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 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 20th 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 disparagement.

We were on familiar territory with a selection from Prokofiev’s ballet score, a 45 minute highlight reel culled from the composer’s two suites. Enjoyable as Lyatoshynsky’s piece is, Prokofiev operates at a far more elevated level of creativity. While Lyatoshynsky is pastel shades in soft focus, Prokofiev’s scenes and characters are in blazing primary colours, etched with sharp edges. Karabits got the CBSO’s brass and percussion, all bite and swagger, to strut through the ballet’s best known showpiece ‘The Montagues and the Capulets’; totally attention-grabbing. There was subtlety and gentleness abounding in ‘Juliet and The Young Girls’, the strings light and lithesome. Karabits ensured crisp rhythmic precision in the ‘Dance’ and ‘Masks’ sections while the balcony scene and ‘Romeo at Juliet's Grave’ had all the required pathos with fine contributions from the CBSO wind players. Prokofiev’s threnody had the authentic tragic profundity, making Lyatoshynsky sound distinctly lightweight.

In between these works we had a rarity from another Ukrainian composer, the ‘Concerto for Coloratura Soprano’ by Rheingold Glière. The two movement work was composed in 1943 and is without a text, the singer using vocalise, the universal language of wordless song. Some of the great coloratura exponents have sung the work, including Joan Sutherland, Edita Gruberova and Sumi Jo. Here was young British soprano Jennifer France who was splendid, soaring and graceful. The audience loved her, ignoring the house lights being raised and brought her back for a deserved extra round of applause. In the first movement Glière requires her to sing like a disembodied spirit, weightless and ethereal. The second movement is a waltz infused with the ‘Rosenkavalier’ spirit and the soprano moves into soubrette territory and I felt France was more at home here.

Norman Stinchcombe

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