• Blog
  • Clients
  • About Me

Richard Bratby

~ Classical music writer, critic and consultant

Richard Bratby

Monthly Archives: June 2017

Review: CBSO / Canellakis / Tiberghien

02 Friday Jun 2017

Posted by richardbratby in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Birmingham Post, CBSO, Cedric Tiberghien, Karina Canellakis, Reviews, Symphony Hall

CBSO 2 c. Upstream Photography resized

CBSO: hangin’ with my homies

 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 (ideally you should 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 Symphony Hall on Wednesday 17 May 2017.


 

We need to hear more César Franck. Historically speaking, Debussy is meaningless without him – and his blend of fervent Wagnerian harmonies with high Gothic grandeur makes Franck’s orchestral music intoxicating listening. So huge plaudits to the CBSO’s guest conductor Karina Canellakis for opening her Birmingham debut with Franck’s terrific symphonic poem Le Chasseur Maudit. With its hell-bound horns and eerie moments of calm, it’s a real white-knuckle ride, and the CBSO sounded as if they were enjoying every bar.

As well they might: in her enthusiasm, Canellakis went at it with off-the-scale energy, generating within the first few minutes the kind of volumes that some CBSO chief conductors reserve for the climax of Mahler’s Eighth. She’d dialled it back slightly by the final item in the concert, Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances. This was an intelligent bit of programming, with the baleful chimes of Rachmaninoff’s finale echoing the Franck, and Canellakis conducted with a powerful sense of direction. I’ve never been more convinced that this piece is a symphony in disguise, and the CBSO’s strings were so lush that you felt you could almost reach out and squeeze the sound.

In between, Cédric Tiberghien was the soloist in Saint-Saëns’ Fifth Piano Concerto, the “Egyptian”. Given that the CBSO won a Gramophone Award for its Saint-Saëns concerto recordings a few years ago, you’d think we’d hear this more often too. But its blend of Parisian glitter and sunny orientalism make it worth the wait, and Tiberghien played it with a winningly light touch – and in the sultry second movement, a surprising amount of muscle. Canellakis accompanied with loving care, reinforcing the impression that this is one young conductor it’d definitely be worth asking back.

Review: Orchestra of the Swan

02 Friday Jun 2017

Posted by richardbratby in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Birmingham Post, Birmingham Town Hall, Orchestra of the Swan, Reviews

Orchestra of the Swan

Orchestra of the Swan

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 (ideally you should 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 Birmingham Town Hall on Wednesday 24 May 2017.


A change, they say, is as good as a rest. It’s rare that we get to hear the Orchestra of the Swan conducted by anyone other than David Curtis. But it’s no reflection upon Curtis’s tireless work to say that under the American guest conductor Franz Anton Krager, they sounded like a band renewed. Krager served as OOTS’s principal guest conductor back in the noughties, but this was his Town Hall debut, and on the strength of this performance it’d be good to have him back rather sooner next time.

True, Schubert’s Fifth Symphony and the teenage Mozart’s Third Violin Concerto aren’t the stuff of which ovations are made. Still less, the symphony formerly known as Mozart’s 37th – actually a work by Michael Haydn to which Mozart, for reasons known only to himself, added a short introduction. Under Krager, OOTS played it in big, buoyant phrases, propelled by buccaneering horns and a real feeling for this underrated music’s ebullient personality.

That verve and sense of colour were even more noticeable in the Schubert, with some of the most stylish playing I’ve heard from OOTS. Krager brought out the shadows in this usually sunny symphony, letting woodwind lines sing through the texture, and weighting the stormier string passages towards the basses to generate a powerful momentum. It all went with a terrific swing, as did Jennifer Pike’s larger-than-life account of the concerto – delivered by Pike with a glinting tone and a series of brilliant, startlingly Romantic cadenzas. Krager and the OOTS were more than ready to meet her on the same terms. Played by a symphony orchestra, these three pieces can seem like miniatures. Here, they became whole worlds.

Review: Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra

02 Friday Jun 2017

Posted by richardbratby in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Birmingham Post, Reviews, Stravinsky

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 (ideally you should 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 Symphony Hall on Tuesday 16 May 2017.


It’s not every day you hear a sheng played by a virtuoso – at least, not in Birmingham. This Chinese instrument looks to western eyes like a miniature organ played through a bassoon mouthpiece. It sounds something like an accordion. And sensitively played by the Beijing-trained Lei Jia, it was the centrepiece of this first ever Birmingham concert by the Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra under its music director of 14 years, Long Yu.

Strictly speaking, Jia shared the limelight with cellist Jian Wang; the work in question, Duo by Lin Zhao, is effectively a double concerto for sheng, cello and orchestra. Inspired by the ancient Chinese story of the monk Xuanzang’s journey to the West (remember the 1970s TV series Monkey?), it’s a lush, lyrical score with melancholy overtones, and Wang in particular played it with sincerity and considerable refinement. After the interval came another discovery (for me, anyway): Xiaogang Ye’s Cantonese Suite. The subtle, fantastic orchestral colourings of these four instantly-appealing settings of Cantonese folk melodies sounded uncannily French; the finale, Thunder in Drought, was a dead ringer for Ravel’s Laideronnette.

Both these works were GSO commissions – and how refreshing, amidst the endless parade of Tchaikovsky-touting Russian orchestras and Czech bands with their inevitable New Worlds, to encounter a touring orchestra with a bit of imagination and daring. The risk paid off handsomely; and the GSO’s brilliantly colourful playing carried over into a vivid account of Stravinsky’s 1919 Firebird suite and a disarmingly fresh and forthright performance of Britten’s Four Sea Interludes. Wonderful, too, to see the players smiling and swaying in two deliciously-played encores based on Chinese folk melodies. Who says all orchestras sound the same these days?

Contact Details

38 Beacon Street
Lichfield
United Kingdom
Staffordshire
WS13 7AJ

07754 068427

Follow me on Twitter

My Tweets

Archives

  • June 2020 (1)
  • October 2019 (2)
  • January 2018 (1)
  • December 2017 (2)
  • November 2017 (2)
  • October 2017 (1)
  • August 2017 (2)
  • July 2017 (1)
  • June 2017 (3)
  • April 2017 (2)
  • March 2017 (2)
  • February 2017 (2)
  • December 2016 (1)
  • September 2016 (3)
  • August 2016 (1)
  • July 2016 (1)
  • June 2016 (2)
  • May 2016 (1)
  • April 2016 (3)
  • March 2016 (6)
  • February 2016 (1)
  • January 2016 (3)
  • December 2015 (6)
  • November 2015 (4)
  • October 2015 (6)
  • September 2015 (5)
  • August 2015 (5)
  • July 2015 (8)
  • June 2015 (12)
  • May 2015 (12)
  • April 2015 (1)
  • February 2015 (1)
  • January 2015 (2)
  • December 2014 (4)
  • November 2014 (3)

Archives

Blog at WordPress.com.

Cancel

 
Loading Comments...
Comment
    ×
    Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
    To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy