Midlands Classical Music Making

  Norman Stinchcombe reviews the latest classical CD releases Sibelius: Sibelius: Ehnes, Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra / Gardner (Chandos CD & SACD) ★★★★★ The Canadian violinist James Ehnes is a throwback to the golden era of fiddlers of the fifties. No showmanship, nor the eccentricity of cult favourite Patricia Kopatchinskaja, his demeanour on the platform is patrician like Nathan Milstein. He heads straight to the essence of the Sibelius concerto, its combination of icy beauty and volatility. Many recordings emphasise one aspect at the expense of the other – Ehnes gives due weight to both. He’s aided by the ever-alert conductor Edward Gardner and phenomenal sound from the Chandos engineers which is full of detail. Ehnes illuminates Sibelius’s miniatures perceptively – the Two Serenades, Op. 69; Two Pieces, Op. 77; Two Humoresques, Op. 87; and Four Humoresques, Op. 89 are polished and glittering. Sibelius’s last completed orchestral work, the Suite Op 117, is short, powerful and

  FROM TOKYO WITH LOVE Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra of Tokyo at Symphony Hall ★★★★ In the autumn of 1993 this orchestra played Rachmaninov’s Symphony No 2 here. Thirty one years later they did so again, a performance combining passion, melting tenderness and scintillating energy. Their principal conductor Sebastian Weigle had filled the platform with players, a huge string section, five horns, eight basses and percussion so when Rachmaninov demanded power and weight there was plenty on tap and his trademark emphatic ending carried a tremendous wallop. There was delicacy too in the cor anglais’ plaintive solo which leads into the main body of the first movement and the orchestra’s first clarinet played with fluency and notable beauty in the Adagio, that epitome of swooning romanticism. Weigle is a conductor in the German kapellmeister tradition, a minimum of fuss and bother with a maximum of control. This is needed in the symphony’s first movement where a lot of exposition and grou

  ELGAR VIOLIN CONCERTO Vilde Frang, Deutscher Symphonie Orchester Berlin/Robin Ticciati (Warner Classics 5021732409423) This is such an exciting recording for so many reasons, not only because of the quality of delivery from the performers, but also because it restores this masterpiece to the status it so richly deserves. The Elgar Violin Concerto has almost become a staple of the repertoire, run-through dutifully in shrewdly-programmed concerts, but here we are reminded of its immense status, speaking on its own terms as a searing inner statement of the composer at his most vulnerable. We are reminded that Fritz Kreisler, coming onstage to give its premiere, appeared white as a sheet. He had to come down to earth in the second half by sitting at the back of the first violins, sight-reading through Elgar’s First Symphony (was he aware the first movement approached its end with a tentative reminder of the opening theme coming from the back desk of the Firsts?). What are we to mak

                European Union Chamber Orchestra                                            Malvern College ****                      Thirty-five years after founding the Autumn in Malvern Festival, Peter Smith is finally retiring as Artistic Director. He has brought so many illustrious performers, composers, lecturers to the town, as well as promoting visual arts exhibitions, and though the running of the festival is now in the safe hands of Malvern Theatres, Peter’s devoted input will prove a difficult act to follow. Over recent years the European Union Chamber Orchestra have been popular visitors, and here they were the performers in Peter’s last orchestral programme. These twelve string-players play standing up (cellos necessarily excepted), directed with perhaps undue distracting body-language by concertmaster Hans-Peter Hoffman, and they have an energetic bowing style and subtle empathy among each other. The programme began brilliantly, with yet another of Peter’s rewar

  SIR MARK ELDER’S TRIUMPHANT CBSO RETURN CBSO at Symphony Hall ★★★★★ The star attraction was Sir Stephen Hough as soloist in Brahms’ first piano concerto but the evening belonged to another musical knight. Sir Mark Elder joked that he’s had a strange experience at Euston station when remembering that, for the first time in 25 years, he would be getting off at Birmingham rather than Manchester. That’s how long since Elder had conducted the CBSO when he was its principal guest conductor. He left to become the Hall é  Orchestra’s music director overseeing their move to Bridgewater Hall and rejuvenating them in the way Simon Rattle did with the CBSO. At 77 Sir Mark is now the elder statesman (pun intended) of British music and was given a hugely warm and enthusiastic welcome back by both players and audience. Age may have stiffened the joints but his qualities of drive, precision, clarity and a refreshing absence of look-at-me platform antics were all evident. He made his presence felt be

                                             EX CATHEDRA                                                           Birmingham Town Hall *****   In this year of anniversaries of composers particularly close to my heart Ex Cathedra could certainly celebrate Puccini (the early Messa di Gloria) and Schoenberg, with his large corpus of choral works, but of course Bruckner is the obvious happy hunting-ground with his Masses and Motets. Jeffrey Skidmore assembled a wonderful programme of works which all led unerringly to the great Mass in E minor, for which his chamber choir was joined by expert wind and brass players of the CBSO. This was a distinguished event on a chilly Sunday afternoon, gratifyingly well-attended, and recorded by the BBC for future broadcast on Radio 3 (October 22, 7.30pm). Each half of the programme began with an organ improvisation by Rupert Jeffcoat, recreating Bruckner’s own skills as an organist (a little-known fact is that there had been a scheme to bring

                               SCHWANENGESANG                 Roderick Williams at Town Hall, Stratford-upon-Avon ***** A celebration involving depressing songs by a composer knowing he was dying of syphilis at a tragically early age might seem somewhat incongruous, but it certainly worked here. The occasion was the 60 th anniversary concert of Stratford-upon-Avon Chamber Music Society, genially introduced by chairman Tim Raistrick, and featuring the world-renowned baritone Roderick Williams in Schubert’s Schwanensang, triumphant examples of the composer’s song-writing prowess after 600-odd under his belt. Together with his empathetic accompanist Natalie Burcher, Williams took us on a journey through these settings of tortured texts by two of the earliest German poets of the Romantic movement, Rellstab and Heine. Initially there seemed problems of balance between voice and piano, but the ear adjusted in plenty of time to savour Williams’ silkiness of phrasing, clarity of artic

  FIERY LEILA IGNITES AD È S’ CONCERTO CBSO at Symphony Hall ★★★★ Thomas Adès Violin Concerto ‘Concentric Paths’ is an adversarial work despite its title hinting at planetary trajectories and celestial harmonies. At times the soloist faces a barrage of musical missiles with only a fiddle to fend them off. When Leila Josefowicz entered it was clear that this would be a genuine contest. Looking like the titular figure from Prokofiev’s opera ‘The Fiery Angel’ sheathed in a spectacular scarlet gown, half sparkling sequins half flouncing tulle, she shimmered and coruscated like a slim living flame. Adès packs a huge amount into the concerto’s concentrated three-movement twenty-minute span. It begins with the musical equivalent of a collective orchestral throat clearing. Like pugilists, the violinist and orchestra circle warily around each other, the brass and wind delivering jabs and punches, the soloist fending them off with furious, frenzied, unrelenting bowing. The second, and longest, m

  IL TRITTICO                           Welsh National Opera at Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff *****   Two days, two shows, same company, but what a gulf of difference in impact! Unlike Verdi’s tub-thumping Rigoletto, easily run through, Puccini’s Il Trittico is an absolute masterpiece, little-known in its entirety because of the obvious difficulties of staging three very different operas during the course of a single evening. And that is actually one of its strengths: taken in as a whole, the structure is nothing less than an operatic symphony, Il Tabarro brooding and weighty as an opening movement, Suor Angelica reflective and soul-searching as a slow movement, and Gianni Schicchi an exuberant scherzo-finale. In the hands of such a sympathetic conductor as Alexander Joel this overview really works, and this joint staging by Scottish Opera and WNO packs a huge punch under the astute direction of David McVicar. The superb designs – Charles Edwards’ intricate sets so telling

                                             RIGOLETTO                              Welsh National Opera at Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff ** Verdi’s Rigoletto certainly has its faults (more of that later), but it certainly doesn’t deserve this shambolic new production from one of the world’s great opera companies. Director Adele Thomas seems to have conceived the tragedy as a vehicle for a surreal send-up of the genre itself. We begin with the nowadays obligatory pre-music curtain-raiser, an adolescent orgy featuring prizefighters knocking each other senseless, an amused crowd of nobles spectating from an upper gallery, and a flock of hoorays of indeterminate gender bringing their nocturnal emissions to life. Amidst all this farrago important detail goes for nothing: the affair between the Duke of Mantua and Countess Ceprano, and far more importantly, the curse inflicted upon Rigoletto by Monterone (Paul Carey Jones, one of a small handful of voices deserving of commendation

  CBSO’s new season – fresh start CBSO at Symphony Hall ★★★★ Normal service has been resumed – after the most traumatic season for the CBSO since the orchestra almost went bankrupt just over twenty years ago. Birmingham City Council funding will be axed after a century of civic support. Then new CEO Emma Stenning’s infamous “Vision Statement” – a gospel for the trendy Holy Trinity of Accessibility, Relevance and Inclusiveness – urged audiences to get out the mobile phone, film the musicians, take selfies and bring in some drinks. In December Strauss and Beethoven were swamped by a vastly expensive, noisy, distracting and utterly irrelevant, light show. In April, tenor Ian Bostridge halted his performance of Britten’s ‘Les Illuminations’ until dimwits in the audience stopped distracting him with their mobile phones. My reviews of both concerts went viral and sparked many think pieces and diatribes in the national media. Perhaps in some small way they helped start the backtracking of the

  Norman Stinchcombe reviews the latest classical CD and DVD releases Mendelssohn ‘Elijah’: Soloists, London Symphony Orchestra & Chorus (LSO Live 2 CDs and SACDs)  ★★★★★ Mendelssohn’s oratorio was commissioned for Birmingham and was premiered in 1846 at the Town Hall conducted by the composer. It was a resounding success and cemented his position as Queen Victoria’s favourite composer whom she considered to be, “the greatest musical genius since Mozart”. The coupling of Mendelssohn’s music with Victorian values, and the increasing secularization of modern Britain, means the biblical work has been kept alive largely by amateur choirs and players. This exciting new recording, conducted by Sir Antonio Pappano, shows what our concert halls have been missing. Forget the Victorian world of aspidistras and antimacassars – this superbly sung live recording blazes with passion, bringing the characters alive with operatic fervour. The Canadian baritone Gerald Finley is a mighty presence as

  ELAINE DELMAR                                            The Radlett Centre, Radlett *****   Doyenne of British jazz-singing   for well over half a century, Elaine Delmar continues to pack one hell of a punch. The voice is like a synthesizer of every musical sound imaginable, now piping like a piccolo, now swooping richly into cello tones. now barking out at us as though from the inside of a double-bass. And to this we add amazing clarity of diction and articulation, seductive phrasing born of immaculate breath-control, and a force of personality, bursting with adrenaline, which is irresistible. For this lovely event at the welcoming and charming Radlett Centre in such a delightful Hertfordshire village Delmar was joined by an expert quartet: Barry Green (piano), Simon Thorpe (bass), Bobby Worth (drums), and Alex Garnett (saxophone/flute). The empathy between instrumentalists and singer was heartwarming, and I was particular impressed by Garnett’s platform courtesies, stepp

                                             PETER SMITH RETIRES FROM AUTUMN IN MALVERN                                                           By Christopher Morley   A footballer hangs up his boots when he comes to the end of his playing career. I’m not sure what a veteran festival-planner does when he retires, but whatever it is, Peter Smith will be doing it next month when he completes 35 years as founder and director of Autumn in Malvern. The festival does exactly what it says on the tin, marking the beginning of this season of mists and mellow fruitfulness in this beautiful, evocative, hilly corner of Worcestershire, and at the time of writing this year’s programme is just about to begin. Peter’s day job was actually as a Scientific Officer in Materials Research for the MoD, Royal Signals & Radar Establishment, Malvern. Malvern-born, he also served for 14 years as elected member for the Priory Ward on Malvern Town Council, in which role he instigated and delivere

                                             TRIAL BY JURY/ HMS PINAFORE The National Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Company                                            At Malvern Theatre *** The company’s title sounds grand and imposing, the reality is somewhat different, with so many variable standards in performance. What is undeniably laudable is the unashamedly traditional set-designs of these productions, a forbidding courtroom for Trial, a properly nautical foredeck for Pinafore. These cameos by Gilbert and Sullivan are firmly set both in the period of their creation and the period of their action,   and any directorial gimmickry can only show up frailties in their structure. So full marks to the company for this. Not so laudable is the varying standard of delivery, and therein lies the problem for any audience outside the G&S diehards. We had here a portrayal of a main character straight out of the Savoyard mould so appreciated by devotees, Simon Butteriss’ Sir Joseph