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Richard Bratby

~ Classical music writer, critic and consultant

Richard Bratby

Tag Archives: Symphony Hall

Forward, looking backward

19 Friday Jun 2020

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Anniversary, BBC, Birmingham, CBSO, Christmas, Jessica Duchen, John Suchet, Norman Lebrecht, Symphony Hall, The Spectator

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It was very wet in December. That’s my excuse for those shoes.

Life comes at you fast, they say: Forward was published in November and for the next few weeks it seemed like there was hardly a night that I wasn’t at a CBSO concert or at CBSO Centre, signing copies. It was exhausting but huge fun: not just because of the many kind comments about the book itself, but also because it was a chance to meet and chat to the CBSO’s supporters. That was always my favourite part of the job when I was duty manager for concerts at CBSO Centre – the enthusiasm that people feel for “their” orchestra is genuinely touching, and the stories that they have to tell of their concert-going activities are endlessly enjoyable. I spoke to ex-players, ex-singers, and audience members with memories stretching back to the George Weldon era in the late 1940s. Since I always intended the book to be a centenary gift from the orchestra to its friends and followers, this was enormously gratifying.

Maria & Forward

My fabulous colleague Maria made the whole thing possible (and discovered most of the best pictures). When the  very first copy of the book arrived at CBSO Centre, the occasion  seemed to call for at least one bottle of fizz.

But it was still something of a surprise to realise that it was actually out there, making its way in the world and being read far beyond Birmingham. I popped into Waterstones on New Street and Foyles in Grand Central to sign copies. “It’s nice to have something in the local history section that isn’t Peaky Blinders” commented the manager. I gave an interval interview about the history of the orchestra on BBC Radio 3, and recorded a series of short films for the CBSO website. The Spectator kindly asked me to write something about the history of the CBSO for its Christmas edition, and BBC Music Magazine followed suit shortly afterwards.

Then there were the reviews, which if I’m honest I dreaded – but since I dish it out regularly as a critic, I was hardly in a position to expect sympathy. In fact, reviewers seem to have been very positive. I was particularly delighted to be reviewed in The Oldie; Richard Osborne wrote that “Such books can be a terrific bore but this is a gem: a lovingly researched, entertainingly written and handsomely designed and printed volume”. Jessica Duchen gave the book one of her end-of-year personal “Awards” on her long-running blog: “gorgeously produced, seamlessly readable, superbly expressed and full of splendiferous anecdotes. A wonderful anniversary tribute to the orchestra, with the lightly-worn engaging touch of the insider who knows exactly how it really works”.

John Quinn, on MusicWeb International, did the book proud: “Richard Bratby has told the story uncommonly well. His style is eminently readable and clear. It’s obvious that the book has been scrupulously researched.” Nigel Simeone, in Gramophone found it “thoroughly engaging” and Norman Lebrecht, in The Spectator (a review of which, like the Gramophone write-up, I knew nothing in advance), noted – with typical acuity – that “no nation state in modern times has chosen great leaders so unerringly well as the CBSO”. BBC Music Magazine gave it five stars.

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John Suchet was kind enough to endorse the book, so it was a lovely coincidence that we both ended up signing at the same table at Symphony Hall on 22 November. One purchaser wanted John to sign Forward instead of me: and who can blame them?

Since then…well, we all know the story and the fact that the book is currently only available for purchase online is of no significance beside the fact that the CBSO’s long-planned centenary celebrations are on hold and that everyone involved with the orchestra is intensely, anxiously trying to find a way to salvage something. There isn’t much comfort to be had in the current situation, and I’ve never believed that history repeats itself.

But one constant of the CBSO’s history has been the depth of the support that it has received from the community that it serves; that, and a near-miraculous ability for doing great things under intense pressure. The CBSO has turned a crisis into a triumph quite a few times over the last 100 years. Things are worryingly quiet at the moment – though as the orchestra’s CEO Stephen Maddock pointed out a few weeks ago, if you think planning a concert season is hard work, just try cancelling one. But we wait; we hope; we keep the faith. Let’s hope the dawn is not far away.

Review: CBSO / Canellakis / Tiberghien

02 Friday Jun 2017

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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: RLPO / Petrenko & Daniil Trifonov

08 Wednesday Feb 2017

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Birmingham Post, Daniil Trifonov, Reviews, RLPO, Symphony Hall, Vasily Petrenko

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My old pals the RLPO looking weirdly wonky

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 Conservatoire on Wednesday 1 February 2017.


Brummie pride manifests itself in some odd ways. It’s fantastic that we’ll pack out Symphony Hall for the home team, Mirga and the CBSO. But offered the chance to hear an artist as remarkable as the young Russian pianist Daniil Trifonov, to leave banks of seats empty seems very like cutting off your nose to spite your face. True, Trifonov has been extravagantly hyped since winning the Tchaikovsky Competition in 2011. But what his performance with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra demonstrated beyond any doubt is that sometimes, hype is justified.

Trifonov played the Cinderella of Rachmaninoff’s piano concertos, the Fourth. His tone is rich and bright; he sculpts phrases as well as sings them, and he can flash in an instant from sonorous power to quicksilver brilliance. The effect, with Trifonov trailing luminous streams of fantasy across Rachmaninoff’s twilit skies, and Petrenko and his players supplying yearning, lovingly-phrased string tone and powerful rhythmic kicks as required, was as poetic as it was thrilling.

Petrenko and the RLPO had opened with a boisterous account of Stravinsky’s Jeu de Cartes, and devoted the second half to Prokofiev’s Fifth Symphony. The RLPO has an utterly distinctive sound, at its most recognisable when the lower strings glow softly out of the silence. But these players can bite too, and in the monumental first movement Petrenko found a compelling tension between lyricism and steel-toothed aggression.

The scherzo threw coloured sparks in all directions, and the unstoppable machine-music of the finale developed a terrifying momentum. I have it on unimpeachable authority that this performance was a good ten minutes slower than when the CBSO Youth Orchestra played the Fifth a few years back. But I wouldn’t have guessed.

 

Review: CBSO & Nic McGegan

21 Tuesday Jun 2016

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Birmingham Post, CBSO, Nicholas McGegan, Reviews, Symphony Hall, Vaughan Williams

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  Symphony Hall on Wednesday 1 June.


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Nic!

What do Berlioz, Purcell, Nicolai, Vaughan Williams and Cole Porter all have in common? On the strength of this Shakespeare 400 concert by the CBSO under Nicholas McGegan, they all wrote Shakespearean music that doesn’t seem to contain much actual Shakespeare. And that’s about it. But they did add up to a very long concert – finishing just shy of 10pm, even after Sullivan’s delightful Merchant of Venice suite had been cut to a paltry three movements.

Still, as Birmingham audiences well know, Nicholas McGegan’s concerts are never routine: he’s so enthusiastic that those two and a half hours positively danced by. McGegan brings such warmth that you have to ask why we don’t hear Nicolai’s Merry Wives of Windsor overture or Sullivan’s suite more often. And of course, both Cole Porter and Purcell were basically in showbiz: singers Sandra Piques Eddy and Duncan Rock waltzed stylishly through a selection from Kiss Me, Kate (the orchestra could have done with keeping down) before McGegan unleashed four soloists and the full CBSO Chorus on a performance of Act IV of Purcell’s The Fairy Queen that will have silenced all but the sourest of early music fundamentalists with its style and splendour.

Earlier, soprano Fflur Wyn had sparkled and charmed her way through Arne’s Shakespeare settings – a rare bit of actual Bard – and held the entire hall rapt as she and Eddy floated the duet from Berlioz’ Béatrice et Bénédict over McGegan’s shimmering accompaniment. But the real discovery was Vaughan Williams’s In Windsor Forest: a playful choral suite, sung by the CBSO Chorus with a radiance and subtlety that made you long to hear them again in the Sea Symphony. It’d be perfect for the Last Night of the Proms.

Review: CBSO, Daniele Rustioni, Vadim Gluzman

04 Wednesday Nov 2015

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Birmingham Post, Brahms, CBSO, Daniele Rustioni, Mussorgsky, Reviews, Sakari Oramo, Symphony Hall, Welsh National Opera

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.


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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.

What I’ve been writing about this week.

01 Thursday Oct 2015

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Boris, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, Brahms, Castro, Elgar, Haydn, Hugo Wolf, Ibarra, John Williams, Revueltas, Richard Strauss, Salome, Smetana, Symphony Hall, Verdi

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John Williams’ complete music for Star Wars.

Elgar’s Piano Quartet and Wand of Youth Suite No.1.

Butterworth’s Suite for string quartet.

Hugo Wolf: Italian Serenade.

Haydn: Quartet Op.76 No.1.

Verdi: String Quartet in E minor.

Smetana: Tabór.

Brahms: Piano Concerto No.1.

Revueltas: Sensemayá.

Ricardo Castro’s opera Atzimba.

Bernstein: Symphonic Dances from West Side Story.

…and Richard Strauss’s Berlin lunch with Count Harry Kessler in March 1915.

Tomorrow: Federico Ibarra’s Symphony No.2, then a review of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra’s concert performance of Salomé.

My intern has been no help at all.
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Presteigne Festival

02 Wednesday Sep 2015

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Birmingham Post, Charlotte Bray, David Matthews, George Vass, Presteigne Festival, Stephen Johnson, Symphony Hall, The Arts Desk

For me, the last weekend of August has traditionally been the time when I take a deep gulp, and look straight into the oncoming headlights of the new concert season. This is it, the party’s over – no sleep till Christmas and a range of mountains to climb first. This year is different: it’s an inexpressible relief, and genuinely inspiring, to be standing on the brink of a new season, and to think of all the fantastic concerts to go to, and the seriously exciting writing projects I’ve got ahead.

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And there could have been no nicer way to say farewell to the summer Festival season than with two visits deep into the Welsh Borders, for the Presteigne Festival. Presteigne is one of those small Marches towns that, deprived of its railway half a century ago, has cheerfully reasserted itself. Like Ludlow to the east and Hay on Wye a couple of valleys to the south, it’s acquired a remarkable subculture of resident artists, foodies, craftspeople and writers determined to make the place thrive. Quirky little bookshops, creaky old coaching inns, artisan bakers, new-age bead shops and family butchers, all clustered round a couple of streets and set against rolling hills. It’s the kind of place that makes you wish you owned a muddy Labrador.

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It’s also got an arts festival with serious ambition. The Festival is chamber-scale – the size of St Andrew’s Church puts a natural ceiling on what can be done. But under George Vass’s artistic direction, there’s no ceiling on the quality of the artists who perform, or the Festival’s commitment to contemporary music. Presteigne has quietly become the pre-eminent showcase for a certain kind of British new music which, if you wanted to label it (and there’s nothing dogmatic about Vass’s approach) might be called post-post-war: composers of the quality of David Matthews (who was in the audience last night), Cecilia MacDowall, Robin Holloway, Anthony Payne, Michael Berkeley (who lives just over the hill in Knighton) and the late John McCabe, to whose memory last night’s concert was dedicated. My review of that concert will appear in The Birmingham Post shortly.

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As I said, though, there’s no dogmatism about Presteigne: the Festival opened last Thursday with a strikingly contrasted double bill of chamber operas by Thomas Hyde and the superb Charlotte Bray, one of the boldest and most original voices on the current scene. My review for The Arts Desk is here. The point is, that in this tiny Marches town, these concerts – all of which contained new music, and many of which featured substantial premieres – played to a full house (well, church). And that both before and after the concerts, audience members could be heard praising, abusing, discussing and enthusing over these works in pubs and restaurants around the town. (Oh, and no-one clapped between movements either).

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That’s the nice thing about Presteigne: the town’s small enough and the atmosphere is so welcoming that as an audience member, even for one night, you feel like you’re taking part. I was delighted to see some dear colleagues there –  Clare and David Stevens, who live in Presteigne and seem to turn their home into a hotel for itinerant musicians during the Festival, and Stephen Johnson (who lives near Hereford), with the terrific news that one of his orchestral works is to be played at Symphony Hall next spring. I’d wondered about the Presteigne Festival for years; now I’ve finally made it down the valley and across the border, I have a feeling I’ll be going again.

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Review: Hong Kong Phiharmonic / van Zweden

21 Thursday May 2015

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Hong Kong Philharmonic, Jaap van Zweden, Reviews, Symphony Hall

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 Symphony Hall, Birmingham on 3rd March 2015.


A single Chinese character forms the title of Fung Lam’s 40th-anniversary showpiece for the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra. In English, three paragraphs of programme notes merely leave the impression that its English name, Quintessence, doesn’t quite cover it. What the piece actually does, via a series of brief, memorable ideas – flashing violin runs, percussion and harp tracery, deep Sibelian brass chords – is provide a mini-concerto for orchestra that leaves absolutely no doubt about the HK Phil’s collective virtuosity.

And yet, Lam doesn’t really draw on this orchestra’s greatest strengths. The opening bars of Dvorak’s 9th Symphony laid those out unmistakably: a rich, focussed and gloriously warm-sounding string section, phrasing and moving together, plus as characterful and expressive a woodwind and horn team as you could hope to find anywhere in Bohemia.

Conductor Jaap van Zweden shaped a brisk but intensely lyrical performance – with long, singing lines that gave a really epic sense of sweep, notwithstanding van Zweden’s tendency to micromanage phrase endings and tempo changes. The whispered string phrases that underscored Kwan Sheung-fung’s plangent cor anglais solo in the Largo were wonderfully expressive and tender.

The sheer beauty of the orchestral sound was also the most enjoyable aspect of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, with Ning Feng as soloist. The spin has promised great things about Feng’s playing; more significantly, so has the orchestral grapevine. He has stage presence, and – when he doesn’t force it – a powerful, shining tone. But in this of all concertos, a little more nuance really wouldn’t have gone amiss. This was a reading that sported oh-so-stylishly in the shallows.

 

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