Monthly Archives: November 2015

On the Road

23 Monday Nov 2015

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Milton Keynes

Oh b*gger, that’s Christmas and it’s coming straight at us.

November was looking quiet; then a couple of emails and suddenly I haven’t blogged for over a fortnight. In the last 9 days I’ve somehow found myself seeing four different operas in three different cities, playing Rachmaninoff’s The Isle of the Dead and squeezing in a bit of contemporary music too. Here’s what I’ve been up to when not at my desk:

– Visits to the Royal College of Music, Birmingham Conservatoire and Guildhall School of Music and Drama for my ongoing Amati Magazine survey of string departments at the UK’s music colleges. The RCM article is here.
– Glyndebourne on Tour‘s Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail at Milton Keynes (review forthcoming in The Spectator)
– Birmingham Contemporary Music Group for The Birmingham Post and The Arts Desk (plus the discovery that the composer Patrick Brennan is a really impressive new voice)
– Welsh National Opera’s I Puritani for The Birmingham Post
– Opera North’s Jenufa in Nottingham (also for The Spectator – watch this space!)
– Welsh National Opera’s Sweeney Todd for (I thought) the Birmingham Post, though it actually appeared in the Mail. And my feature-length preview of the same show popped up there too.
– and then playing the cello badly in a programme of Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev and Elgar with my old friends at the Wrexham Symphony Orchestra. At last my arm is complete again!

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WNO’s Sweeney Todd: I could murder a pie

Plus I’ve been writing about James Bond for the CBSO, Ligeti for the Barber Institute, and some fun seasonal programmes for West End International and the RLPO; not to mention some exciting projects with the LPO, RPO and Ulster Orchestra, including an enjoyable chance to spend some quality time with Johan Wagenaar’s wonderful Cyrano de Bergerac overture (give it a try).

Anyway, that’s why I’ve been quiet.  Then I looked up and…it’s basically one month to Christmas. Oh, b*gger.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Review: Binchois Consort at the Barber Institute

06 Friday Nov 2015

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The Birmingham Post isn’t always able to post online everything that I’ve written for its print edition, so – after a suitable time lag (you should really go out and buy the paper!) – I’ll be posting my recent reviews here. As per the print edition, they’re all fairly concise – just 250 words. This is of a performance at the Barber Institute on 28th October 2015.

This day is call’d the feast of Crispian – well, give or take three days, anyway. This Agincourt anniversary celebration was exactly the sort of thing a university concert series should be doing: an evening of vocal music from the reigns of Henry V and VI, painstakingly researched and sung with commitment. With the music grouped to represent different aspects of 15th century court life, Andrew Kirkman gave knowledgeable and enthusiastic spoken introductions to each section. The printed programme was a model of scholarship and presentation: this concert was clearly a labour of love.

What we heard was almost exclusively sacred, almost exclusively in two parts, and almost entirely scored for six or fewer tenors and counter-tenors. The Binchois Consort excels in this repertoire; the singers’ individual tones make a satisfying contrast with each other rather than blending into a homogenised whole. In music such as the anonymous Chant for St John Of Bridlington, that brought much-needed colour to the monody; in more complex items – a Gloria supposedly written by Henry V himself; and the spirited Sub Arturo plebs – it made the most of the tiny flourishes and harmonic clashes that give this music such expressive power as it possesses.

By any standards, this was a challenging evening – and towards the end, the Consort appeared at one point to break down. The arrival of the Birmingham University Singers for a rousing Agincourt Carol brought the first sound all night of basses or female voices, and by this stage it was a welcome contrast. Kirkman and his singers are obviously devoted to this music, but despite moments of piercing beauty, I left the Barber with an overwhelming urge to find a piano and bash out a perfect cadence – just to reassure myself that such a thing still existed.

Throwback Thursday: Five Questions for Julian Lloyd Webber

05 Thursday Nov 2015

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As a cellist of sorts myself (and I read Travels With My Cello over and over again when I was at school) I’m looking forward to interviewing Julian Lloyd Webber next week for my ongoing Amati Magazine series on British music colleges. He’s now principal of Birmingham Conservatoire, but when I interviewed him for a short Metro article in July 2008 for Metro he was touring small venues around the UK with one of his wonderfully entertaining programmes of neglected miniatures and anecdotes – one of the things we’ve really missed since he’s had to stop playing. But he’s already re-energised the Conservatoire and I can’t wait to hear what he has in store next.

Cellist Julian Lloyd Webber has just been appointed to lead the British pilot of El Sistema – the revolutionary Venezuelan music education programme. He’s also playing a recital at Alnwick Playhouse tonight.

What’s the idea behind this concert?

This is a new venture for me. I’ve been doing quite a few concerts in more intimate venues, like the Alnwick Playhouse, and we’ve come up with a programme that’s more involving and personal. I play a bit, read from my book Travels With My Cello and later on there’s a Q&A with the audience.

Are you unearthing any more rare repertoire?

It’s quite a mixture. Not so much in this recital, but I’ve been doing quite a bit of new music lately. I’ve just been playing a new piece by Howard Goodall, and I’ll be premiering a work by Patrick Hawes next month. I’m always keen to expand the cello repertoire, whether by rediscovering older repertoire or playing new music.

Why are you so outspoken, when so many musicians just turn up and play the notes?

I think classical music gets a bad deal in the media. It’s overlooked in comparison to other forms of music. If classical musicians don’t stand up for what we love and believe in, we can’t expect anyone else to do it for us!

Why does Britain need El Sistema?

When you see all the knife crime and drug problems, it makes perfect sense. People think Britain is too wealthy to need a Venezuelan initiative, but I don’t agree. El Sistema is about using the symphony orchestra as a catalyst for social change – and reaching children who would never get to learn an instrument, in the normal run of things. It’s very timely.

Have you had to play your cello at any airports lately?

Actually, yes – I was waiting for an internal flight in Turkey last week and was a bit short of practice time, so I got the cello out right there in the lounge and had a bit of a brush-up. People looked at me as if I was some sort of lunatic.

Review: CBSO, Daniele Rustioni, Vadim Gluzman

04 Wednesday Nov 2015

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The Birmingham Post isn’t always able to post online everything that I’ve written for its print edition, so – after a suitable time lag (you should really go out and buy the paper!) – I’ll be posting my recent reviews here. As per the print edition, they’re all fairly concise – just 250 words. This is of a performance by the CBSO on 29th October 2015.

Daniele-Rustioni-by-Cophano-HP-AMC

Daniele Rustioni is nothing if not watchable. Small and dapper with a mop of floppy hair, he darts, he gesticulates, he bounces clear into the air. And in this CBSO concert he rocketed straight out of the blocks with a suave, streamlined account of Dvorak’s Carnival overture that left a midweek matinee crowd yelling with excitement.

It was easy to hear the strengths of this 32-year old Italian, whose spirited, idiomatic conducting was probably the best thing about WNO’s 2013 Donizetti Tudor trilogy. Rustioni can shape a phrase and make it sing (who mentioned bel canto?): he way he accompanied Kyle Horch’s creamy sax solo in Ravel’s orchestration of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition was almost sensuous. He takes a tactile pleasure in orchestral colours, bringing out the succulence of a pizzicato chord, and subtly pointing up a quiet bottom note from the bass clarinet.

His weaknesses – well, wasn’t it Richard Strauss who advised young conductors never to look at the brass: it only encourages them? And there was the strange, frustrating business of a Brahms Violin Concerto that never quite sounded at ease: fidgety, foursquare and punctuated by noisy blasts. Soloist Vadim Gluzman’s wiry tone and workmanlike delivery probably didn’t help, though it was noticeable that even in the Dvorak, Rustioni was cheerfully summoning up the kind of fortissimos that Sakari Oramo used to save for the end of Mahler symphonies.

But it was hard not to thrill to the jangling, tingling conclusion of Rustioni’s Pictures at an Exhibition, or to enjoy the full-fat low string sound of Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuyle, and the way Rustioni made Gnomus dance. To experience this kind of freshness and verve in such a familiar warhorse is reason enough to hope that we see Rustioni at Symphony Hall again.