Midlands Classical Music Making

Lili Boulanger was a genius of a composer who, after a lifetime of sickness, was taken from us in 1918 at the age of 24. It was a huge privilege for me to become acquainted with her music in 1967, when her devoted sister, the formidable Nadia, conducted the Birmingham University Choir (of which I was an undergraduate member) and the CBSO, in a programme featuring works by Lili, followed by the Faure Requiem, teacher of both the sisters. That occasion was unforgettable, and was matched by this very similar programme, with Mirga Grazinyte-Tyla preceding the Requiem with several of Lili's works. Lili was a fearless, shooting-from-the-hip orchestrator, never afraid to exploit the colours naturally inherent in brass, woodwind and percussion. This was particularly apparent in the wonderful scoring of her tone-poem D'Un Matin de Printemps, its lapidary glitter evoking Debussy, Holst (Perfect Fool) and even a pumped-up Delius. She was a young composer very much attuned to her era....

It was a wonderful house-warming as Orchestra of the Swan moved into its new Birmingham residence on Bank Holiday afternoon, and there was a packed audience to savour the occasion. Julian Lloyd Webber, RBC Principal, was the genial host, his batonless conducting, often with a cellist's sweep of phrasing and articulation as the music unfolded, drawing performances of utter enjoyment from the OOTS players, whose generous enthusiasm was unbounded. There were three cellists in this relationship, Lloyd Webber collaborating with the remarkable Jian Wang (and conducting here scoreless in a work he himself has played countless times) in Haydn's lovely C Major Cello Concerto. Wang's initial entry was stunning and imposing, followed by flowing facility of passage-work conveyed through lissomly athletic bowing. The finale proved a spectacular technical display from both soloist and orchestra (such fizzing violin unisons). Jiaxin Lloyd Webber partnered Jian Wang in Vivaldi's...

Birmingham Town Hall There’s a famous romantic painting of a Schubertiade, a candle-lit musical evening, with the composer at the piano surrounded by admirers and fellow-performers. Making allowances for the size of the venue, the young British pianist and his colleagues captured some of that Schubertiade spirit in an immensely satisfying recital. The mood was created by Schubert’s predominantly gentle Nocturne in E flat major where Grosvenor, Hyeyoon Park (violin) and Kian Soltani (cello) played with great delicacy. Schubert’s effervescent Trout Piano Quintet – with the addition of Timothy Ridout (viola) and Leon Bosch (double bass) – was a joy from its unassuming opening, which tiptoes in pianissimo, to its robust earthy finale. The five variations on Schubert’s song were individually shaped and I was impressed by young cellist Soltani – his Town Hall recital next February will be one to watch. The composer Brett Dean – who was to have performed his own work for solo v...

By the time of his final encore the Maltese tenor had the audience in the palm of his hand. He had stepped off the stage and sang Edith Piaf’s torch song La Vie en Rose as he walked along the aisles in the stalls – serenading several misty-eyed ladies along the way. Corny? Schmaltzy? Perhaps, but how refreshing to see a classical artist really connecting with the audience. Above all it was sung with such tenderness and liquid charm – with the CBSO’s accompaniment sounding authentically rive gauche – that even a grizzled, cynical old critic had a lump in his throat. The evening hadn’t begun well. Calleja had been ill earlier in the week and it was unwise to begin with Verdi’s Celeste Aida. Slightly unsteady and with wide vibrato Calleja sounded understandably our of sorts or, more worryingly, as if his essentially lyric tenor had suffered from singing heavier roles. The final B-flat was an unsatisfactory fudge. After that it was onwards and upwards. Calle...

Three works written within less than 20 years of each other, all by composers of Russian origin with sojourns (of varying lengths) in the United States, and each one revealing different sources of provenance, made up this fascinating programme. Showing yet again its heady versatility in recent days (from accompanying the BBC Young Musician Final, through a specialist Mozart-based concert, a glitzy West End cornucopia, a charming children's concert, and on to a a showcase for one of the world's great operatic tenors the evening after this concert), the CBSO provided for the popular and elegant conductor Ludovic Morlot a wonderful vehicle for his probing interpretations. Stravinsky's Bach-derived Dumbarton Oaks chamber concerto was taut and springy in delivery, and Marie-Christine Zupancic's flute gambolled friskily in the coquettish middle movement. But there was too much resonance clouding this account. Had the acoustic canopy been lowered a little we would have fe...

This might have been an elegiac occasion, with Orchestra of the Swan giving its final concert as Associate Artist of Birmingham Town Hall. There have been  happy events here too many to remember, featuring an array of soloists both international and local to excite a steadily-building, loyal and enthusiastic audience. Instead this concert proved an exhilarating farewell before OOTS' move to residency at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, bringing back one of the orchestra's much-loved visitors (cellist Raphael Wallfisch) and introducing us to three charming newcomers (conductor Eckehard Stier, violinist Hagai Shaham and pianist Arnon Erez). These four gentlemen joined me in a stimulating pre-concert conversation. And they gave us a Beethoven Triple Concerto which stripped away its layers of necessary repetition (equal limelight for each soloist) and instead illuminated every shift of texture with delight and sensitively-shifting balance between the instruments. The intima...

Easy listening for a full afternoon audience, but beware, musicians, you have to stir extra interest when the programme on offer is by a single composer – even dear Mozart. Not quite however, as we were treated to an unfamiliar starter (Amadis de Gaule Suite) by J C Bach - J S’s youngest son. Conductor, Reinhard Goebel could have sparked more daring contrasts from this large string group, but thankfully threatened tedium was offset by immaculate playing throughout, notably lovely solo flute strands from CBSO’s principal, Marie –Christine Zupancic.  Soloist German-Japanese violinist, Mirijam Contzen gave a genteel interpretation of Violin Concerto K271a in spite of ten first violins nearby threatening to overpower. Matching balance from the orchestra’s strings was occasionally at odds, not helped by the intermittent frenetic gyrations from the rostrum. Conductor, Reinhard Goebel certainly made his presence felt throughout the whole programme. Sparkling dexterity by the solois...

Written in a 1000-year-old haunted house... From its founding in 2013, the vibrant Hellensmusic festival has established a homely, charming but purposeful character all its own. Though centring on the medieval manor house set in idyllic surroundings, there are no country-house pretensions pandering to the hoorays. Instead there is a well-structured determination to involve local schoolchildren, students from many of the UK's great Conservatoires, and seasoned professionals from some of Europe's finest orchestras in a week of high-powered music-making. Each year the festival adds an element, this time including an additional concert in the adjacent, equally historic St Bartholomew's Church, and featuring the bandoneon, an exotic instrument probably never heard in the venue before. A cross between the accordion and the concertina, it has a remarkable ability to subsitute for an organ in religious and baroque works, and Omar Massa, enthralled us in music by Frescobaldi ...

Whether or not one approves of the gimlet-eyed exposure of glitzy music competitions, as opposed to the charmingly modest nature of local competitive festivals, it's undeniable that events such as the BBC Young Musician offer students at the highest level of talent a valuable opportunity of making music with supportive, expert professionals. And the warmth oozing from the CBSO under conductor Mark Wigglesworth at Sunday's final celebrating the 40th anniversary of the biennial event was palpable, generous to each of the three finalists in turn. None of these youngsters appeared fazed by the fact the goings-on in this packed hall were being recorded for television relay and radio broadcast later in the evening (the social media-users among us were sworn not to divulge the result until at least 9.30pm). Instead the trio were relishing performing alongside one of the world's greatest orchestras in one of the world's greatest concert-halls, and they all took their oppor...

Major events announced in the recently-revealed CBSO 2018-19 season bring memories of previous principal conductors of the orchestra, not least Sir Simon Rattle. He returns to the Symphony Hall podium built for him and the CBSO in 1991, conducting a fund-raising concert to celebrate his creation with Simon Halsey 25 years ago of the CBSO Youth and Children's Choruses. This concert on March 28, all artists giving their services free of charge, begins with a showcase of the youngsters' talents, and concludes with Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, featuring the renowned CBSO Chorus created 45 years ago by Rattle's predecessor, the great Louis Fremaux. Another mighty choral work indelibly associated with Rattle is Mahler's Second Symphony, of which he made an award-winning EMI recording with the CBSO and its then still-fledgling Chorus. Next June, Mirga Grazinyte-Tyla, the latest incumbent of Sir Simon's role as CBSO music director, conducts two performances of t...

With some thought and imagination this might have been a fascinating evening but instead was just odd and unsatisfying. The young American guitarist Michael Poll deserves praise for his enterprise in getting his “Bach on 7 Strings” project underway. Using the crowd-funding website Kickstarter he was able to raise the cash to fund a recording of Bach’s Suites for Lute BWV 996 in E minor and BWV 1006a in E major at Abbey Road Studios, and now this was an opportunity to hear, live, the fruits of his labours. As the two suites combined last just over forty minutes this is clearly not enough for an evening’s recital – but that’s all we got. Well that’s not strictly true: audience members were invited, in turn, to don a virtual-reality headset to hear a sample of Poll’s playing accompanied by a 3D graphic display. Watching someone doing this isn’t entertaining. Poll’s use of a specially-made seven-string guitar, using a thumb-plucked bass-string to increase the instrument’s range, worked ...

For reasons unknown Bartok’s Piano Concerto No. 1 hasn’t been heard at a CBSO concert for 25 years. So top marks (and a raised eyebrow) for a much-belated reinstatement to the repertory – even if it was considered necessary to bookend this uncompromising masterpiece between Dvorak and Richard Strauss. Still, it made for some interesting comparisons and contrasts. Soloist Jean-Efflam Bavouzet and conductor Kazushi Ono were clearly of one mind in treating the concerto as large-scale chamber music, with percussion and timpani flanking the piano at the front of the platform. Although much has been made of the work’s rhythmic drive, theirs was an interpretation more of sensitivity than brute force, the downstage jazz-like trio engaging with – and sometimes being subverted by – each other and the woodwind-led challenges behind them.Ono’s direction, supremely alert to balance and tonal delicacy, and Bavouzet’s understanding of Bartok’s dry humour (especially in the Andante) and pent-up virtuo...

There’s a lovely description of Bruckner in an old edition of The Oxford Companion to Music as “half Caesar and half village schoolmaster”. It seemed very apt when listening to his eighth symphony with its combination of massive power and grandeur plus idylls of serenity and simplicity. Ensuring that the disparate elements cohere over the symphony’s eighty minute timespan, and don’t become a series of glorious moments interspersed with routine sawing and blowing, is demanding for players and conductor. Markus Poschner and the orchestra (the clue’s in the name) clearly know their stuff and this was a gripping performance both in moments of inwardness and intimacy – the solo oboe’s lonely cry in the opening movement – and when Bruckner (as Caesar) lets loose his orchestral legions as the finale bursts forth. Watching that mighty musical onslaught reminded me what an important role the timpanist has in driving that movement along – and the Linz orchestra’s man was superb. Po...

Gloucester Choral Society marked the centenary of the death of Hubert Parry, one of the county's greatest sons, in the most joyous way possible, celebrating the music of the composer himself as well  that of some of his most illustrious pupils. Saturday's Gala Concert, meticulously prepared, rehearsed and presented, with a splendidly-produced programme-book, opened blazingly, Parry`s coronation anthem "I was glad" evoking grandeur and pageantry in this perfect setting. Perhaps indeed there was too much grandeur assaulting the ears in the cathedral's boomy acoustic, with the huge GCS augmented by members of the Oxford Bach Choir and the Boy and Girl Choristers of Gloucester Cathedral Choir,  supported by a splendid Philharmonia Orchestra. To accommodate such sonorous projection conductor Adrian Partington had to select slightly laboured tempi, though full marks to all singers for performing from memory. A less predictable Parry came with his later Ode on the...

Anyone who has never seen a crabby old music critic smile and LOL should have been in the wonderful concert hall of Royal Birmingham Conservatoire last Friday, when Sir Lenny Henry had us all in stitches with his genial narration of Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf. As Chancellor of Birmingham City University Sir Lenny could have been a mere attendee at this first concert of RBC's year-long Opening Festival. Instead he bounced onto the stage, throat-miked and relaxed, to join the RBC Pops Orchestra under conductor Christopher Houlding, bantering both with the maestro and the audience. He stuck to the original po-faced text, but enlivened it with a mischievous mixture of voices and accents, from Gornal Wood to Jamaica (actually drawing on his own West Indian and Dudley roots), as well as ad-libs  (even a reference to Nando's thrown in, as well as Dudley Zoo)) and gestures. And for all the clowning, this was an immensely musical performance, Henry phrasing with shape and...

Put together the CBSO with its proud history in performing Sibelius, and a charismatic yet totally serious conductor -- Edward Gardner -- whose past few years have been rooted in Scandinavia, and you get a performance of the Finnish composer's Second Symphony which will live long in the memory. Gardner never over-conducts; instead he lets the momentum of the music carry itself forward, building incident upon incident so that structural climaxes rise naturally from the context. So the cool self-assembly of the first movement homed in on the triumphant point of recapitulation, the tortured explorations of the andante (quite a slow one, here, bravely handled by pizzicato basses) had us breathlessly alert throughout, and the scherzo fizzed with remarkable electricity before leading into a finale whose blazing peroration was patiently built. There were so many instrumental contributions to praise, but particular plaudits must go to the bassoons, playing with much more personality t...

There’s a lot of nonsense talked about contemporary classical music, but when a composer works within an established tradition, for performers and listeners who know them, they can still produce music that’s appealing, communicative and (hopefully) enduring. In the 1940s, the Rev Walter Hussey of St Matthew’s, Northampton, commissioned new music from Britten and Kenneth Leighton. In the same spirit the Abbotsholme Arts Society has celebrated its 50thanniversary by commissioning Paul Spicer – the Society’s former Artistic Director – to write a short new choral work for his Royal Birmingham Conservatoire Chamber Choir. Sounding Music is an unaccompanied setting of verses in praise of music by Walter de la Mare (the idea came from the society’s current Artistic Director, Neil Millensted). Spicer describes it as a partsong, but that doesn’t quite do justice to the range and sophistication of the writing. Recognisably in the English tradition, its three short stanzas glow with melo...

At the end of the mess which is Broad Street there is one of the world's finest concert-halls, opened 27 years ago for Simon Rattle and his then CBSO. On Tuesday Sir Simon returned with his "new" orchestra, the London Symphony, rare visitors to an acoustic to which that of the LSO's Barbican home cannot hold a candle. The players will have relished delivering this performance of Mahler's valedictory Ninth Symphony in an ambience in which the quietest hush, plaintive piccolo sustained over breathless strings, or the full brass phalanx could register with equal balance as this expressionistic score unfolded under Rattle's fluid baton. The LSO loves its decibels, but here it was allowed to explore those at the lower end of the scale. Mahler calls for a huge orchestra (the stage jutted out into a packed auditorium), yet so often pares everything down to just a few essentials. Solo viola was very much to the fore, as were solo horn, flute, clarinet, and so man...

Though Royal Birmingham Conservatoire has recently launched its year-long Opening Festival, in fact ever since the magnificent new building opened its doors to the current academic year last September it has been adding further jewels to Birmingham's cultural crown. In March the CBSO's Mirga Grazinyte-Tyla conducted the RBC Symphony Orchestra in a Royal Gala concert attended by the RBC's patron, Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex, and a couple of weeks ago the first concert of the festival featured a genial Peter and the Wolf narrated by Birmingham City University Chancellor Sir Lenny Henry, accompanied by the expert RBC Pops Orchestra under Christopher Houlding  That event was recorded and broadcast by Classic FM. RBC Principal Julian Lloyd Webber shares my enthusiastic reaction to that concert. "Yes, Sir Lenny’s performance was brilliant," he says, "and both the BBC and Classic FM have really taken to RBC’s beautiful concert hall because it is compl...

Beginning on a cheery note, along with the third of Leonard Bernstein's Chichester Psalms, I want  "Dear Lord and Father of Mankind" at my funeral. Its wonderful repose-seeking words from the pen of the American Quaker poet John Greenleaf Whittier (1807- 92) are set to a melody by the composer Sir Charles Hubert Hastings Parry. The tune was first heard in Parry's oratorio Judith (premiered at the 1888 Birmingham Triennial Musical Festival), but in 1924 George Gilbert Stocks, director of music at Repton School in Derbyshire, compiling a new chapel hymnal, combined Parry's music with Whittier's verses to create one of our most beloved hymns, known, of course, as Repton. ​ At the end of the 19th century Parry was the most eminent composer in the United Kingdom, and he was generous in his advancement of a younger, totally unqualified aspirant who eventually eclipsed him. That man was Edward Elgar. born in Worcestershire, next to Parry's own county, Gl...