Midlands Classical Music Making

  CBSO at Symphony Hall ★★★★ The stage was set for something grand and imposing. Filled to overflowing with just short of a hundred players on the platform, nine basses in line along the back like sentries, the same number of horns on the left wing. We were treated to a performance of Bruckner’s Symphony No.9 that justified these massive forces. There are two main approaches to this valedictory work. The first sees it as the culmination of the nineteenth century tradition, gaunt, grand, broad in scope and tempi. The second as a precursor of twentieth century angst, existential doubt and terror. Kazuki Yamada adhered to the first path, his expansive, though never dragging, tempi approaching those of Giulini and the Vienna Philharmonic’s nonpareil recording of the work. The spell is cast in the opening notes, the groundwork of tremolando strings, and then a call from the horns presaging some mighty message – a wonderful start.The scherzo was just about perfect. Inspired by the scherz...

  STIRRING ELGAR CONCERTO FROM THE CBSO LEADER CBSO at Symphony Hall ★★★★ Elgar’s Violin Concerto has provided almost as many opportunities for pointless speculation as his ‘Enigma’ Variations. Who is referred to in the work’s inscription, “Herein is enshrined the soul of...”? Is it someone codenamed “Windflower” after whom several of the work’s themes are named? Is it Alice Stuart-Wortley, daughter of the painter John Everett Millais? Is it Helen Weaver, or Elgar’s mother or possibly his wife? Who cares? Elgar himself told us all we need to know about the work when he said of it: “It's good! Awfully emotional! Too emotional, but I love it.” So would any unprejudiced listener after hearing this performance played with such tenderness, fierce concentration and passion by the CBSO’s leader Eugene Tzikindelean and backed to the hilt by the orchestra conducted by Kazuki Yamada. In the opening bars soloist and orchestra captured the mysterious haunting quality of the initial theme that ...