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, others memorable for the wrong reasons – I found Yashiro’s work better than most. At half an hour it is concise, the four movements varied and well paced. True it’s derivative but so is the work of all minor composers, in this case a musical cocktail primarily of Messiaen with a dash of Dutilleux and a smidgin of Florent Schmitt whose symphonic poem ‘La Tragédie de Salomé’ clearly inspired the shimmering, sinister opening movement. Its simple see-saw high string motif and creepy bass line also anticipated Jerry Goldsmith’s score for ‘Alien’ by twenty years. The splenetic second movement scherzo is followed by the work’s core and longest movement, a Lento which demonstrates Yashiro’s ear for orchestral colour, opening with a sombre and haunting duet for bass flute and cor anglais before becoming a miniature concerto for orchestra with excellent contributions from every CBSO section. The symphony is a perfect fit for Yamada’s strengths with its dance rhythms – the second movement truly Vivace – and a demonically energetic and thunderous climax. A work short on musical substance and large on gesture but enjoyable nonetheless and played with enormous vigour and panache by the CBSO. That was also the case in the opening work, Bartók’s ‘Dance Suite’. At first Nikolaj Henriques’ droll ambling bassoon solo suggests the comically rustic world of ‘Slightly Tipsy’ from Bartok’s ‘Hungarian Sketches’ but Bartok confounds and fascinates us by seamlessly switching moods and musical styles at one point revealing the kinship between sinuous north African and eastern European (Egyptian and Gypsy) folk music.
Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto No.2 of 1967 is overshadowed by his more popular large scale first with its virtuosic and attention-grabbing Passacaglia-Cadenza; No.2 is enigmatic, almost cryptic like his late string quartets. I can’t imagine it being played better than it was here by Isabelle Faust a soloist who eschews any element of the flash and meretricious but whose fierce focus and concentration made the opening slow, grave and outwardly uneventful Moderato movement compulsive where other soloists let one’s attention wander. When Shostakovich does allow the soloist some limelight, a brief cadenza and then a crucial challenge to the orchestra, taken up by the horn, the impact is all the greater. The closing boisterous Allegro – perhaps made deliberately hollow-sounding by Shostakovich – allowed Yamada to let the orchestra off its tight leash. The beauty of Faust’s tone throughout was admirable and the enthusiastic response for her from the audience entirely merited.
Norman Stinchcombe