Midlands Classical Music Making

  A MIXED MAHLER 9 CBSO at Symphony Hall ★★★ In the Musical Claptrap Stakes, the race to determine which work has the most egregious nonsense written about it, one contender is furlongs ahead of the rest – Mahler’s Symphony No.9. Mahler may have been superstitious but surely couldn’t have believed in the “curse of the ninth symphony” – invented post hoc by Schoenberg – which allegedly claimed the lives of Beethoven and Bruckner. This dubious assertion was used in last month’s programme on ‘Das Lied von der Erde’ and appears to have been cut-and-pasted into conductor Kazuki Yamada introductory notes where he adds; ‘Mahler expected his death to be very near when he wrote this symphony.” Says who? Not Mahler, who soon started on a tenth symphony with every expectation of finishing it. No, pneumonia and Mahler’s gruelling 8,000 mile round trips to New York to conduct at the Metropolitan Opera were responsible for his death, not compositional hubris. When beginning writing the ninth in ...

 THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO Welsh National Opera at Wales Millennium Centre **** This production of Mozart’s crowning glory began uneasily, but developed into something of a triumph by the end of a protracted evening (we came down at 10.45 after a 7pm start). Visually attractive, witty in its stage-direction, the presentation suffered from some decidedly erratic tempi set by conductor Kerem Hasan. From a hard-driven overture (perhaps trying to beat the egg-timing four minutes), straight into the opening act, swift speeds made articulation difficult for the singers, not least in this open, airy acoustic, and then a decidedly slow-paced Porgi Amor at the beginning of Act Two put a predictable strain upon Erika Grimaldi’s Countess which she survived impressively. There were also ragged moments from the usually impressive WNO orchestra, and lapses in ensemble between soloists and pit, particularly in the final act. All that set aside, this was a visually enchanting revival of Tobias Ric...

  PETER GRIMES Welsh National Opera at Wales Millennium Centre ***** Making his debut in the role, Nicky Spence’s interpretation of the character of Peter Grimes comes as something as a revelation to those already familiar with Britten’s opera. Instead of portraying the fisherman as an out-and-out psychopath whose ending we can foresee right from the start, Spence makes him a more rounded individual, capable of affection and aspiration, which makes his eventual fate chilling rather than predictable. This production, directed by Melly Still, sets Grimes as an object of self-righteous gossipy scandal from the good citizens (each with their own secret vices) of the Borough, a thinly-disguised Aldeburgh,Britten pinpointing them so shrewdly, himself a victim of ostracisation and prejudice. Each one is well characterised in this production, but there are three main characters who have an influence upon Grimes’ destiny. David Kempster is a sympathetic, wise Captain Balstrode, Sara...

  Dvořák’s Brilliant Bohemian Rhapsody CBSO at Symphony Hall ★★★★ We have all heard about love at first sight, that joyous epiphany which instantly transforms drab sepia life into glorious technicolour as in ‘The Wizard of Oz’. There is also love at first hearing when a piece of music has the same effect. In his programme notes the young Portuguese conductor Dinis Sousa admits that it wasn’t quite like that for him with Dvořák’s Symphony No.8: “I remember first thinking that it was a bit over the top,” he admits, “but when I eventually came to conduct it, I completely fell in love.” His affection was evident during every bar of this joyous performance, sometimes achingly beautiful, frenetically abandoned and brimming with boisterous good humour. Pace is essential here knowing when to relax into Dvořák’s idealized nostalgic vision of Bohemia, sun-kissed hills, sylvan breezes and twittering birds, but also to limn the dark shadows that occasionally threaten this prelapsarian paradise...

  ST JOHN PASSION Stratford Choral Society at Holy Trinity Church, Stratford **** Whereas Bach’s St Matthew Passion takes its time, reflecting upon the events of the Crucifixion, his St John Passion hustles us straight into the terrible drama, tight and concise as it involves us in the narrative, and Saturday’s performance from the Stratford Choral Society responded tautly and expressively. The orchestral opening, splendidly delivered by the period-performance Instruments of Time and Truth, whispered with gripping urgency, its tread leading forward to the powerful choral entry. Many multiples larger than Bach’s own choral forces in Leipzig, the SCS nevertheless sang with commendable lightness and balance under the gently authoritative conducting of Oliver Neal Parker This choral input of a very high standard was maintained throughout the evening, with the many chorales, originally reaching out to the Lutheran congregation, particularly effective (incidentally, John Bawden’s ...

  Norman Stinchcombe reviews the latest classical CD releases Donizetti ‘Songs’ Volumes  3  &  4 :  Spyres, Lemieux ,  Rizzi, Zappa  (Op era Rara   2  CD s available separately )  ★★★★★ Last year the enterprising Opera Rara label released the first two discs in a planned  eight volume survey of Donizetti’s songs, around 200 of them, many of which have  not been heard in decades. The project is masterminded by  Opera Rara’s  Repertoire Consultant Roger Parker  who has scoured musical archives in Europa and as far away as Australia searching for the opera composer’s solo songs. The first two volumes with  teno r  Lawrence Brownlee  and  baritone  Nicola Alaimo,  both accompanied on piano by conductor Carlo Rizzi,  were outstanding. Now come Volumes 3 and 4 with American singer Michael Spyres, accompanied by Rizzi, and Canadian Marie-Nicole Lemieux, accompanied by Giulio Zappa....

  STRAVINSKY’S DIAGHILEV BALLETS Kimichi Symphony Orchestra at Symphony Hall ***** If this feat has ever been accomplished before, then I’ve never heard of it. To perform any one of Stravinsky’s first three great Diaghilev ballets – Firebird, Petrushka, Rite of Spring – is a tour de force for any professional orchestra. To perform all three in one programme, and by a part-time orchestra of semi-professionals seems to be flying dangerously close to the sun or the wind. And the result was a triumphant return to earth after spreading glory. The Kimichi Symphony Orchestra, one hundred strong, gave more than impressive accounts of these taxing scores, demanding both technically and physically, under the supremely calm, reliable and reassuring baton of Keith Slade.  What is their secret, one might ask? The answers are brilliantly obvious: an inspirational conductor with a flawless stick-technique; enthusiastically motivated players devoted to their instruments; tight, efficient,...

 KIMICHI ORCHESTRA PERFORMS THE THREE GREAT STRAVINSKY BALLETS By Christopher Morley (for 20.3.25) Launched in 2014, the Acocks Green-based Kimichi School has a unique place among educational establishments in the West Midlands. It is an independent secondary school which has no barriers to ethnicity, disability or gender, and its main ethos is the fostering of musical awareness among every one of its students. Sally Alexander, herself a professional cellist awarded an MBE for services to education in the late Queen’s 2021 Birthday Honours list,, is its dynamic founder, and her nurturing of the school has run parallel with large-scale musical activities proudly spreading its name. And nothing gets larger than the event she has planned for Sunday afternoon at Symphony Hall on March 23.  All three of the great Stravinsky ballets composed for Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes – Firebird, Petrushka, Rite of Spring – are to be performed by the amateur Kimichi Symphony Orchestra, Ke...

 ALBERT HERRING Gas Street Central, Birmingham ***** Royal Birmingham Conservatoire’s production of Britten’s witty satire on smalltown life has proved a triumphant collaboration between several colleges, and high praise to all involved. The cast is a compact one (13 singers), so in fact the four performances have been able to feature two teams. I caught the Blue Cast on Saturday afternoon. Matinees are obviously congenial times for those of us of a certain age, and this versatile, performance-leaning church just off Birmingham’s lively Broad Street, was packed. Fortunately the RBC Department of Vocal and Operatic Studies hasn’t totally followed the example of the legendary late Graham Vick, who preferred to present shows in a variety of spaces, from factories to churches, and to get the audience to mill and shift around as participants, There wasn’t any of that nonsense here, just an opening dining-room and then a move to a resourceful thrust stage where we all had surrounding...

  ROYAL PHILHARMONIC SOCIETY AWARDS 2025 Royal Birmingham Conservatoire As such events are usually mired in metrocentricity, readers will forgive me for rejoicing that the Royal Philharmonic Society, coming out of London for its annual Awards Ceremony for only the second time in the Society’s 200-year  history, (last year was Manchester) should honour its Birmingham hosts with such an acknowledgement of the proud musical achievements of the West Midlands. Hosted by BBC Radio 3 presenters Jess Gillam and Tom McKinney for a programme to be broadcast the subsequent evening, the evening began with a performance of “Sometime I Sing” composed by a composer long associated with Ex Cathedra, Alec Roth, and performed by Ex Cathedra Student Scholars under the directorship of Jeffrey Skidmore. Other local organisations featured were the Wolverhampton Symphony Orchestra, nominated in the Inspiration category for its reach-out to the disabled; Ex Cathedra’s Singing Medicine brighteni...

  A SUBLIME MAHLER FAREWELL FROM THE CBSO CBSO at Symphony Hall ★★★★ Mahler’s orchestral song cycle ‘Das Lied von der Erde’ (‘The Song of the Earth’) has been straitjacketed into the symphony-in-all-but-name category. This arose from a notoriously unreliable source, his widow Alma, who claimed that Mahler superstitiously refused to name it as such because, as the concert programme has it,”no major composer had lived long after completing their ninth symphony. Beethoven and Bruckner seemed to prove the point.” So Mozart (41 symphonies) and Haydn (104 Symphonies) weren’t major composers? Nonsense of course but Alma was a serial mythologist. Listening to this passionate performance under conductor Alpesh Chauhan, making a welcome return to his home city, confirmed that song is the essence of this work and reinforces the judgement that Mahler was a genius when writing for voices. Which needs, of course, voices capable of doing justice to this sublime and vocally demanding work. Demandi...

  Norman Stinchcombe reviews the latest classical CD releases Ravel, ‘Daphnis et Chloé’: London Symphony Orchestra, Tenebrae / Sir Antonio Pappano (LSO Live CD & SACD) ★★★★★ Thirty years ago a new recording of Ravel’s complete ballet ‘Daphnis et Chloé’ would have faced intense competition in a crowded field. The deletions axe wielded by the international media conglomerates which control most of the classical music market has changed all that. So the classic 1950s analogue recording by Monteux and the LSO, fine digital recordings by Boulez, Dutoit, Ozawa and Levine – all owned by Universal – Rattle (Warner Classics) and Munch (Sony) have gone. Which makes this excellent release from the LSO’s own label doubly welcome. Ravel’s lush score demands a virtuoso orchestra: it needs to be subtle and diaphanous, as in the ‘Lever du jour’ (Sunrise) of Part II; swaggering and exuberant as the pirates burst onto the scene; and with reserves of power for the climactic ‘Danse générale’ (Bacc...

  AN ALMIGHTY HAYDN ‘CREATION’ CBSO at Symphony Hall ★★★★★ The scientific story of the creation of the universe arrived in 1931 when the physicist Georges Lemaître pictured it mysteriously arising from a single primeval atom. Haydn, a century and half before, presented the event more graphically, impressively and transcendentally without a single mathematical equation. His oratorio ‘The Creation’ begins with ‘The Representation of Chaos’ in a sinuously shifting hushed C minor which defeats our expectations by never reaching the musical closure we instinctively crave. Kazuki Yamada directed the CBSO as if in stealth mode, everything held in check. The bass Ashley Riches, towering over everyone as the Archangel Raphael, was just the man to intone, “In the beginning God created Heaven and Earth.” Enter the CBSO Chorus, hushed and subdued describing the Spirit of God surveying the inchoate darkness. Then comes one of the greatest coupes in classical music – another surprise from the ma...

  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...