The programme was: Prokofiev: Symphony No 1 in D major, ‘Classical’; Bach: Keyboard Concerto in F minor, BWV 1056; Mozart: Piano Concerto No 24 in C minor, K 491 and Shostakovich: Symphony No 9 in E flat major

Of the Proms I’ve been to this year, this was (a) the fullest, with the choir nearly fully occupied, and the upper areas quite full; also, (b) the first one this year where I was standing in the Arena (out of respect for those I live with and my neighbours, for the other Proms to date I have been in relatively  socially distanced stalls seats). I was reminded again why standing in the arena is such a fantastic experience – 1. The sense of community; 2. The fact that the front half of the Arena offers actually the best sound in the Albert Hall.3. it’s quite a liberating experience to be standing – you can actually slightly sway with the music, tap your feet / use your body to express emotion without annoying your neighbour….I found it interesting this was the fullest Prom to date – I am sure part of the reason is that it offered full measure, as opposed to the measly 62 minutes scheduled in all for the Rattle / LSO Stravinsky programme. The BBC have also reined in a bit the space allowed for the wretched camera boom in the Arena, after, I am sure, a lot of complaints.

The concert had meant to be conducted by the Philharmonia’s new chief conductor, Finnish conductor Santtu-Matias Rouvali, but he was unable to perform due to ‘scheduling difficulties’ – presumably problems with quarantining, but this still didn’t look too good – to stand down your new orchestra on their first performance with you after the appointment. It’s worth noting that Rouvali seems to be the only boss or departing boss of the London orchestras not to get all his ducks in a row (Rattle, Jurowski and Petrenko appear to have none of those mysterious “scheduling difficulties”). He replaced the great Esa-Pekka Salonen, whose loss, like Jurowski, is a major blow for London.  The Estonian conductor Paavo Järvi was a more than acceptable and welcome substitute on this occasion – as the soloist put it a ‘super-sub’!

The major attraction of the concert (it was the first one of the Proms to run out of socially restricted tickets in June) was hearing the young Icelandic pianist Vikungur Olafsson, who has received much praise for his solo recital albums of Philip Glass, Bach and Debussy/Rameau – all of which I’ve got on MP3 and which are very good indeed.

First though we heard the Prokofiev, which was controlled, elegant, and not an obstacle race for the orchestra, as it’s sometimes played. There was lovely woodwind playing, and sharply pointed strings, encouraged by Jarvis discreet gestures. When I’ve heard this performed eg by Gergiev and the LSO it has been a manic scramble – fascinating to watch and list en to, like an athletics match – but not the best way of presenting the music

Both the Bach and Mozart were superb performed by Olafsson and the orchestra. Tempi in the Mozart were, to my ears, decidedly slower than in many performances, but this seemed part of the overall conception of the work. Olafsson produced some beautifully soft playing in the slow movement of the Bach and throughout the Mozart – his playing throughout was crystalline and led you inwards into yourself, in the way all the best pianists do – he seemed to be having his own conversation with the music. How he would sound in a Brahms or Rachmaninov concerto I have no idea, but this sort of reflective subtle playing seemed absolutely right – though not the only way – for Mozart and Bach. He was also imaginative with decorations in the Mozart. I shall look forward to listening to these performances again on TV. As his first encore – a special treat – he played a transcription of the Bach Organ Sonata No 4 Andante. This was a lockdown favourite of mine, on his DG Album of Bach transcriptions. He also played some more Mozart – I recognised it but could not remember what it was; I read later it was Mozart’s Ave Verum Corpus. Altogether he reminded me of Radu Lupu – a similar pianist poet. As befits a super-star, lots of people were holding up their phones for photos at the end!

Finally, the Shostakovitch 9……. This was very well done. I last heard this live in Munich about 5 years ago with Gergiev and the Munich Philharmonic. That was very good but this performance – and of course Jarvi, like Gergiev, grew up in the Soviet era – I thought was better. It projected more of the extremes and darkness and forced jollity in the movements, and gave more of a sense of the anguish and terror behind the brightness. The way the mournful long bassoon solo in the penultimate movement morphed into the falsely jolly last movement was superbly played – and the brass and percussion were encouraged, rightly, I think, to be over-bearing and bombastic in that movement and some of the earlier ones. Shostakovitch’s comment about this work, that “a transparent, pellucid, and bright mood predominates” , hardly seems ‘transparent’, and I am sure the Soviet authorities thought likewise – that this was Shostakovitch bluffing It was inevitable that the work played its part in Zhdanov’s denunciation of Shostakovitch in 1948.

My 6^th Prom this year! – so far this one and the LPO two days earlier have been the best. I have 3 more mountains to climb – Tristan and Isolde, Mahler 5 and the St Matthew Passion in late August/September

The programme was: – Anthony Payne: Spring’s Shining Wake; Berlioz: Les nuits d’été; and Beethoven’s ‘Pastoral’ symphony. It was originally to be conducted by Sir Andrew David, but sadly he was in mourning for his late wife, and Martyn Brabbins took over instead.

To me, this concert seemed to be a tale of two halves. The first half frankly left me a bit restless. Anthony Payne, who died recently, to me is always going to be associated with his wonderful performing version of Elgar’s Third Symphony, and all praise and honour to him for that, but he was also, of course, a quite widely performed composer in his own right. In ‘Spring’s Shining Wake’ , now about 30 years old, I understood what he was trying to do – to achieve a contemporary equivalent to Delius’ ‘In a Summer Garden’ and I could appreciate the cleverness of the textures – but , my goodness, it was tedious, and seemed to go round and round in circles to no great effect. Sorry, but….

Les nuits d’été is one of those works I always feel I should like more than I actually do. I have been able to listen live in concert to several very, very good performances, probably the best being the one sung by Janet Baker and conducted by Pierre Boulez in August 1971 at the Proms, the concert also including Mahler’s 9^th. Those were the days…..And this was another excellent performance, with Sarah Connolly’s singing being quite beautiful and also sensitive to the nuances of the poetry. But I find the combination of the over-ripe almost exaggerated Romantic verse, and the fact that Berlioz’s songs are not that strong – as I hear them – in melodic content, means that I find myself getting bored or just dropping off to sleep. This is my problem, I know – just saying……But it  – to stress- was a VERY good performance

Suddenly, and rather surprisingly, thing perked up in the second half. I was feeling a bit despondent and not thinking the Beethoven would be all that special. But it was! Maybe just as a reaction to the first half, maybe because of where I sat (close to the strings, almost in the bowels of the orchestra in the Side Stalls) but I felt this was an extremely well-balanced and well-played performance that kept me engaged throughout.  My complaint with all the live performances I’ve heard of this work, and many of the recorded ones (maybe only Furtwanger, Cluytens and C.Kleiber on record would not be in this category) is that they’ve been too fast, particularly in the 2^nd and last movements. I remember being particularly irritated hearing Karajan and the BPO perform the work live in 1972 and reacting to their speeds – and also with Colin Davis, whom I heard conduct this piece several times.  So, it was remarkable that I felt Brabbins’ performance was absolutely right, and indeed this was probably the best live Beethoven 6 I have ever heard. There were several reasons for this – extremely fine orchestral playing, including some beautiful work from the oboes, clarinet and flutes; well-judged tempi that allowed the melodies to be enjoyed but Not over-savoured; the orchestra was extremely well-balanced and the climaxes were very well-judged (a very wide sonic range). Somehow, for once, the speed of the 2^nd and last movement didn’t matter, and the orchestra really seemed to enjoy Brabbins’ unobtrusive, careful, attentive and supportive conducting. A fine performance that, as I thought it should, got an extremely favourable audience response at the end.

The programme was: Stravinsky: Jeu de Cartes; Walton: Cello Concerto; Bach: 14 Canons (Goldberg Variations) arr F.Goldmann (UK premiere); Hindemith: Symphony ‘Mathis der Maler’

This was very clever programming – a cluster of works from the mid-century, and the Bach connecting to the Hindemith in its use of fugue-like methods and was a really interesting and enjoyable concert. I have recordings of the Walton and the Hindemith works but it’s ages since I listened to them. I might have heard the Stravinsky at the Proms almost 50 years ago (1974) but possibly not……I’ve never heard the Hindemith piece ‘live’, and the only time I’ve sat down and heard the Walton ‘Cello Concerto all the way through in a focused way was in 1970 when Adrian Boult conducted it in a memorable concert which also included the VW Tallis Fantasia and Elgar 1.  As an aside, I did see Walton conduct at least once – the concert I remember was in 1968 with an assorted collection of choral societies – Huddersfield etc – when he conducted Belshazzar’s Feast and extracts from Facade, seemingly not very engaged and as though this was music he had little to do with.

The first item in the programme – the Stravinsky – I have to say I didn’t really warm to; there were the neo-classical touches later exemplified by the ‘Rake’s Progress’, and the motor rhythms of an earlier period of his work, but the piece didn’t really engage me; and, to be fair, it might have seemed different seeing it as a ballet. But the Walton piece I was very impressed by. I had rather thought that the ‘Cello Concerto was a pale after-thought compared to the Violin and Viola Concerto of the 30’s (the Cello Concerto was premiered in 1956) but listening to it again, I thought it was a wonderful work, full of something ‘rich and strange’, to quote Ariel, with a special sound world – maybe a bit like the 2^nd Symphony. I loved the opening – maybe something a little like Prokofiev – ticking accompaniment to the melody played by the cello, and indeed it is a wonderfully tuneful work throughout (again, the Prokofiev comparison seems apt). There is also the sharpness and snappiness of the 30’s Walton in the second and parts of the last movement, and I enjoyed the soliloquies given to the cello in that movement too, and the way the opening theme comes back in the closing moments of the work. I was a bit off centre seat-wise so Steven Isserlis sometimes sounded a bit distant, but he was playing it wonderfully well, as far as I could tell. What a pity the musical establishment dismissed Walton’s works from the 50’s, like this and Troilus and Cressida (I have just bought Mirga/CBSO’s account of the symphonic suite from that opera – I must remember to hear it, I would love to see it live). I remember Andre Previn in the 70’s trying to persuade Walton to write a Third Symphony, but he was , I think, too disheartened to really take this up.

The Bach was an oddity – 14 canons discovered 50 years ago, authentically deemed to be written by Bach, which used the ‘Goldberg’ theme, but not used in the Goldberg Variations, and then orchestrated by a German conductor/composer. The orchestration, I felt, really didn’t work – it almost trivialised music which would have sounded sonorous and impressive on a keyboard. Hearing a trombone and a trumpet play a Bach canon is not at all the same thing…..

The Hindemith again was a bit of a revelation. A problem with MP3 downloading is that you often have no sleeve or CD notes to refer to, so I had only a sketchy idea of what the work was about or its place in German musical history. I had assumed that Hindemith’s music had been from 1933 outlawed by the Nazis as a ‘decadent’ and hadn’t realised that Furtwangler on behalf of the Berlin Phil had actually commissioned this work (ie a symphony based upon music from the opera), which was performed in March 1934, and was heard by many, in its blazing conclusion, as a statement asserting artists’ right to independence and affirming the power of art against political interference. I had always also thought that Hindemith was a bit of a note-spinner – too many notes, too much chugging along without much happening, too much, in a sense, fertility. Actually sitting down to listen to this music, with a programme book in front of me, made me recognise what a life-affirming and strong work this was. I loved the first movement’s energy and the final statement of its main theme with full orchestra including glockenspiel was thrilling. The anguish of the first part of the third movement – given the political context – was very moving, as was the quiet violin trills leading to a new affirmative theme, which is blazed out at the end by the full orchestra like a chorale, after more fugal turmoil (or was it the first movement’s theme being proclaimed?).  I felt very privileged to get to know this work fully for the first time.

Throughout the LPO and Jurowski performed wonderfully well. The LPO made a glorious expansive sound, with outstanding solo work from the woodwind and brass, and, as a whole, just sounded more glowing and emphatically together than some of the orchestras I heard last week. It is sad Jurowski is leaving London as a chief conductor; his programming has always been interesting and he has brought many neglected works to London. The Royal Philharmonic Society gave him a medal after the concert, which was thoroughly deserved.

Ensemble 360 musicians Ruth Gibson and Tim Horton performed the 1919 Viola Sonata by Rebecca Clarke and Schubert’s Arpeggione Sonata, transcribed for the viola

A worthwhile concert. Though I have a recording of the Schubert, I have never really listened to it and it was lovely to hear this work live, when there was time to concentrate and focus, and to enjoy both the characteristic melancholy and freshness of the sonata. The Clarke sonata was interesting, though I am not sure I would ever search it out to hear again – like the previous evening’s Ruth Gipp work, Vaughan Williams was the obvious influence. It has to be said – and this would be true of both this work by Clarke and the work by Gipp – that they are no better and no worse than many other pieces by Moeran, Bliss, Ireland, Bridge etc, and that the fact that both pieces were written by women has played a part in their being buried by history – however it doesn’t mean their neglect is unjustified, any more than the neglect of many other works written by the aforesaid males!

The programme was: Ruth Gipps: Symphony No. 2 in B major, Thomas Adès: The Exterminating Angel Symphony, and Brahms 3.

It’s staggering to think that just on Monday the CBSO would have been performing Rhinegold with BOC, and they performed this same concert in Birmingham on Wednesday evening. They must have had very little time to rehearse these pieces and get down to London. All the more reason then to admire the quality of their playing, and of the interpretations. The CBSO had clearly decided to define their own boundaries in the RAH for their COVID-framed performance and to increase the orchestra (and therefore the utilised hall space) rather than fit within the RAH-determined limits of the ‘stage’. The violins and double basses were therefore extending way into the RAH side stalls. This seemed to me to be a good solution that increased the power and urgency of the music-making. It was great to see Mirga conducting – close-up I was more aware of her quite unorthodox (or so it seemed to me) conducting technique, with very little phrasing encouraged – her arms go up and down together – though with a lot of use of head and eyes for cues. Anyway, whatever the technique, it certainly gets results…..!

The symphony by Ruth Gipps was clearly a journey from some sort of innocence or calm through distress to resolution. There was a memorable main theme that was symphonically developed and worked on throughout. The work is in one continuous movement which, however, falls into several clearly-defined sections, with a tempo di marcia serving as the scherzo, and a nostalgic and heart-felt adagio to follow. The overall thrust is one of optimism, despite some shadows along the way, and the work ends affirmatively. While it had obvious influences from Vaughan Williams and had some of the qualities one might associate with Malcom Arnold, it seemed to have a status of its own and to me seemed a well-crafted and effective piece – another work I don’t know which I will buy a recording of. Indeed I’d never even heard of Ruth Gipps until the Proms brochure came out.  It called for a large orchestra, and Mirga and the CBSO played it extremely well. It might not be a masterpiece but it was definitely worth hearing.

The Adès work calls itself a Symphony, and the programme note made a case for this.  To me the case is not convincing, and the point of this Ades ‘symphony’, it seems to me, is to provide a summary and showcase, a set of profiles, for some of the brilliant and exciting episodes of music Ades has written for the Exterminating Angel opera. There were four movements with mad waltzes – maybe even a hint of tango – a la Ravel – and sinister quiet pieces, maybe also a glimmer of light and hope at one or two points. I found it – as I found the opera – extremely absorbing, and want to listen to it again. I am very disappointed Covid cancellations meant that I never got to hear a planned performance at the RFH of Ades’ ‘The Tempest’, said to be his best opera to date. I am really looking forward to his ballet the Dante Project at ROHCG in October (insh’allah). The performance by the CBSO was exuberant and overwhelming – a magnificent sound!

The Brahms I found less convincing – it is a much more difficult work to carry off, with an uneasy mixture of melancholy and raw agitation, and my more equivocal response might be to do with the way the RAH’s acoustics. conveyed the performance While the inner two movements were beautifully shaped and played, particularly the second movement, the first movement to me sounded marginally too fast to give room for nuances and pointing, while the finale seemed to lack  – maybe the social distancing factor – a really powerful string sound (that may be because of where I was sitting, I will listen again on I-Player) which is needed to give a propulsive forward motion to the music. Also the final fluttering repetitions, like falling leaves, of the symphony’s opening theme in the strings seemed to be lost in the over-loud brass and wind chords at the end. The performance, as it faded into silence, was marred by an idiot shouting ‘bravo’ as soon as the last chord had sounded – he should have been summarily arrested by the ushers and interred in the depths of the RAH.

This was the first Prom concert I’d been to this year which was televised. An already squeezed Arena had even more space roped off to accommodate a giant crane-type object which held a camera ranging across the stage. As all the Proms seem to be far from full this year, it’s not a big issue, but I have seen this machine in use in previous years without taking up anything like as much audience space. I hope this is not setting a precedent for future years……!

The programme was Vaughan Williams: Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, Respighi: Concerto gregoriano, and Mendelssohn: Symphony No. 5 in D major, ‘Reformation’. The RPO’s new chief conductor, Vasily Petrenko, was in charge, with Japanese violinist Sayaka Shoji in the Respighi piece. This was Petrenko’s first concert in his new role with the RPO

This was a really engaging and excellent concert, with one work I have never heard before – the Respighi – and one work I know extremely well, the Vaughan Williams, with the Mendelssohn in-between

Petrenko’s conducting was detailed, expressive and vivid, clearly inspiring his players throughout all three works – we are lucky to have him regularly appearing in the UK (very different from yesterday), given his commitments to one of the major orchestras in Russia. He conducted from the score but was very far from having his head in it!

The programming of this concert was very clever -to bring together three pieces of music with a religious theme, and two of them in close fundamental relationship through Gregorian chant being  at the historical roots of Tallis’ music as well as the Respighi piece.

In the Vaughan Williams Tallis piece the RAH’s space and elevations were used to good effect  – there was a clearly separate string section of 7-8 players behind the main orchestral strings, and a quartet of soloists within that main group. The Tallis was taken faster than I’ve heard it some times, but felt suitably spacious and solemn

The Concerto Gregoriano is a violin concerto by Respighi, inspired by the history and music of early Christianity, such as plainsong and Gregorian chant.. Seemingly an early work, written in 1921, it was premiered the following year in Rome. I was unaware of its existence until the Proms brochure came out. Scored for a big orchestra  – 5 horns and a celesta and harp, for instance – it was a lively and colourful piece and I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would, with a particularly beguiling last movement (splendidly brazen horn opening). The soloist from what I could tell performed her part very well. I am not sure whether impetus for choosing this work came from Petrenko, the BBC or the RPO, but Petrenko clearly has a good nose for neglected works (see for instance his recent disc of Schreker and Zemlinsky. I want to buy a recording of this work to get to know it more – it’s not a masterpiece but it is good fun, and both touching and exciting at times

Readers of this blog may know that Mendelssohn is not my favourite composer but the drive and energy Petrenko and the orchestra gave to their performance kept me listening attentively and to my surprise I found the work not too tweely Victorian or sentimental, and the use of the Lutheran hymn Ein Feste Burg and the Dresden Amen didn’t sound trite. I thought Petrenko and the RPO’s performance of this work was about as good as it gets!

Somehow the whole evening felt as though the Proms spirit was picking up steam – there was a lot of cheering at the end and some of the really special Proms silences – eg in the slow movement of the Mendelssohn. Is understandable concern about returning to live big events beginning to recede? I hope so…..

I am looking forward to the performances Petrenko is giving (I already have tickets for them) of the Britten War Requiem and Mahler 8 in 2022.

The programme was Haydn Symphony No. 103 in E flat major ‘Drumroll’, Mozart Piano Concerto No. 23 in A major, and Beethoven Symphony No. 4 in B flat major. The conductor was Ben Gernon and the soloist Elisabeth Brauss with the BBC Philharmonic. This was my first Prom in just over 2 years and it felt quite emotional to be back in that enormous arena which I have inhabited most years at some point since 1968. Things were very different though, and of course it is a huge achievement to have got 6 weeks of Proms up and running, given the huge challenges involved over the last few months (indeed tickets for some parts of the Hall only went on sale 10 days ago). Inside the Hall, half the arena was taken up with an extended stage. The Hall Stalls and Loggia / Grand Tier areas felt pleasantly full but most of the upper circle was empty – I guess due to both the vagaries of ticket sales, and that there’s still quite a lot of people worried about attending mass events. I was seated at the side stalls which, in the current reshaped context, meant being right behind the double basses – hence the sound I heard was inevitably unbalanced  – though it was great to be so near the players.

Both the Haydn and the Mozart works in the first half were performed very well, I thought. In the Haydn, the woodwind playing was beautiful, trumpets, horns and drums weren’t over-bearing, rhythms were springy, and the whole performance radiated a sense of enjoyment in shared music-making – nothing was over-driven. The uncomfortable drum roll and the slightly eerie – dies irae-like – string harmonies at the beginning and end of the work weren’t overdone.The darker harmonies and tones in the Mozart were also well conveyed – again, excellent woodwind playing…..The soloist – but it was difficult to hear how she might have sounded from the front (I was listening to her from the side)….sounded as though she had a small precise tone for Mozart, but that is not inappropriate and she produced some sensitive phrasing, as well as precision.

I was not so convinced by the Beethoven – this might have been again a problem from where I was sitting, but there didn’t seem to be enough energy and bite in the string sound. This could have been a problem with the socially distanced strings, and there simply being not enough of the violins and violas, so that woodwind tended to predominate (something they didn’t do in the Haydn and Mozart – Beethoven’s sound is richer and thicker,), or maybe something to do with the orchestra not using period instruments (I missed the thwack of early 19^th c timps) or maybe (looking at his podium posture). There was also some imprecision in the strings at time – e.g. at the beginning of the first movement. Mr Gernon just wasn’t energetic enough in his approach, or not conveying that energy to the audience. Beethoven – unlike Mozart! – does need to be driven, I find

But these are minor qualms – this was a really enjoyable return to the Proms!

 

This was an altogether enthralling and deeply engaging performance.

The set was a circular stage with two ramps for entrances and exits in the middle of the Symphony Hall stalls, with only a few props – gold in pots, chairs and table and a model of Valhalla. The lighting was focused around giant stands, switched on and off very explicitly, which I suppose was making a point about the life lived by the gods in the limelight.

Wagner held utopian socialist views in the 1840’s and early 1850’s, and, though they later became less all-determining in his thinking, they contribute important elements to the development of The Ring, and remained with him till the end of his life. Cosima Wagner’s Diaries in 1877 describe Wagner journeying up the Thames and expressing the view that London was “Alberich’s dream come true – Nibelheim, world domination, activity, work, everywhere the oppressive feeling of steam and fog“. Wagner had already issued a clarion call for “Revolution” in an essay by that name just prior to the May 1849 revolt in Dresden. Like Bakunin, his revolution was a call to instinct and to vitalism. It was a romanticism of revolt that sought the overthrow of states because they suppressed the instinct, the vitality of life. He saw revolution as a “supernatural force” and referred to it as “a lofty goddess.” Wagner wrote: “I [the revolution] am the ever rejuvenating, ever fashioning Life. I will destroy every wrong which has power over men. I will destroy the domination of one over the other, of the dead over the living, of the material over the spiritual, I will shatter the power of the mighty, of the law and of property. Man’s master shall be his own will, his own desire his only law, his own strength his only property. “

How to regenerate the modern world was throughout Wagner’s life an abiding concern – though his operas have very different answers to those questions both in relation to each other and even within the one work. The Ring is itself both informed by the pessimistic philosophy of Schopenhauer (some have even argued for a Christian version of the Ring) and the earlier socialist perspective. Like any great work of art, The Ring has an infinite range of possible interpretations, but one based upon a socialist perspective makes perfect sense for Das Rheingold (less so for Gotterdammerung, say), and of course the famous Bayreuth Centenary Chereau Ring focused on frock-coated top-hatted Victorian capitalist gods.

This Rheingold – or rather RhineGold, since it was sung in an excellent English new translation – makes the Gods celebrities and populist figures – Wotan has a blingy watch, designer shoes, a shell-suit and is constantly speaking to the media (a slogan says ‘Your Lives Matter’), Fricka’s costume has a WAG look to it. The Rhine Girls are seen as in cahoots with the gods to protect the gold from the hoi polloi, and wear glittery mini-dresses, with high heels and selfie sticks . One wears a MAGA hat, and another a bishop’s mitre and cross. Alberich is seen as a Deliveroo cyclist, and the dwarves come across as hoody-wearing outsiders, some also wearing cycling helmets and Deliveroo baskets (the Tarnhelm itself becomes a cycling helmet.) Fasolt and Fafner wear hard hats, and not very smart suits and ties. The theme is therefore definitely one of a divided society, with a privileged elite and many others who are excluded outsiders, becoming a collective ‘other’ who, dressed in rainbow hoodies, both menace and adulate the gods at the end of the opera (see picture below.) Alberich comes across, therefore, more sympathetically than in some productions – he is making the best of one of the few chances of life-betterment open to him when he renounces love and takes the gold.

As an interpretation it was consistent and convincing. I suppose what it leaves out is the whole element of the despoiling of Nature by human beings which is another interpretation of the role of the Rhine maidens and the gold, and the end of Gotterdammerung which implies some sort of return to a ‘natural’ state reborn – and of course that is also what is behind Erda’s intervention at the end of Rheingold – the warning of Nature. The approach taken perhaps also doesn’t take sufficiently into account the fact that Wotan is responsible for contracts and treaties, for the realm of public order – this is part of his whole dilemma in Walkure. We will never know now how Graham Vick (who died two weeks before the opening night) might have continued this Ring, but Richard Willacy as Director clearly carried out the spirit of what Vick would have wanted.

Eric Greene was outstanding as Wotan, with stature and voice for the role (fraying a bit sometimes on the top notes, but sounding magnificent in his final reflections where the sword motif is introduced). And equally Loge played by Brenden Gunnell was brilliantly performed, as a gay hipster or heavy metal biker (red string vest, leather jacket, lots of metal, painted red nails) who was also sinister as Wotan’s violent enforcer. Chrystal E Williams as Fricka had a beautiful voice but her diction was sometimes unclear. Fasolt played by Keel Watson and Fafner by Andrew Slater were very good indeed – excellent voices, good diction and Slater had a wonderful line in sly menace (and, as he should, Watson showed the vulnerability of Fasolt). Alberich was well sung and characterised by Ross Ramgobin but his diction was sometimes unclear and maybe he sounded slightly underpowered at times – he was also ‘guilty’ of over-acting at some key moments. The huge – by Covid standards – CBSO offered wonderful -playing. Alpesh Chauhan’s performance by timing was really quite slow – I made it two hours 35 minutes, almost a Goodall-like speed, but it never felt as though the music was dragging, and climaxes were well pointed. As in all good Wagner conducting there seemed to be a seamless arc of music from the CBSO and Chauhan, with an onward measured flow which was carefully varied and correlated to meet the different moods of the music and what’s happening on stage without ever becoming disjointed.

One of the best things I’ve seen in ages!!

My last visit to the Buxton Festival was a mixed affair – John Casken’s new work The Shackled King, a music drama based on the King Lear story, was the main ‘second half’ work, and with it in the first half a compilation called “Brunnhilde’s Dream”, a sequence of songs by Wagner, Mendelssohn, Schubert, Schumann, Zemlinsky, Berg, Szymanowski, Henze, and Muller-Hermann, devised by Barry Millington. Impressively, both works featured Sir John Tomlinson, bass; and Rozanna Madylus, mezzo-soprano, with musicians from the group ‘Counterpoise’ – violin, trumpet, saxophone and clarinet, and piano.

The great treat in all this was hearing John Tomlinson, now well over 70, singing some of ‘Wotan’s Farewell’ from Die Walkure, accompanied by a piano. Beautifully sung, even though his voice is frayed and not what it was, this was unexpected and wonderful. I enjoyed the sequence of songs in Brunnhilde’s Dream, but they, or I, could have done with surtitles or at least flagging up where we had got to – I lost track some of the time and one really needed to know some of the details of what the Brunnhilde figure was singing about

‘The Shackled King’ was interesting, though that was only intermittently due to Casken’s music. John Tomlinson played Lear, and Rozanna Madylus a combination of Cordelia, Regan, Goneril and the Fool, using a combination of spoken, sprechstimme and sung voices. Tomlinson projected the spoken words of Lear excellently, and with real power, and Rozanna Madylus’s acting was energetic and full of interest. I didn’t always feel that Casken’s music was adding much to Shakespeare’s wonderful poetry, but (my ultimate test) if I was asked what of this will I remember in 12 months time, it would probably be The Shackled King  – so the work clearly made some impact on me!  

The programme was Rimsky-Korsakov’s ’The Tale of Tsar Saltan’ Suite;  Rachmaninov’s The Rock, and Stravinsky’s The Firebird: Suite (1945 compilation)

This was an enjoyable concert with two relative rarities. All three pieces were in a sense in the business of telling stories, with lots of brilliant sounds, evocative but with nothing that really chilled the soul or warmed the heart, or gave sustenance to the soul at this difficult time. They were great orchestral display pieces – and it’s always good to hear an orchestra being put through its paces – but maybe not ultimately very satisfying – though often thrilling. The Halle sounded very well and particularly in the ‘Firebird’ offered some beautiful woodwind and horn playing. It would be interesting to see some of the Rimsky-Korsakov operas performed in this country – maybe they have been, but I have never encountered a production. I saw a wonderful display in Moscow of some of the design models for the original sets of Rimsky’s operas’ first productions. If not in the UK, maybe I should try to see them performed in Moscow or St Petersburg. One day, perhaps………  

The Rachmaninov piece – written when he was 20 – is obviously prodigiously mature to be written such a young composer, but it is not, to be honest, very interesting

The programme was on the short side – about 75 mins – and so the Halle played the ‘Flight of the Bumblebee’ from the same Tsar Saltan opera as an encore

At the end of this sparkling well-put-together programme, brilliantly played by the Halle, I did have a ‘so what?’ question buzzing in my mind – if music has the ability to affect our emotions, intellect, and psychology, to assuage our loneliness or incite our passions, what was this concert doing? I’m not sure…..