s Capriccio Espagnol. From flamboyant tuttis to growling brass and basses, from the panache of solo arabesques from, amongst others, the leader and the harpist, the old war-horse high-stepped to a tub-thumping crescendo underpinned by crackling brass. Catherine Fox’s cool, fine-edged singing of Mozart’s short concert aria Vado, ma dove proved a cool oasis before the onslaught of the final items. For Mars and Jupiter from Holst’s The Planets suite the Scarborough Orchestra was joined by members of the Kirkbymoorside Town Brass Band. Their combined attack, particularly in the brass and percussion departments quite literally made the hall floor shake. For the Bringer of War the music snarled and jeered as it launched into the barbarous march parody; a stunning endeavour which produced its own round of applause. Jupiter was truly jolly; even the big tune so frequently glossed and ‘elevated’ was given its folksy syncopation: all was rowdy, merry, break-neck, elephantine, a whooping big-top of colours and tunes. The perfect end, some might say, to a night at the concert! David Smart |
|
"SOPHISTICATED DOHNANYI PLAYS BREATHLESS BEETHOVEN" FAMILIAR AND UNFAMILIAR
There was a sporting quality to this Scarborough Orchestra concert. Mozart’s overture could be construed as a sprint, Dohnányi’s rarely heard suite as a fencing match and Beethoven’s Third as a steeplechase. Don Giovanni’s ugly fate made a sonorous mark on the overture, as it should, and between the sobriety his reckless philandering was conveyed by a rhythmic vitality. At times playing lacked dynamic interest and string scamper was obvious but the orchestra brought plenty of character to one of Mozart’s most psychologically interesting creations. Dohnányi’s Ruralia Hungarica was composed in a very well-brought up manner r |