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Extracts
BEFORE we dash off to celebrate midsummer day on Jun
24, or begin an endurance trail to countless cheerless, tedious festivals,
we offer warm words of praise to both the Manchester-based full-time
professional symphony orchestras for the high standards and consistent
excellence they maintained in the season. Both built to strong climaxes:
Mark Elder, who recently won acclaim [‘a major Wagnerian’]
for his conducting of Lohengrin at Covent Garden, consolidated
the Hallé’s artistic gains under his direction, by presenting
in the last grand weeks a semi-staged Falstaff and, in the last
of the splendid Thursday series, followed Alfred Brendel’s exquisitely
fresh and understated performance of the Schumann piano concerto with
one of the finest and most exhilarating performances of Ein Heldenleben
we have ever experienced in many decades of travelling hopefully. The
BBC Philharmonic’s equally excellent season at the Bridgewater
Hall ended with a magnificent performance of the Verdi Requiem,
in which the Italian Gianandrea Noseda continued to impress mightily
in his first season as principal conductors. Both orchestras are now
involved with proms, ‘classics’ and pops in Manchester and
London, but both have announced details of their forthcoming Manchester
season. The Hallé, who recently launched their £5·95
Sanctuary Classics label, with three releases — two of Elgar (including
a superb reading of the first symphony and also In the south)
and one of Nielsen — change the ‘thread’ from last season’s
‘Such sweet thunder’ to ‘Landscape, myth and memory’,
which covers almost anything we can recall, for the next. We had wondered
about John Casken’s cello concerto which Heinrich Schiff will play
and direct on Oct 30, but the Manchester University professor of music
and son of Barnsley apparently ‘is often influenced, painting and
literature of the north of England.’ So that’s all right,
then. The Thursday series opens on Oct 16 with Debussy’s Marche
écossaise, Gigues and Rondes de printemps,
followed by Das Lied von der Erde, conducted by Elder, who next
Easter will direct the St John Passion, sung in English because Elder
believes ‘that the events of this great narrative should be communicated
directly.’ The BBC Philharmonic’s next Bridgewater Hall season,
may lack a woolly thread, but it’s not short on interest or, indeed,
excitement for Noseda’s second term as principal conductor. The
season features the return of the much loved conductor emeritus Sir
Edward Downes, who has been associated with the Phil for thirty-odd
years, and who celebrates his 80th birthday on Jun 17, 2004, when he
will conduct the Leningrad symphony and Respighi’s The
fountains of Rome. Noseda’s predecessor, the Phil’s conductor
laureate, Yan Pascal Tortelier, returns in Mar to conduct an all-French
programme including La mer and Symphonie fantastique.
Noseda opens the series on Sep 27 with Judith Weir’s Forest
(which might have done for the Hallé’s landscape idée
fixe) and Mahler’s third symphony. Soloists from the Kirov
Opera, St Petersburg, where Noseda is principal guest conductor, will
join him on May 29 for a concert version of The Queen of Spades.
During the season, other works which Noseda will conduct include the
Faust symphony, the British première of his compatriot Niccolo
Castiglioni’s Sinfonia con giardino, and the Revival symphony
of the Polish composer Miecszyslaw Karlowicz. Neeme Jãrvi will
conduct Sibelius’s violin concerto (soloist Sergey Khachatryan)
on Dec 6 and The dream of Gerontius on Mar 27. Roll on the dark nights.
Radio 4
Archerhear
HOW happy Emma could be with either, were t’other dear charmer
away. [Note our Gay misuse of the optative subjunctive mood, NGHSK7!
- Ed]. Young love in Ambridge has produced some good scriptwriting
recently in The Archers, well matched by the acting, although listening
to half-broken heartbroken teenage male voices can be wearing. The brothers
Grundy, William and Edward were still in a state of hostile truce. Eddie
was dismissive, but the boys’ mother – the only really sane
and credible member of the Grundy tribe – picked up on Ward’s
adolescent gloom. Tom was alarmed at the poor sales of his sausages.In
other areas the nightly 12 minutes have been action packed as the tv
soaps, Corrie, EastEnders and Emmerdale, and just as tedious.
One zany, escapist story-line was that of the llamas Wolfgang and Constanze
which Lynda Snell bought (from llama-breeder Matthew Parris at his Derbyshire
retreat?) for her long-suffering, Mozart-loving husband, Robert. On
the serious side, Lynda’s objection to the Grundy’s new barn
defaulted to the old Archers idea of keeping listeners informed
about country life Debbie, the well-spoken stoic, whose decree absolute
arrived on a crucial anniversary and who is now in decline and living
in France. Her stepfather is in a decline caused by guilt, despite the
help from Debbie’s brother Adam, a Kenton sound-a;like confusible.
The con-man Kenton, now in charge of Jak’s Kaff (or similar, in
flashing neon lights), despite Peggy’s misgivings. He found time
to help Liz brighten Nigel’s life on a tandem ride for strawberries
and Champagne.
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Review
Music
Longueurs in Manchester
WHY are concerts so long these days? asks DWRM19, who, like
HS, depends on public transport. He had recently attended a midday
concert at Mcr Univy music dept by Richard (violin) and Robin
Ireland (viola) [related to the composer John?]. Only 20 minutes
were taken up by Robin’s Pairings III, third and last
of duos of that name — first for viola and cello, second for
two violas. The four movements were Convergence, Outrage, Chorale
and Dance. DWRM19 describes it as ‘a substantial work which
held the audience’s attention.’ With a Bach two-part invention
and Mozart’s duo in G, K423, this midday recital ‘went
on’ for 75 minutes. DWRM19 continues: The Camerata
went into overtime (?) on Apr 5, then a BBC Phil concert
at the Bridgewater Hall ended promptly [sic] at 10.15pm, followed
by a talk (probably by Kathryn Stott). Does this constitute 60 minutes’
overtime? [No, no longer. – Ed] Richard Hickox conducted
the City of London Sinfonia in the complete Mendelssohn A
midsummer night’s dream music with a cut version of the
play performed by RSC players. It was over just before 10.15pm:
quite decent, but I must admit that I did get more pleasure out
of John Lanchbery’s ballet score (with the two choruses sung –
Ye spotted snakes &c). It is interesting that the Manchester
Camerata got a much larger audience at the Bridgewater for Beethoven
than the Hague Philharmonic (Residentie Orkest) under Jaap
van Zweden achieved the previous night. Wagenaar’s overture
Cyrano de Bergerac, with its echoes of Richard Strauss, is
well worth an airing. A tolerable performance of Mozart’s 23rd
piano concerto, with Michel Dalberto as soloist was followed by
an excellent and moving performance of Mahler’s fifth symphony.
At the Manchester University music dept midday on May 1 Psappha
performed Kontakte by Stockhausen. Kevin Malone’s performance
on the synthesizer was outstanding, but what was really interesting
was how many of the small dedicated audience also turned up the
same evening at the RNCM for the soprano Emma Kirkby
and the flautist Anthony Rörley doing Campion, Lawes,
Boyce, Eccles and others — some sort of mouthwash, perhaps,
for the Beethoven expert Barry Cooper and other aficionados. In
the intervals between excellent Hallé (Mahler 1) and
BBC Phil (Nielsen 4) at the Bridgewater Hall, it was possible
to get to the Lowry [complex], where Kirov Ballet programmes
costing a mere £5 completely sold out in affluent Salford
in the first four days of the week. Swan Lake was adequate
but no more than that. The fine conductor Boris Gruzin had an excellent
grasp of Tchaikovsky’s music, but the dancers would not follow
him or he would not follow the dancers. And it was a pity that,
after her 32 fouettes, Sofyce Gumerova (Odile) stopped the performance
to acknowledge applause. The concertmaster (or surely concertmistress)
I Chaikovskaya (any relation to the composer?), having played very
well for Odette, came to grief for Odile in the Black Swan pas
de deux adagio, with its difficult double stopping. The 65-strong
orchestra were cramped for space. Far superior all round was the
performance of La Bayadère under the excellent baton of Mikhail
Sinkevich. And it was particularly pleasing to see sets dating from
1900. La bohème to the Opera House, Mcr, in 1966,
Whether there were 32 Bayadères present in Salford, I do
not know. That excellent composer of second-rate ballet music, Ludwig
Minkus, actually expected no fewer than 64 Bayadères. So
the second half of that movement is danced by those who have already
searched the stage. At Covent Garden eight rows of four equals 32;
at the Palace Theatre (stage opening 32 ft) seven rows of four equals
28. At the Lowry a shallow stage perhaps because of the scenery,
eight rows of three equals 24.
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