Midlands Classical Music Making

  A SUPER PERFORMANCE OF DVORAK’S POPULAR CLASSIC CBSO at Symphony Hall ★★★★ In 1973 long before he found fame as the director of ‘Alien’, ‘Blade Runner’ and ‘Gladiator’ the young Ridley Scott directed a television commercial advertising Hovis bread. It showed a boy pushing a bicycle, its basket laden with loaves, up a steep cobbled village street to the sound of the Ashington Colliery brass band playing an evocatively nostalgic tune. In just 47 seconds it captured the heart of a sentimental nation and has been voted Britain’s favourite advert of all time. More pertinently it introduced millions of people to the Largo of Dvorak’s Symphony No.9 with an immortal and hummable melody which conjured up a “land of lost content”. Music graduates at specialist classical record stores – remember them?– were bemused by people wanting a record of “the Hovis theme”. Sales soared, Dvorak’s ‘New World’ Symphony became a guaranteed crowd-pleaser and half a century later it still is – as the full-...

  CBSO BENEVOLENT FUND CONCERT Symphony Hall ***** After many months away from the orchestra it was good to catch up with a CBSO in wonderful form, and on such a joyous occasion, a warm and packed audience joining in the annual celebration of the CBSO Benevolent Fund, and all it does to assist distressed musicians and staff. The players clearly adore performing under principal conductor Kazuki Yamada, indulging his all kinds of quirks from the podium, and following him down some surprise byways – of which there were many in the Tchaikovsky symphony which concluded this all-Russian programme. We began busily, with Shostakovich’s Festival Overture, no need for the composer to look over his shoulder for the KGB here, bubbling with woodwind (this was to be very much their afternoon), string detail scudding out of Yamada’s wide, sweeping, empowering beat. Then came a very different mood with the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto, introversion desperately trying to liberate itself. Jam...

  A LONG DELAYED PREMIERE FOR THE CBSO CBSO at Symphony Hall ★★★★ When an orchestra announces the UK Premiere of a work then it’s normally of something new, novel, up-to-the minute. Akio Yashiro’s ‘Symphony for Large Orchestra’ was commissioned in 1958 so why perform it now? It would no doubt gain a little cultural credit for the CBSO’s forthcoming tour of Japan later this year while also being a personal indulgence for Kazuki Yamada. So what if it was? All the CBSO’s music directors have been allowed to ride their musical hobby horses: Simon Rattle conducted Nicholas Maw’s gigantic ‘Odyssey’, Sakari Oramo showcased the forgotten British composer John Foulds and Mirga proselytized for Weinberg. Yamada introduced his late countryman’s work to the British concert hall and a much wider audience via a Radio 3 live relay. Good for him. But perhaps that 67 year wait signified that the symphony isn’t very good? Having heard many CBSO premieres over the decades – some instantly forgettable...

  THE JOHN WILSON PIANO SPECTACULAR V Royal Northern College of Music **** Having managed to assemble eight grand pianos onto one stage I suppose it is inevitable that one would want to wring as much out of the behemoth as possible. This was certainly the case with John Wilson’s joyous 85th birthday event attracting an overflowing and enthusiastic audience of ex-students and well-wishers to the RNCM Concert Hall. Wilson inaugurated these five-yearly events in 2005, raising funds for the John Wilson Junior Fellowship in Accompaniment at the College where he has been such a respected presence as student and subsequently teacher; his association with the establishment now goes back 60 years. Eight colleagues and past students each man one of the instruments, generously donating their services to the cause, as does Timothy Reynish, directing from the podium. This year’s complement comprised Harvey Davies, Peter Donohoe, Julian Evans, Peter Lawson, Nicholas Rimmer, Martin Roscoe, ...

  Norman Stinchcombe reviews the latest classical CD releases Weill, 'The Seven Deadly Sins': Soloists, London Symphony Orchestra / Rattle (LSO Live CD & SACD) ★★★★ Sir Simon Rattle chose Weill’s work, an acerbic Berlin pastiche of the Hollywood musical, as one of his first recordings with the CBSO in 1982. The lead role of Anna was taken by his first wife American soprano Elise Ross. Forty years on and his new recording stars his third wife, the Czech mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kožená. This 1933 collaboration with Bertolt Brecht was styled a ballet chanté (sung ballet) with dual personality Anna played by a singer and a dancer. No dancing for Kožená but she took both roles – singing one and speaking the other – and is very effective. Her portrayal of Lust is psychologically and vocally acute. Rattle has assembled an excellent male quartet of singers to portray Anna’s exploitative family: Andrew Staples (tenor), Alessandro Fisher (tenor), Ross Ramgobin (baritone) and Florian B...

 COULL QUARTET Royal Pump Rooms, Leamington Spa *** A complement which has delighted us for decades, the Coull Quartet has delivered so many exciting accounts of works from both the standard repertoire and more searching contemporary fields. Its  long residency at the University of Warwick proved intensely rewarding, enhancing the musical life of our region and beyond. But time takes its toll, and this concert for Leamington Music, virtually on the Coull’s home patch, provided both a poignant reminder of past glories and present problems. The Coull still have a wonderful gift of empathy in ensemble, as exemplified in Mozart’s G major Quartet, K387 (incidentally, I have never before encountered its being afforded the sobriquet “Spring”, nor seen the programme-note extending the composer’s life by six years), with a wonderful air of civilised discussion, thinking and reacting as one, full of dynamic subtlety. Yet there was also tentativity in attack, not least in the openin...

  CBSO at Symphony Hall ★★★★ Admirers of Shakespeare’s tragedy ‘Romeo and Juliet’ received a bonus with this concert – not one but two pairs of ‘star-crossed lovers’ in musical guise. First came a suite by Borys Lyatoshynsky, a Ukrainian composer whose work has become better known due to the advocacy of his countryman, the conductor Kirill Karabits, who esteemed him “as probably Ukraine’s most important composer of the 20 th  century.” The suite was composed in 1955, originally as incidental music for a performance of the play, and is a tuneful and deftly orchestrated piece, beginning almost like a concerto for orchestra with Lyatoshynsky bringing each section forward to take a bow as it were. Textures are often gossamer but he gives them ballast with healthy doses of brass. The succeeding ‘Pavane’ is the musical highlight, with pizzicato fiddles, a tinkling tambourine, underpinned by stately brass and percussion. A terrific piece of costume drama music – and that’s not dispar...