City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, conductor Robert Trevino : Gustav Mahler — Symphony No. 10 (arrangement by Deryck Cooke)

Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla was meant to be the conductor for this concert but she pulled out a week before the event – as she had been conducting in Rome a few days earlier on May 13 and was due to be conducting this in Birmingham around the same time, I’m not quite sure what was happening with her programming…..I’d not heard of the replacement but he is apparently a frequent visitor to Leipzig. It’s a pity not have heard Mirga conduct this work – I usually find her concerts inspirational.

I came to this concert with some trepidation. I can see why the CBSO were invited to the Festival – Nelsons used to be their chief conductor, Mirga was his successor, they have had a succession of winners as conductors that has given them a lot of kudos (Rattle, Oramo, Nelsons himself, Mirga) – but it’s still a bit of a leap from the three orchestras we’ve had so far to the CBSO. How would they fare?

The answer is….very well indeed. The CBSO is not the Concertgebouw, and no British orchestra in my experience (and I am happy to be told otherwise) apart from arguably the LSO has the kind of weight and thickness of string sound that the best central European orchestras have (and the Concertgebouw) – though the Halle are pretty stylish string-wise. But there were virtuoso performances from (particularly) the first trumpet (and his back-up in those searing long trumpet notes), and the first flute, and in general excellent tight ensemble. What the CBSO strings did have is a sort of acerbic lightness that goes very well with the sound world of this symphony. I was touched to hear someone next to me (I think – my German is minimal) say to his neighbour ‘They play like a German orchestra’. High praise indeed!!

I got to know this work through the first recording of the Cooke performing version  – the Philadelphia/Ormandy recording. That was of Cooke 1, but in fact Deryck Cooke revised it another two times. It was interesting to hear some of the (minor but audible) changes he made, adding more texture and depth to the orchestral sound

It is very easy to read Mahler’s life a little too smoothly into his works. As Stephen Johnson (who’s giving an English language lecture before each symphony in the Gewandhaus) mentioned, the enormous dissonant crash with the high trumpet in the first movement was added at a fairly late stage in Mahler’s development of the score, so it’s reasonable to assume that it is a response to the news of Alma’s infidelity in the Spring. But this work was being developed alongside the enormous triumph of the first performance of the 8^th Symphony in the summer of 1910 in Munich, which established Mahler publicly as an eminent composer who was also a conductor, rather than vice-versa. Though he obviously knew of his heart problems, he had no idea at that point that he was going to be dead within a year. So while there is clearly an emotional journey in this work, it is not necessarily about a dying man, and may have (pure conjecture of course) more to do with his continuing grief for the death of his eldest daughter, and Alma’s adultery.

The symphony’s structure is much harder to ascertain than the first 7 symphonies, and it comes as no surprise that, according to Donald Mitchell, there is evidence that Mahler had some uncertainty about the order of the 5 movements as he developed the work. Essentially, we have a first movement that moves between consolation and bleakness, a second that is quite jolly, the deadly serious Purgatorio, the violent 4^th movement and a final movement that brings back consolation to the fore. It is more difficult for a conductor and orchestra, therefore, to take us on a journey through this work which makes emotional sense than, say, the 5^th Symphony. The best thing about this performance was that the journey was clear and made sense. Key elements were:

• The shattering climax of the first movement, which was brilliantly done, and overpowering in volume (the trumpet and high strings were extraordinary)
• The clarity and rhythmic impulse of the second movement
• The depth of the sudden upswelling of emotion half-way through the Purgatorio movement, which is, if not a break out moment to something ‘other’, then certainly the turning point of the work, where it’s recognised that the status quo, the continual grind, self-conscious jollity can’t continue, and that grim reality has to be faced and hopefully overcome
• The jagged edges of the 4^th movement – though there were moments when the conductor I thought went too fast and, though the CBSO kept up with him, some clarity was lost in terms of note-value
• The beautiful way in which the consoling song of the last movement unfolded, and the passionate climax and upswelling at the end

So, all in all, a performance I appreciated very much of a work I haven’t heard very often live in the concert hall in the full performing version. One thing I noticed which I hadn’t before is the occasional influence of Parsifal on the score – Mahler didn’t, I think, conduct Parsifal in New York, taking the ban on complete performances outside Bayreuth seriously, but he did conduct extracts in New York and Germany. The opening of the first movement is very similar to the Act 3 Prelude, and at the end of the first movement there is a passage very similar to the closing bars of the Prelude to Act 1, as the curtain rises

What would have happened if Mahler had lived another 20 years – how might his work have developed? Stephen Johnson’s view was that the 10th symphony performing version suggests some very tentative answers – that he wouldn’t have tipped over into total atonality but, rather as Britten and Shostakovich did, used atonality within a fundamentally tonal perspective. But beyond that – who can say; how would WW1 have affected him? Would he have gone back to an impoverished and much reduced Vienna? Would he have been interned in the US? Sadly, we shall never know……..

Mahler being carried off the train on his last journey, arriving in Vienna and reported by newspapers

Organist: Michael Schönheit: Johann Sebastian Bach — Fantasia and Fugue in G minor BWV 542 (in the version by Karl Straube); Franz Schmidt — Chorale Prelude “Nun danket alle Gott”; Max Reger — Introduction and Passacaglia in D minor WoO IV/6; Franz Schmidt — Lento – Interlude I from the oratorio “The Book with Seven Seals”; Franz Schmidt — Vivace ma non troppo – Interlude II from the oratorio “The Book with Seven Seals”; Franz Schmidt — Allegro molto moderato – from the oratorio “The Book with Seven Seals”; Franz Schmidt — Prelude and Fugue in D major (“Hallelujah”); Max Reger — Fantasia and Fugue on B-A-C-H op. 46

After a pleasant hour and a half at the Fine Arts Museum, I went along to St Thomas’ Church. This was a very great deal of noisy dense organ music and I realised for music of this period on this instrument it would have been much easier to hear it and understand what was going on in the Gewandhaus hall as opposed to the (inevitably) very resonant and muddy acoustic of a church. The Bach arrangement by a former cantor of the 30’s and 40’s in St Thomas’ Church was monstrous in its pomp and solemnity, whether Wilhelmine or National Socialist I’m not sure. The Regier pieces were much as I imagined they would be – dense, academic and difficult to listen to. The most attractive pieces were by Franz Schmidt, perhaps because they had a narrative backgrpund – and the apocalyptic suits the sound of the organ. I must give the Book of the 7 Seals and some of the symphonies another try – I do have the recordings.

Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Myung-Whun Chung Conductor: Gustav Mahler — Symphony No. 5

It’s nearly two years since I last heard this work live – a moving occasion at the Proms in 2021 when a scratch orchestra of all the freelance musicians who had been out of work for the past 18 months, because of Covid, had conducted by Mark Wigglesworth – an occasion , with a huge albeit distanced orchestra that just wouldn’t have been imaginable 8 months earlier. The last time I heard the Concertgebouw orchestra was about, oh, 6 or 7 years ago at the Proms – before Daniel Gatti was sacked. I think I’ve written somewhere else here that I was left, after the Concertgebouw Mahler 4 which Gatti conducted then, asking myself why an orchestra which had played so beautifully had given such an ultimately unmoving performance. None of those qualms here…….Although I seem to be reaching for superlatives in these reviews rather often, I simply cannot recall a more moving, life-affirming or memorable live performance of Mahler 5, and that includes Haitink, Rattle, and Honeck from the past. No, it didn’t match the famous Mahler 5 that Bernstein and the VPO gave in 1987 at the Proms (which I heard a broadcast of by the BBC during the 2020 lockdown but was away overseas for at the time) but in terms of what I’ve heard live, this was the best! And, like after my last experience with the Concertgebouw, I’m asking myself – why? These are some thoughts:

• I think a lot of it had to do with the conductor, Myung-Whun Chung. He gave purpose and direction to the whole performance – often quite boldy; he was not afraid to slow down or speed up, sometimes quite dramatically, to make a point, to relish a moment, to support the overall architecture. He was also quite clear as to the direction of the symphony – the pivotal point (the last one of this kind in Mahler’s symphonies), another of those break-through moments, is the first appearance of the chorale theme which comes back at the end of the finale, in the second movement. This was taken very slowly, building up to a huge climax that was quite overwhelming. His handling of the Adagietto was slow – someone who I was talking to afterwards, looking surreptitiously at his watch, made it 11 minutes, not far short of Lenny’s 13 – but beautifully shaped, with an utterly memorable climax – I’ll long remember the lower strings digging in for their lives at that point.  Whatever his choice of tempi, they seemed right in the greater scheme of things, and as a result I was wholly focused throughout – I can remember times when I’ve lost focus a bit with the repetitions and false endings in the 2^nd and 3^rd movements. In his conducting style it was crystal clear what he wanted, with emphatic lunges to make a point, As a result of all this, the finale seemed utterly joyous and again I was transfixed throughout – the chorale tune’s re-appearance again, enormously slow, was quite wonderful. The final point to make was that Mr Chung (if that’s the right name to use) was very good at helping the orchestra to achieve an effective balance, so that inner voices could be heard, and there were many moments when a clarinet or bassoon burbled unexpectedly, and voices popped up which were new to me.

• I guess, aided in the performance by the acoustics of the hall, the other factor was simply the quality of the playing, in all departments. The first trumpet, the horn section, woodwind principals were all magnificent. And somehow – one of those things that sometimes happen in live concerts – the whole became much more than the sum of its parts, a vast breathing organism, with immense power. The adagietto started as a whisper, the last movement ended fff fff. The Concertgebouw PR machine sometimes quotes a critics’ survey a few years ago which rated it ‘the best orchestra in the world’. They were certainly at that level last night.
• I’m happy to report that I wasn’t alone in my reaction to this performance. Most of the audience was on its feet at the end, and those I spoke to afterwards – a group of people I’d met on the guided tour on Friday – had similar reactions…………….

Frank-Michael Erben violin, Anton Jivaev viola, Valentino Worlitzsch cello, Yulianna Avdeeva piano: Gustav Mahler — Quartet for Piano, Violin, Viola and Cello in A minor; Alfred Schnittke — Quartet for Piano, Violin, Viola and Cello in A minor; Johannes Brahms — Quartet No. 1 for piano, violin, viola and cello in G minor op. 25

The Mahler Quartet is a  – dare one say it – fairly anodyne work, only about 11 minutes in length, sounding vaguely Brahms (and Mahler did know Brahms and there are accounts of the two going out for walks together. So anodyne was it that I drifted off to sleep after about 8 minutes and then woke up to some fairly frantic violin screechings, which was a short piece by Schnittke entitled ‘nach einem Fragment von Gustav Mahler;, which as far as I could make out from the German-only programme was a discarded piano piece. I can’t say I had my head round this. The major work then was the Brahms, which I found I really didn’t know at all but much enjoyed, and have it on again as I am writing this on my computer. The Quartet players seemed to enjoy it hugely and so I did I. I realise that I know the 2^nd Quartet for Piano and Strings reasonably well, the others not at all. I must give Brahms’ chamber music a concentrated listen when I get back home

Before going to this afternoon concert I had spent about an hour in the Mendelssohn house Museum. As our guide yesterday said, it is indeed a model of what a music-based museum should look like, and had many interesting exhibits – including a special section on Fanny, Mendelssohn’s sister. Beautifully presented, there is enough English summaries to know what you’re seeing. There is also an interesting extract from a book by a music critic about the history of music, writing in the 1930’s about Mendelssohn, fully and enthusiastically endorsing the Nazi line – ‘Un-German’ etc. There is then an updated music history book from the SAME author in the 1970’s. The obviously anti-Semitic lines have been removed but there is still the fundamental Wagner-based anti-Semitic trope that Mendelssohn could not write ‘music of the soul’, and was fundamentally un-serious.

Munich Philharmonic, Tugan Sokhiev conductor, Christiane Karg soprano, Ekaterina Gubanova alto, Andreas Schager tenor: Gustav Mahler — Symphony No. 4 in G major; Gustav Mahler — Das Lied von der Erde

Before the evening concert, I did a couple of things:

• I went on a 2hr 45min guided tour entitled ‘Mahler and Leipzig’ – this was not so much about Mahler as, after all, he was only in Leipzig for two years, but our guide (English-speaking tour, about 15 people) was hugely knowledgeable about other aspects of Leipzig’s musical history. We didn’t dwell much on Bach but there was a lot about Artur Nikisch, Mendelssohn etc. A large number of composers have passed through Leipzig, including Janacek and Grieg. She highly recommended the Mendelssohn house, which I must get to. She also was very interesting about the role Kurt Masur, with his various government contacts, had in ensuring that peace protests in 1989/1990 were met with no violence by the DDR authorities
• I went to a 6pm musical service at the Thomaskirche, essentially a form of Choral Evensong, with Bach Motets BWV 226,228 and 229, as well as a 16^th century setting of the Nunc Dimittis (but no Magnificat) all sung alas not by the Boys Choir but by the very good Saxon Youth Choir

When I bought my tickets, in October 2021, the evening concert was due to be conducted by Valery Gergiev. He however was dismissed as conductor of the Munich Phil after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as a known Putin supporter, and Sokhiev was the replacement. The latter – I’ve not seen him conduct before  – is an Ossetian Russian, one of the last students of Ilya Musin at the St. Petersburg Conservatory, who from 2014 to 2022 was Music Director and Chief Conductor of the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow , and Music Director in Toulouse. In 2022 he resigned from both posts, feeling he had to leave both due to ‘current events’, and wishing to be even-handed.

This was a substantial concert – by far the heftiest of those I’m going to, and I have to say I was flagging emotionally by the time we got to Das Lied von der Erde, as maybe you’ll see below.

I thought the Munich Philharmonic sounded every bit as good as the Gewandhaus orchestra and of course both works give players more chance to shine as woodwind and brass individuals than Mahler 2 does. I also marvelled at the clarity, warmth and simply the volume generated within the hall, seated 4 rows from the very back. Given that the hall was a GDR product, and access to Western technology available at the time limited, it is even more a tribute to the quality of DDR architects, and sound engineers of the time that they got it so right.

I thought the Mahler 4 performance was quite outstanding. My view was perhaps coloured by reading somewhere recently a remark by Mahler I hadn’t come across before, that the so-called sleigh bells at the beginning of the work (which we automatically associate with Christmas via Lieutenant Kije) are in fact representing the bells on a jester’s hat; also, Mahler’s remark to Alma along the lines of ‘I can’t be happy if there is one person in the world suffering’. This symphony seems to me to be a lot about how suffering and darkness enters our lives at every stage, and that any resolution of life’s seeming futility into something making sense and being meaningful is complex, and we are left with an ambiguous ending. Perhaps in this work, these thoughts are refracted through the mind of a child, but the work lets us know that even there we find darkness as well as light.  

Sokhiev and the orchestra were I thought extremely effective in bringing out the work’s ambiguities. This was done partly through extraordinary clarity in the orchestral sound, so that the glints, the undercurrents of disturbance and disagreement from brass, woodwind or strings are heard very clearly. It was also done through judgements on tempi – thus the first theme of the slow movement was perhaps faster than usual, less contemplative, expressing therefore more a simple joy in life, while the contrasting sad, slower than usual,  sections of that movement seemed darker and gloomier than normally played, subverting that joy. As in the Mahler 2 dynamic contrasts were well handled too – but also ambiguous. Mahler 4, unlike the 2^nd, 3^rd and 5^th symphonies has two ‘break-through’ moments – the point at which we sense something ‘other’, something more than the life we lead. In this performance though, the quiet string musings before the 2^nd of those moments, the uproar of the ‘opening of heaven’ in the third movement, were not as quiet as they sometimes are and that seemed to make the uproar more knowing and the aftermath more saccharine. Likewise the sudden welling up in the 2^nd trio of the scherzo seemed too loud, too self-conscious, for this to be a true realisation of sudden joy, and the following muted sniping trumpets were more telling.. Somehow, right at the end of the 4^th movement, the harp sounded louder than usual, making it more like a tolling funeral bell than a quiet sinking into paradise. In all these sorts of ways, and many more, I found this a very telling subtle performance, emphasising the ambiguities in this work more strongly than I’ve ever heard before. I can’t honestly remember hearing a better one.

After this, I didn’t the emotional or mental energy to appreciate the performance of Das Lied von der Erde quite as I should have done. I think also, my sitting right at the back of the hall did make the voices, as opposed to the instruments, sound a bit distant. Again, I though Sokhiev and the orchestra were working wonders with the music – the funeral march in the last movement was magnificently bleak, the 2^nd autumnal song was slower than usual and all the better for it, with wonderfully wispy strings; also – a small point, but one that I often wince at – the mandolin was kept under control when the singer in the last movement begins to sing ’Ewig’.

But obviously a performance of this work has to stand or fall by the singers. Ekaterina Gubanova and Andreas Schager are both opera stars whose work I have much enjoyed at performances over the last year. Schager obviously, as the current go-to Siegfried, has the vocal heft for his first and third songs – he was, though, unable to give pointing and delicacy to the 2^nd of his songs, about the artists on the lake, Gubanova had somehow too generalised a voice – her diction wasn’t clear, the sound of her voice was lovely but she didn’t point words and phrases enough. I may be wrong about two people who I have great respect for as singers but somehow they didn’t really seem to me to be suited for these songs – you somehow need singers who can project the words and situation more clearly. In the case of the alto role, my gold standard is Janet Baker, who I heard live several times. This simply wasn’t in that league. So measured by any normal standards, this was a very good performance, but by Festival standards maybe slightly disappointing.

As a final thought, I wonder if they might have done this differently in terms of programming. The Festival organisers could for example have cut out Das Klagende Lied, for instance, later on in order to give DLVDE its own top billing………………..

Mahler Symphony No 2 in C minor: Gewandhaus Orchestra, MDR Radio Choir, Andris Nelsons conductor, Ying Fang soprano, Gerhild Romberger mezzo-soprano

Well, here I am in Leipzig with 11 days of concerts and talks all focused on Mahler (and some of his contemporaries). I am intending to have side trips to Eisenach (the Bach House there), and Erfurt and Wittenberg for the Luther connections as well, but for the main, this is a Mahler-focused two weeks, which I am much looking forward to.

Having collected a battery of tickets from the Gewandhaus box office and a Festival Pass, my first stop was to go to a talk on Bach and Mahler by Dr Peter Wollny, the Director of the Bach-Archiv (actually there was a brief even earlier stop as I misjudged the timing, got to the Archiv half an hour early and so then spent 20 minutes in the Thomaskirche being royally entertained by a rehearsal for an evening performance of Haydn’s Creation by the Saxon Youth Symphony Orchestra, with the famous ‘And then there was light’ passage). Mr Wollny’s talk was very interesting, The Archiv had recently bought from a private collector the complete Bach edition owned by Mahler (59 volumes, with Maher’s edition of the Matthew Passion missing – they are still looking for it), published from the 1850’s to 1890’s., as part of its research interest in the reception of Bach’s music in the 19^th and early 20^th centuries.  5 of these volumes had annotations in Mahler’s hand. They relate to a series of ‘Historical Music’ subscription concerts Mahler had given in New York (at a time, whether in the US or Europe, when Bach’s music was still very unfamiliar), and his annotations for the performances he gave. What he essentially offered was a Bach version of a late Romantic ‘Bach Symphony’ – 4 movements chosen from different Suites to represent a trajectory similar to a Beethoven symphony  – slow introduction and Allegro first movement, Scherzo second movement, slow movement and fast final movement. Mahler’s annotations show that he was aware that the earlier view from Mendelssohn’s time, that one just played the printed notes on the page, was wrong, and that decoration was needed. Interestingly, though, there was no thought from Mahler of giving the performer more freedom to do this – the decorations / dynamics were meticulously laid out (in the same way as they are in his symphonic scores). Was he aware of the contrast between the imposition of his own views on Bach – mixing up Suites – and the micro-managed instructions for his own symphonies? – seemingly not (though it’s not clear whether he actually followed his own instructions when conducting his works, and certainly his pupil conductors all had wildly different views of how the symphonies went), It was moving to see three of these volumes on display, and realise that similar volumes would have been studied during Mahler’s summer composing retreats (Alma Mahler mentions he only ever played Bach in his composing hut), particularly the impact (in terms of Bach’s counterpoint) on the composing of the 5^th Symphony.

….and then on to Mahler 2………..I have heard many fine Mahler 2’s over the years – Klemperer, Haitink, Boulez etc. This was up there with the best of them. The seats I’ve taken for this Festival tend to be at the top of the Gewandhaus hall – at Festival prices, and with 11 concerts to pay for, that was more or less inevitable. The sound though in the hall is extraordinarily good – resonant yet clear, and, from where I was sitting, all-encompassing at the loudest moments (which you need with Mahler), Compared to say sitting in the uppermost area of the Barbican it is an altogether superb acoustic.

I thought Nelsons’ conducting was excellent – it wasn’t in any way ‘showy’, it didn’t draw attention to itself – the tempi seemed right and considered throughout; there was little that was extreme (but that didn’t mean it was boring!) and it was in the best sense a modest performance – meaning not that it was undramatic – it absolutely was! – but rather that orchestra and conductor were felt to be entirely at the service of the music. The whole of the finale – which at least until the climax of the march can seem excessively episodic – sounded as though it had a clear forward drive. I liked too the way Nelsons handled the dynamics – the loud was really loud, the quiet whispered.

What must people have thought of this work in the 1890’s? – it’s quite unlike anything that could easily be heard at that point. Even 130 years later, the violent hammering of the climax of the first movement is jarring – and it seemed so again at this performance, even after my familiarity of over 50 years with this music. Adorno says “Mahler charges tonality with an expression it is no longer constituted to  bear”. That strain was very clear in this performance, and the combination of orchestra and conductor’s approach to the music emphasised the screeching woodwind and the violence of the percussion and timpani. It is remarkable how Mahler uses music to prompt questions about ourselves, and the way we live our lives – really very little music does that so directly. The performers made the ‘shriek’ in the final part of the 3rd movement a very powerful statement that things ought to be better than the life we too often have

As before when I’ve heard the Gewandhaus Orchestra, the playing was truly remarkable – lovely flute playing at tha pivotal point in the finale, beautiful horn, oboe and clarinet playing, and some of the most emphatic timpani playing I’ve ever heard, together with the gorgeous phrasing of the strings – the thunder of the lower strings in the opening was memorable. The chorus was excellent and I really liked the contralto’s voice – warm and with many different colours; she offered us a memorable Urlicht

Inevitably there were a few niggles – the most important of which was that the soprano didn’t really emerge quietly and subliminally from the chorus in her first entry but came in with far too emphatic an entry. The brass had one or two fluffs to contend with – but these things happen…….But altogether this was an exciting, truthful and memorable performance

copyright DG

Bach The Art Of Fugue, Contrapunctus 14; Beethoven Septet; Brahms Piano Quintet in F minor

The programme for this afternoon concert was slightly re-arranged, so that the Bach was followed by the Brahms and with the Beethoven then in the 2^nd half, Unfortunately, it was really the Brahms I had come to hear, and as I was off to Leipzig the following day, I am afraid I gave the Beethoven a miss and sloped off after the Brahms, during the interval.

The pianist was Kathryn Stott, who is a ‘guest artist’ of the Music in the Round chamber music festival of concerts this week, all of which except for this concert I shall miss. The Brahms was a very invigorating performance and it sounded to me very fine – it is a bit of a sensory over-kill when you are seated literally 4 feet from the piano, downstairs in the Crucible and so the music washed over me in a series of undulating crashing waves. I was never bored, but would find it difficult to be objective…………………….

Francis Gush, Julius Caesar; Susanna Hurrell, Cleopatra; Alexander Chance, Tolomeo; Carolyn Dobbin, Cornelia;  Margo Arsane, Sesto; Edward Hawkins, Achilla; Kieron-Connor Valentine, Nireno . Orchestra, The Old Street Band, conducted by Sergey Rybin. Director, James Conway; Cordelia Chisholm, Designer

I went to a performance of this in Manchester about 4 years, from Opera North. Other than that, this work has pretty much escaped me as a live event – sadly the Janet Baker performances at the Coliseum I think were in 1984 – so after I went off to Egypt. I have Baker’s wonderful performance on record, and it has made me very much more enthusiastic about a mezzo in the role than having a countertenor. One thing, incidentally, that strikes me listening to that recording again is how comparatively loose and un-dynamic the orchestral playing under Mackerras seems nowadays. The period instrument band, and its approaches to performance style, can sometimes (in my view) lead to abominations in Mozart and Haydn, but with Handel, the lively playing, the energy and thrust, the speed, all seems to give a new dimension to these works. Undoubtedly the biggest element making this evening a successful one was the Old Street Band, who were outstanding – the strings energetic, pointed and stylish, some lovely oboe playing, and the horns getting through their famous Cesare aria without any glitches, and with some remarkably effective ornamentation at the end of that number.

It is interesting sometimes to go to a performance without having read the programme notes. The production was in 18^th century dress and that seemed throughout the performance a sensible choice and much better than togas and ancient Egyptian gear. Reading a review afterwards it became apparent that the director James Conway had intended a Britain (Rome) and France (Egypt) dichotomy in the costumes. I’m afraid nothing of this came across to someone who hadn’t read the programme notes – so a good idea not too well executed. Likewise, the appearance of Cleopatra in a vision to Cesare was meant to represent the Virgin Mary – creating confusion and horror in the bluff mind of the English Cesare – but again this was totally opaque to me. Other than that, the direction seemed effective – there was action during many of the da capo arias but not over the top. Possibly the scene in the third act which had a still exhausted Valentine, fresh from his sea adventures, at the back, and various combinations of a sleeping Cleopatra, Cornelia and Sesto plus Cesare looked a bit messy.  However, it was interesting that probably the most effective actor on stage was Cleopatra, who used her height and stage presence to often remain in stillness, without any busyness around her.  The set was versatile – in fact is apparently being used for the other two operas being shown in Buxton! There was a platform at the back, with steps down to the main stage; the middle part of the platform was extended forward the audience. The platform on the back had mounted on it a series of panels that could be replaced by curtains or drawn back to reveal a screen right at the back, effectively coloured blue towards the end.

All of the singers were good- there were no weak links. For me, and it is a personal thing, Susanna Hurrell’s Cleopatra was the best performance. Partly it is because she has the best arias, arguably, and while she didn’t cast the spell a great singer would do, her singing was varied, poised, always easy on the ear, affecting when it needed to be, and she coped well with the florid elements of her arias. I was also impressed by Carolyn Dobbin, as Cornelia, and Margo Arsane as Sesto. Cornelia was very much a strong stage presence while some of Sesto’s singing was beautiful.  I have a personal aversion to many counter-tenor voices – which is my problem. Cesare and Tolemeo were both very adequate – Tolomeo could have been hammed up more, possibly, and Cesare didn’t seem enough of a grizzled warrior. I think having a counter-tenor for Tolomeo makes sense, but I would still have preferred a mezzo (who in fact was originally planned for this run, apparently)

I think a few years ago ETO had performed a complete Giulio Cesare uncut over two nights. This one night nearly three hour version was easier to cope with and didn’t seem to have lost any of the major arias – a lot of recitative I think was cut, and some of the da capo arias didn’t  – e.g. Cleopatra’s ‘Da tempeste il legno infrar”, one of my favourites. But all in all, this was an excellent and thoroughly enjoyable evening reminding me again of Handel’s great genius

Conductor, André Callegaro; Orchestra, Early Opera Company; Arminio, Gabrielė Kupšytė; Tusnelda, Sarah Dufresne; Segeste, Josef Jeongmeen Ahn; Varus, Michael Gibson; Sigismondo, Isabelle Peters; Ramise, Kamilla Dunstan; Tullio, Kamohelo Tsotetsi. Director, Mathilda Du Tillieul Mcnicol; Set and Costume Designer, Noemi Daboczi; Lighting, D.M.Wood

This opera is based on events surrounding the Germanic leader Arminius’ leadership of an alliance of Germanic peoples to ambush Roman legions and their auxiliaries, led by Publius Quinctilius Varus at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in AD 9,. The story also involves Arminio’s wife Tusnelda and Varus’ love for her, together with the collaborator King Segeste who is her father. I am sure this is something I will never hear again live before I kick the bucket, so I really wanted to hear it. The opera was performed for the first time at the Covent Garden Theatre on 12 January 1737. Handel was working on several other operas at the same time. The opera was apparently liked by Handel’s admirers but not by the ticket-buying public. Anthony Ashley Cooper, 4th Earl of Shaftesbury wrote in a letter that he found Arminio to be “rather grave but correct and labour’d” (well worked-out) “to the highest degree & is a favourite one with Handel…. But I fear ’twill not be acted very long. The Town dont much admire it.” Arminio only saw six performances, the last one on 12 February. It was not performed again until it was revived in 1935, at Leipzig.

This may not be in the front rank of Handel’s operas and of course public neglect normally has some sort of reasoning behind it – perhaps in this case not enough truly memorable melodic material and no show-stoppers; in something like Alcina there’s just one ‘hit’ after the other…… But this was still a very interesting and enjoyable evening, lasting about two and a quarter hours, so I assume quite a lot of music had been cut. That may explain in part why the pace of the opera seemed admirably brisk in terms of narrative and musical pacing.

The set was simple – and all the better for that. There were two square platforms on either stage – one being Varo’s and Segeste’s office, the other a cell and Arminio’s bedroom. Action took place on these and an otherwise bare stage which sort of worked as a no-mans land between the ‘two camps’ . There was a spectacular battle scene at the conclusion, during which (maybe a cut aria here?) Varo meets Arminio in battle, is unable to kill him and then kills himself before the final happy ending – though it wasn’t quite clear whether Ramise was mixing whisky and ice or a poison for Segeste at the very end! The dress was modern – Romans wearing military uniforms, Segeste a suit. The ‘junior’ couple of Sihismondo and Ramise wore hoodie and puffer jackets. The only oddity was the curtains surrounding the two squares which swished electronically to open and close for different scenes as and when the singers were on the squares- this seemed to have no dramatic purpose and was a distraction (I overheard someone say in the interval they reminded him of being in hospital. Maybe another slight question in my mind, given the importance of the character, was the relative lack of arias for Varo – again were some cut, I wonder?

The story – one of whether to collaborate or revolt against an occupying power – was fairly clear, and obviously remains highly contemporary in theme, though the relationships were the usual opera seria farrago and I had trouble remembering who Sigismondo and Ramise were related to…..As said above, the work as handled by the director Mathilda Du Tillieul McNicol moved with great narrative briskness and with a lot of action happening too in the da capo arias – which could be dangerous in some Handel works but here was justified.

Hearing a period instrument band in this theatre is a joy – the violins zing and buzz. In addition to strings and various sorts of theorbo/lute, there was an oboe, beautifully played. There were also excellent solos by cello and violin in two of the finest arias, both sung by Arminio.

The singers were mostly those being given experience at ROHCG under the Jette Parker Artists scheme. Happily from my perspective there were no hooty counter-tenors – the originally castrato roles of Arminio and Sigismondo were played by women. All the singers justified the support they are being given. Perhaps the standout singers were those in the three main role. Gabrielė Kupšytė as Arminio was outstanding – she has a commanding presence on stage, very clear diction and the ability to point phrases beautifully, as well as dealing capably with the florid bits. Although he sometimes seemed a bit awkward or stolid on stage, Josef Jeongmeen Ahn as Segeste had a rock solid expressive voice with again very clear diction . Finally Sarah Dufresne as Tusnelda hit some lovely high notes and like the other two had the capability to tackle the florid runs in the big arias.

All pictures above and below by Marc Brenner

Falla La Vida Breve: Interlude and Dance; Bartók Violin Concerto No.2; Dobrinka Tabakova Earth Suite: Pacific; Stravinsky The Rite of Spring: Christian Reif conductor; Antje Weithaas, violin

Oddly this is only the second time I have been to the Bridgewater Hall this season – I have been to the Barbican more often……I’m not quite sure why; I guess I am doing a lot and there were several programmes I would very much like to have gone to but I was already booked to be doing something else on those days.

This was a well planned and enjoyable programme. There were several underlying connections between the 4 pieces which the evening brought out – three of them had folk elements; both the Tabakova and the Stravinsky have elements of uneasy stillness at their heart; three of them were written within twenty-five years of each other; none of them are really in any mainstream tradition.

The Falla got everything off to a lively start. But I always seem to have a problem with the Bartok piece and a lot of other works of his. I typically begin listening with enthusiasm and then lose the plot and drift away. Why this is, I’m not sure – I just don’t seem to be able to find a structure in either the first movement of this or the Viola Concerto that allows me to focus. I have similar problems with the quartets. It even happens to me with the lovely 2^nd movement of this work. I am sure this is my problem – as I write this, I am listening to the work again on the old SoltI / Kyung Wha Chung recording, and I’m having the same problem – there is a memorable opening theme, lots of incidental felicities/moments to enjoy, but somehow the whole is less than the sum of its parts.  The soloist – Antje Weithaas – with the Halle is not someone I have heard of before and she was very impressive in her technical grasp of the work, and (although she seems to have been a late substitute) clearly had a good rapport with the conductor. 

The Tabakova (she is a composer in residence at the Halle) piece I liked. This was another example of a new generation going back perhaps 70 to 80 years to pick up thoughts and trends before serialism became all pervasive. ‘Pacific’ was a still, attractive piece with a gradual swell of noise getting louder and softer and with a rather beautiful wandering plaintive melody on combined groups of woodwind and trumpet. I would like to hear it again.

The Stravinsky was superbly played by the Halle and was very exciting. I heard the work performed by the same forces a few years ago, with Elder conducting. This performance seemed tauter, snappier, more driven and undoubtedly more exciting. Yet at the same time there were details – particularly from the woodwind – I don’t recall hearing before, and it didn’t sound rushed. As the timpani and bass drum thwacked, and the motor rhythms got wilder and wilder, I got quite carried away……Reif’s conducting was extraordinarily precise and clear, one of the few times I have been able to work out what a conductor’s beat is actually beating!…..

Things are very quiet on who will take over from Elder at the end of the 23/24 season. They could do worse than this guy….I wonder who is in the frame for this post?