This was the first time I’ve heard the RLPO live in their home base and, indeed, the first time I’ve heard them at all since the 1970s, when they were, I remember, conducted by Charles Groves. They sounded a bit ropey then – now they sound like an extremely fine band. Their hall lacks reverberation, but is better than the Sheffield equivalent, and has good sightlines, though maybe the acoustic did make the heavy brass sounds of this work a bit unrelenting.

Domingo Hindoyan, their new music director, conducted a fast-ish performance of the symphony – it came in just slightly under 77 minutes, as opposed to, say, Reggie Goodall’s 90 – though the Furtwangler recording from Vienna in 1944 is much the same timing as Hindoyan’s. The RLPO sounded, as I said, in great shape under their new boss, , with a  magnificent string sound and stylish brass. Maybe the woodwind were a bit submerged, but that might be Bruckner, or indeed the version used – this was the Haas edition which includes some music, particularly in the slow movement and finale, that the Nowak one leaves out

The best crafted movement, I felt, was the 3rd (slow) one, where the orchestra played beautifully. It had a magnificently managed climax, with the final roar of exaltation sounding wonderful – the elderly lady next to me muttered audibly to her husband “blooody ‘ell’ as the 2nd cymbal crash reverberated round the hall (they had earlier been grumbling about the noise of the brass in the scherzo….). For me the performance was at its best from the trio of the scherzo to the end of the slow movement. The trio’s sudden move to exaltation was particularly well done.

The first movement didn’t quite offer the sense of menace and terror there can be in this music. I found the pace too brisk – imposing moments of drama like the crashing of the brass and timpani near the end of the first movement didn’t have their full impact. The quiet end of the first movement sounded oddly matter of fact. The Finale was too brisk at the start – the timpanist couldn’t articulate his thwacked repeated double notes clearly or forcibly enough before the repetition of the opening theme, but breathing and spacing got better as things went on, and the ending was well handled. Throughout, occasionally phrasing seemed clipped and insufficiently spacious, but the characteristic ticking sound in Bruckner which seems to be signifying world weariness came across well just before the coda in the finale.

Stephen Johnson had provided a very interesting video talk on the RLPOs website which stressed Bruckner’s precarious mental health. I had never really thought about this clearly before but it is very obvious in this work – the sudden plunges into darkness and the music occasionally sounding as though it had lost its way…..

Altogether, I thought that Domingo Hindoyan had the Wagner aspect of Bruckner well displayed, but both the Schubert and God aspects were inhibited by his speeds – there was insufficient time for lyricism and contemplation

The house was by no means full  but the performance was very well received

Finally, at something of a tangent, a photograph I have never seen before, of a very frail Bruckner, just before he died, is attached. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if Mr Hindoyan and the RLPO performed the newly completed version of Bruckner’s 9th symphony which Simon Rattle recorded? Just saying……

Mahler Symphony No.3: Sir Mark Elder, conductor | Alice Coote, mezzo-soprano | Sopranos and altos of the Hallé Choir | Hallé Children’s Choir

This was a hugely enjoyable performance, all the more special because the massed ranks of orchestral players and choristers present on stage, and the sold-out Bridgewater Hall audience packed in to hear them, were all there despite the pandemic being very far from over. The chances of some key players being knocked out by Covid must have been very high – but anyway they all managed to avoid the plague and played/sung magnificently! Hopefully I also avoided getting infected, resplendent in my FFP2 mask.

Mahler 3 is a work I’ve known for at least 55 years. I know it very well indeed – so much so that I try never hear it from a CD or radio performance, but just wait until the next live performance! Perhaps I almost know it too well – I found myself thinking during the breaks in the movements about the trajectory of the work, and realising I had taken Mahler’s programme notes (‘what the flowers tell me’ etc) for what they said, and a bit for granted, without really thinking and feeling much further about the symphony. It seems to me the movement of the work is from the darkness and melancholy of some of the first movement (which re-emerges at the one of the key climaxes of the last movement), through the ‘optimistic’, but maybe superficial, pastoral of the first three movements (and in the 1^st, the jaunty military band music) to what seems to me to be the turning point of the work, the great roar of brass – calling across fathomless depths  – opening up after the last of the post horn music in the third movement , and then to different forms of profundity in the last three movements, all focusing on Nietzsche’s ‘tiefe, tiefe ewigkeit’ .

I felt this was a very strong performance. One of the great things about a live performance of any Mahler symphony is that there is always so much going on in the orchestra that each time you hear something new, some instrumental undercurrent you’d not picked up on before. Sir Mark Elder’s decision to split the violins, as he normally does, gave even more clarity to some of the inner parts. The concert didn’t finish till just before 6 (ie maybe an hour and 50 mins), so this wasn’t a particularly swift performance, but certainly didn’t seem bogged down at any point. Plus points – truly world-class horn, trombone and trumpet playing; a beautiful post-horn performer (seemingly uncredited in the programme), a wonderful rendition of the Nietzsche verses by Alice Coote; the last movement was extremely well-crafted building up to a range of powerful climaxes that wave by wave increased in intensity (Alice Coote seemed to be in tears at the end, overcome by the power of the music – I think many people in the audience shared that feeling. This was the movement where the performance moved from very good to great). Things that might have gone better – I felt the speed of the 5^th movement was a bit too slow, which had the advantage of the sopranos and mezzos being able to articulate their words very quickly but I think the music lost some of the vivacity it should have. I also felt that the first movement’s jaunty military band music sounded a bit too well-mannered and could have done with more vulgarity and rhythmic punch – again, been a bit faster, maybe. But these are minor cavils – it was wonderful to be hearing a huge Mahler symphony with a packed out audience.

Onwards to Bruckner 8 in Liverpool on Thursday……………….the greatest symphony, post-Beethoven, of the 19th century.

PS The 5th movement featured genuine church bells (borrowed from the Liverpool Philharmonic), apparently the first time these have been used in this work in the UK. Personally I thought they were a bit overwhelming….but definitely a splendid sound!

Bach, Cello suites 1 & 3; Ensemble 360 cellist, Gemma Rosefield,

Gemma Rosefield, in a brief interaction with the audience between the two suites, told us that she was playing on a cello made in Naples in 1704 by Alessandro Gagliano, and was formerly owned and played by George IV. Thus, it had been made before the Cello Suites were composed, and think of how many people have played that cello over its 320 year history! Somehow that summed up the impact the cello suites have on me when I listen to them (though I have never heard them live before, which is always going to be a more intense and concentrated experience) – the sense of time stopping, being outside time, their calm peaceful melancholy being for all time. This came both from the idea of this cello before is having been playing before the music it was playing was created, and the world the suites take you into. The music somehow is timeless, and different from other Bach – less Baroque in sound, somehow more contemporary, and this was emphasised by the contemporary piece (something by David Matthews composed for Ms Rosefield) which almost could have been a 7^th movement of the 3^rd suite. I found it helpful too that Ms Rosefield told us before the concert that the heart of each suite was the Sarabande, always the 4^th movement, not something I had really thought about, and which enabled me to ‘place’ the other movements.

So – a lovely evening and, as far as I could tell, extremely well played

BACH Prelude & Fugue in C from the Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I; SCHUMANN Ten Impromptus on a Theme by Clara Wieck Op.5; PROKOFIEV Visions fugitives; BYRD Fantasia in A minor; LIGETI Etude No.10 Der Zauberlehrling; SCHUBERT Fantasie in C Wanderer Fantasy. Mishka Rushdie Momen (piano)

This was my first live concert in nearly 6 weeks. I’d decided to cancel some concerts and operas in London because of the surge in Omicron cases before and after Christmas. Three of the shows I missed I’m not that bothered about having not gone to them – the ROHCG dress rehearsal for Nabucco, the Marriage of Figaro there and the LSO /Karabits Mahlder 4, but one – the Barbican Lise Davidsen recital – got very good reviews and I was sorry not to hear it. I’m also missing out on the dress-rehearsal of ENO’s La Boheme and one of the Jerusalem Quartet’s Beethoven quartet cycle concerts at the Wigmore Hall. But other than these it’s back to live performances….!!

This was a clever bit of programming (a common theme being ‘Fantasies’ of one kind or another – and Ms Mome is clearly an up-and-coming artist, now in her late 20’s, and with a lot of international as well as UK experience. I am not a pianist, and some of what I say below should be read with a fair degree of caution. But – as I hear it, and for what it’s worth – she offers very precise, clear and accurate playing, with maybe a smallish tone – not much thundering here  – and presented in particular a quite phenomenal clarity in the upper areas of the keyboard. The most enjoyable playing was the Wanderer Fantasy which is a great enough piece to accommodate a whole range of stylistic approaches, and I thought this went very well – some beautiful playing in the more lyrical song-based parts, and tremendous logic and attack in the final movement. I also thought the Prokofiev Visions Fugitive went well – this was a piece I’d never heard before, which offered 20 short vignettes, many of them sounding like ghostly, splendid, Tsarist balls, the noble dancers gradually fading into nothingness. At times it sounded like Debussy, even though I believe it was written before Prokofiev settled in Paris. I loved too the clarity and freshness of the Ligeti piece, and the quirky Byrd, its different episodes nicely differentiated.

The Schumann, I’m afraid, had me dropping off to sleep (Schumann often does that to me) and I can’t comment. The one piece I thought didn’t go too well was the Mozart. I can’t quite put my finger on the issue – it was something about phrasing and the gaps between the notes. There seemed to be a dull silence between notes rather than the anticipation of the next one and aftertaste of the last. Does that mean she should have used more pedal – I’m not sure, but it seemed somehow to skate over the surface a little and somehow the subtlety wasn’t there – a bit one-dmensional.

Bach Flute Sonata in E flat BWV1031 – II. Siciliano (arranged by Wilhelm Kempff)[ Chaconne from Partita No. 2 in D minor for solo violin BWV1004 (arranged by Ferruccio Busoni); Prokofiev, Piano Sonata No. 2 in D minor Op. 14; Liszt, Schwanengesang S560 – Ständchen ‘Leise flehen meine Lieder’; Rhapsodie espagnole S254

George Harliono is clearly a very able young artist – this was one of the lunchtime concerts organised by the Young Classical Artists Trust. The Bach Chaconne, in the piano arrangement by Busoni, in particular was very absorbing = grand, but also carefully shaded, with a good dynamic range and with different colours in the piano sound. The Prokofiev was played with accuracy and rhythmic pointedness = in fact it was a likeable, much less spikey piece than I had assumed, and with more of the melodic profile you’d expect from the mature Prokofiev. The Liszt pieces were less interesting, as far as I was concerned – though of course the Schubert song from Schwanengesang is beautiful, but the Spanish Rhapsody seemed fairly empty note-spinning and display (but Mr Harliono did it very well). In many ways the best was last – a beautiful encore of one of the Brahms late intermezzi – 0p 118 no 2.

Anthony Negus, conductor; Matthew Rose (Wotan), Rachel Nicholls (Brünnhilde), Nicky Spence (Siegmund), Emma Bell (Sieglinde), Brindley Sherratt (Hunding), and Susan Bickley (Fricka). Director Richard Jones; design Stewart Laing

After waiting for a long time to see this production, and having been discouraged by the broadly negative responses in the main-stream press (the most positive I saw was in the New York Times – but I wondered who paid for such a trip over to London to see the production!), I was staggered by how good this was – musically and dramatically. Yes, there were a few niggles – the lights didn’t really make the sword shine in the tree in the first act, the pantomime horses owned by the Valkyries got a bit of getting used to (but no sillier than the horse skulls held by Valkyries in the last ROH production), the storm imp in the Ride of the Valkyries was a bit pointless and it was difficult to see why the design team couldn’t have come up with some basic red flames video at the end, the originally conceived fire having been outlawed by Westminster City Council because of horse hair embedded in the stage which caught fire in a rehearsal…….). But the positives were overwhelming – detailed, carefully crafted acting and movement, with the characters on stage really listening and responding to each other, sets that by and large followed Wagner’s stage directions faithfully (though I am glad we didn’t have any rams for Fricka), and some stunning singing. The only real disappointment was John Deathridge’s translation – I can’t see why this was deemed to be more serviceable than the Andrew Porter version of 50 years ago.

Going into more detail, the general atmosphere of the production was dark – no warm colours (maybe that was the reason to block any replacement flame video) and the sparsity of sets on the huge Coliseum stage intensified somehow the focus on the individuals in the drama. Hunding – with the clever introduction of his men, there in the text but not seen before by me in a production – was menacingly and brilliantly sung by Brindley Sherratt. Maybe some of the violence to Siglinde was a bit overdone, but the general menace and brutality was well-portrayed. Emma Bell as Sieglinde was, to me, a revelation – I hadn’t thought that much of her, cast against Stuart Skelton at ROHCG a few years ago, but here in the more sympathetic environment of the Coliseum her voice sounded wonderful – powerful, and beautifully shaded. OK, as the papers went on and on about, her diction wasn’t brilliant, but she was probably the best and most charismatic actor of the evening, conveying clearly the anguish and self-doubt of the role. A marvellous performance. Nicky Spence’s Siegmund was well done, and powerfully sung, but not maybe as well-acted as some of the other roles – he was the only person who at times reverted to the more normal semaphore style of opera performance.

I thought Matthew Rose’s Wotan was tremendous. Rarely can that role have been sung so beautifully, and his diction was impeccable. He also conveyed much of the torment and frustration of the role. I have never been so gripped by Wotan’s Narration in Act 2. Again, the first-night reviewers seemed to be carping at his performance in many ways, particularly in Act 3, but I thought he sustained a long evening incredibly well, with really, really moving singing in the Farewell. Fricka’s of course is relatively a small role, but Susan Bickley made the best of it, and projected a sharply conceived character. Rachel Nicholls was also very convincing as Brunnhilde, making the transition effectively from a teenager to a mature woman in the course of the opera. She pinged out the high top notes with clarity, her diction was good and her voice carried well (I was puzzled by one critic calling it a ‘small voice’)

This was the one performance conducted by Anthony Negus, who had coached the singers. As I am sure they had also for Martyn Brabbins, the orchestra excelled themselves, particularly in Act 3. The pacing of the work seemed just right in Acts 2 and 3 – perhaps slightly on the slow/sluggish side for Act 1, but the great moments of that act were powerfully done nevertheless.

In short, this was a terrific evening. Some of the background to the Scandinavian style of the sets might have been clearer if we had been able to see Rhinegold before Valkyrie, but, as I understand it, the pandemic prevented this. To be frank, yes, of course, old lags like me can refer back to the glory days of the 70’s and the Goodall Ring, and we have the recordings and those are irreplaceable – and few have sung these roles like Bailey, Hunter and Remedios – but in staging and in the overall quality of the singing and acting of many of the roles of the Valkyrie, this was a superior production (there, I’ve said it, may hot coals rain down upon me). And how transformative it is to hear it sung in English

I do hope that the ENO is not put off by the negative press from the first night. It is absolutely essential we see Richard Jones’ vision for the rest of the Ring

Cal McCrystal, Director; takis, designer;  Les Dennis, Sir Joseph Porter;  Elgan Llŷr Thomas, Ralph; Alexandra Oomens, Josephine; Hilary Summers, Buttercup; Chris Hopkins, conductor.

It constantly amazes me that anyone in this age should want to go and see Gilbert and Sullivan. The satire for the most part is feeble, the send-up of opera now wearing very thin after nearly 150 years, the class assumptions only really of historical interest, daft plots and attitudes to women which are often completely at odds with the modern age (though this production managed to trump that by making a running joke about dementia….). Yet the theatre seemed decently full (particularly after a long run) and there were lots of youngish people, not just the G&S addicts mouthing all the words remembered from amateur dramatics in their youth in Dorking – people seemed to be enjoying it. I didn’t, but perhaps I’m in a minority. Yet surely there are better funnier examples of light music worth staging to be unearthed from somewhere…….

This production was slick, clever, with lots of gags, some relatively crude double-entendres, plenty of colour and some good dance routines. All the singers were never less than competent, though some of their West Country accents came and went a bit. Les Dennis, without operatic training, did his famous patter song well but his lack of ability to really project his voice showed – some of the verbal exchanges sounded a bit strained, I thought. The ENO Chorus was outstanding in joining in with the various dance and movement routines – there was also some excellent tap-dancing!

So – a good show but personally one I could have done without

Suk – Fantastic Scherzo; Rachmaninov – Piano Concerto No.4; Dukas -The Sorcerer’s Apprentice; Janácek – Sinfonietta: Halle Orchestra, Sir Mark Elder, conductor and Boris Giltburg,  piano

This was a really excellent concert. This was, from my perspective, because:

• The programming was clever – two works from the mid-1920’s, two ‘late’ works (Rachmaninov and Janacek), two stand-along scherzo-like works; two works in G (Suk and Rachmaninov)
• I knew really well the Sinfonietta and the Dukas (or thought I did) and the Suk and the Rachmaninov were pretty well unknown to me
• The works chosen brought out the best in those performing

The hall was very full, as it should have been for such a great concert

The scherzo by Suk had a lovely tune at the heart of it, and was very approachable, but I thought it went on too long – there was a lot of repetition, really, and I lost focus occasionally. But it was beautifully played by the Halle, particularly by the woodwind.  

The Rachmaninov was a riveting performance – I really need to get to know this work better. It dates from the earlier part of Rachmaninov’s exile and you can hear occasional Gershwin-y phrases and harmonies, and motor rhythms that might come from his US experiences and travel. It begins with a broad sweeping sound that seems like the ending of some of Rachmaninov’s previous pre-1917 works, and becomes steadily darker and more complex, more angular and biting, more severe, and concentrated.  Giltburg’s performance seemed extraordinarily good – sensitive, flexible, spectacular where needed. As an encore, Giltburg played Rachmaninov’s Etude-Tableaux Op.39 No.2 in A Minor, which, though pre-Revolutionary, was equally questing and strange (indeed until the BBC the next day put the title on its website I thought he might have been playing Scriabin) and in fact both Rachmaninov works are heavily chromatic in the way Scriabin is

The Dukas I am afraid is too associated, for me, with Mickey Mouse to make much of an impact….The Janacek Sinfonietta though was extraordinary. I thought I knew this piece well, but realised (after Sir Mark’s pre-concert talk) that I had quite missed what this work was meant to be about…a celebration of Czech nationalism, and in particular the end of German domination which was particularly unfortunate in Brno during the First World War, with accusations of torture. It has a universal appeal through its contrasts of light and darkness, I guess, and what was special about this performance was the bite and clarity of the performance. The 13 extra brass players needed (in addition to the 12-13 in the orchestra proper) were placed in the Choir seats, so their music projected magnificently into the hall. But also I think Sir Mark took some of the music more slowly than other performances I’ve heard and this allowed a greater clarity and bite to the overall sound, and also a much greater dynamic range . The Halle woodwind and brass were magnificent. Undoubtedly the best performance I have heard live of this marvellous piece.

Fantasia – Matteis; O Mirium – Ruta Vitkauskaite; Elsewhere – Finnis; Sarabande in D Minor – Bach; Tinge – Michael Gordon; Outshifts (3 Movements) – Emily Hall; Curved Form – Alex Groves; LAD – Julia Wolfe:  Rakhi Singh- Solo Violin Recital

This was a somewhat different concert to the type I’d normally attend, but also quite odd in terms of audience composition. Rakhi Singh is not a name I’ve come across before but she is music director for Manchester Collective, which I’ve heard of and which did a very good concert at the Proms earlier this year.

She performed wired up to a big loudspeaker/audio system that, in addition to amplifying her sound, and picking up the harmonies and resonances from it, could also, for some numbers, provide a backing electronic track, and with two technicians in tow.

There were two ‘conventional’ Baroque works, the Matteis piece and the Bach. The Matteis was interesting  – he was the earliest notable Italian Baroque violinist in London and a composer of significant popularity in his time, though he had been utterly forgotten until the later 20th century. His work showed the same sort of desire to experiment with the sorts of sounds a violin can make as some of the contemporary works in the programme. The Bach piece was soulful, contemplative and well-played, though I wish Ms Singh had switched off the amplifier and just played both these pieces acoustically.

Other than these, the two best pieces were, I thought, by Ruta Vitkauskaite and Emily Hall. The name and background of the first of these pieces was not explained but its violin work and backing electronic track was very attractive and absorbing to listen to – I had heard another of her pieces a few weeks earlier at a MITR concert. The background to Hall’s piece was explained – something to do with the space between countryside and cities. I had no idea how the music related to this idea, but again I liked its ruminative and thoughtful movement. There were two pieces that were more like musical/electronic doodling – the Finnis and the Groves, both making use of the ability to mix/amplify sounds and of the violin’s ability to make odd sounds when played in unusual ways. I found these a bit of a waste of time, after a first few absorbed minutes. The other two pieces were noisy, more folk/rock based and both great fun – the Gordon and the Wolfe, particularly the latter, where the violin was attempting to emulate the sound of 9 bagpipes…..

The audience was odd – maybe 100 or so, but nearly all foreign students from the University. I wonder if someone had told them to go……they weren’t music students, they said (when Ms Singh asked) – engineering, digital media, all sorts. …….They seemed to be a bit bemused, and indeed we had to be instructed by Ms Singh to clap a bit more at the end of the performance than we had at the end of the first half, otherwise ‘I’ll feel a bit of a lemon’, she said. We did rouse ourselves sufficiently to be quite enthused by the bagpipes’ piece, though not enough for a return to the stage by Ms Singh.

I’m glad I went to this – always good to go to something out of the ordinary……..

Howell, Lamia; R. Strauss, Four Last Songs; R. Strauss, Serenade; Mozart Symphony No.41, ‘Jupiter’: Halle Orchestra – Christian Reif, conductor; Natalya Romaniw, soprano

This was interesting programming – both the Strauss Serenade and the Howell piece were written when their composers were precociously young – 17 and 20 respectively – and of course Mozart was a child prodigy; the 4 Last Songs are completely at the end, and Mozart’s last symphony, nearly at the end of each composer’s prodigious output; the Howell piece sounded very Straussian; and, of course, R.Strauss revered Mozart and the period he represented all his life.

Sadly the Howell piece – though remarkably confident in its orchestration and taking its cue from Debussy and R.Strauss – was not really that interesting. The Halle produced some gorgeous sounds but the piece isn’t really that attractive melodically, and, though following a clear story-line, didn’t really engage (at least) me as a listener. It would be nice to declare it a neglected masterpiece, but it isn’t, unfortunately. The other youthful piece, the Strauss Serenade, is a much more interesting and effective piece – it’s for wind instruments, and is clearly built on a Mozartian model, with some very enjoyable melodies. It was extremely well played by members of the Halle wind section.

The highlight of the evening was Natalya Romaniw singing the Four Last Songs. I thought this was world-class singing and it’s surprising (unless it’s her own choice) that she has done so little work outside the UK (Houston and France, looking at her website). I wondered at first in the early part of the first song, ‘Spring’, whether she would be able to offer enough variation and light and shade. In the other three songs she delivered that in spades – some wonderfully soft and sensitive singing, some thrilling full-blast notes, scrupulous attention to the text and altogether an overwhelmingly radiant voice. I was very moved by this performance. The Halle played very well and there was some outstanding horn playing. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a finer performance live of the last song. ‘Im Abendrot’.

The Mozart was more problematic. OK, I know the heading of the 1^st movement of the Jupiter is ‘allegro vivace’, but In Christian Reif’s account it was more like ‘allegro maniacale.! The first movement was ridiculously fast, apart from an odd quirk at the beginning whereby the opening chords had an overlong pause before the soft string reply began (the Halle seeming to be caught out the first time it happened, with a ragged entry). To be fair, by contrast, I thought the finale was well-managed – a steady speed, and a very effective handling of dynamics, as well as bringing clarity of the inner parts in the orchestra (it DOES all sound much better when slower!). The inner movements were also quite well done. Also, Reif did the outer movement repeats – always a plus point! Mr Reif is a young German conductor who is currently working with the San Francisco orchestra. His work on Lamia and the 4 Last Songs shows he’s clearly talented