BBC Philharmonic, Anja Bihlmaier conductor: Brahms Hungarian Dances No. 1, 3 & 10; Bartok Concerto for Orchestra. Manchester Collective: Hannah Peel, Neon; Michael Gordon, Industry; Steve Reich, Double Sextet
I had thought at first this was something to do with the Manchester International Festival, but it wasn’t! Quote from the publicity blurb: “The orchestras and ensembles of Manchester and The Bridgewater Hall are thrilled to announce the launch of a unique collaboration. Manchester Classical will see the Hallé, BBC Philharmonic, Manchester Camerata, Manchester Collective and a host of stellar artists come together for a breath-taking weekend of music, food, crafts and free foyer entertainment, all in and around The Bridgewater Hall.”. I guess this is something akin to Classical Sheffield and their weekend, with the greater resources available in Manchester, including RNCM.
This was a nice and interesting afternoon in Manchester. I was rather wondering who would turn up for this for an hour on a Saturday afternoon, but in fact the hall was pretty full for both concerts – certainly in the stalls – and with a wider range of people there than in the standard evening concerts. It really does seem that there is an audience in Manchester for classical music that is a very price sensitive one – all tickets were £10. There were also more young people and children than there normally would be.
As you can see I went to two very different one hour concerts. The BBC Philharmonic had a very energetic conductor I had not heard of before, who’s currently the chief conductor of the Hague Residency orchestra. The Bartok I hadn’t really listened to at all since I last heard it live performed by Essa-Pekka Salonen and the Philharmonia about 4-5 years ago. I love the unexpectedness and variety of the Bartok piece and the ways in which themes glisten brightly and momentarily and then disappear. The performance had many enjoyable moments but I did feel at times that the conductor was choosing speeds at one or two points – particularly in the 2nd and 5th movements – that prevented the orchestra from articulating the music as clearly as it might have sounded at slightly slower speeds eg the big trumpet tune in the finale. The same was true of the Brahms – the wind flurries that accompany the main tune of the first dance didn’t sound quite as clear as they should have done (and as they do , say, in the Abbado Berlin Phil recording). But overall I enjoyed this concert and it was well received by the audience – plus there was much less coughing and shuffling than normal (and no errant mobile phones) than in other concerts in Manchester I have been at recently.
The Manchester Collective show focused on various forms of minimalism. The group consisted of a violinist (Rakhi Singh) who I saw in Sheffield a year or so ago, a pianist, cellist, flute and clarinet and ?xylophone/vibraphone?. It’s very interesting to read John Adams’ excellent autobiography ‘Hallelujah Junction’ and realise the dead end that modernist serialism represented to composers in the 70s in the US, and the way forward that at the time minimalism seemed to offer. In some ways of course in turn minimalism is also itself a bit of a dead end – it is part of John Adams’ genius that he uses the tools of minimalism while building a much more complex orchestral palette. To my mind the most successful piece of the three performed in this show was the first, ‘ Neon’, by Hannah Peel celebrating [I think] the art of creating coloured neon lighting patterns in Japan and a lament for the art of traditional glassmakers. It was in three movements that were clearly differentiated and, within the constraints of the minimalist idiom had a melancholy beauty – it was also atmospherically lit on stage. ‘Industry’ was a bit of a unique item – it’s for solo cello and some kind of plugged-in speaker that distorts certain notes on the instrument, and it consists basically of the same three-note – occasionally four-note – pattern getting louder and louder and more and more distorted, reflecting the grinding nature of the Industrial Revolution. It’s clearly worth hearing once but I am happy to leave it at that…… The final piece by Reich I found simply went on too long for the minimalist patterns it conveyed. Somebody had linked up a grainy black and white film of people dancing in what I assume was The Hacienda in the 1980’s, to show on a screen behind the players and this suited the music rather well, I thought. The musicians of the Collective were all very good indeed, particularly the xylophonist/vibraphone player
John's musical journey 