Andris Nelsons and the CBSO brought their superb Beethoven cycle to a close with fine performances of the Eighth and Ninth Symphonies at Birmingham’s Symphony Hall.The Eighth Symphony suffers from sitting in the shade of the Seventh and Ninth, but Beethoven’s “Little” F major symphony has a great deal to offer.
The London Philharmonic Orchestra brought their HD Odyssey to a packed Bridgewater Hall, giving an audiovisual feast of John Adams, Richard Strauss and Gustav Holst alongside impressive footage of the Earth and space.The format was quite straightforward, with films playing on a large screen above the stage whilst the orchestra worked their way through the rich sound palettes of the programme.
John Storgårds began his week-long survey of all seven Sibelius symphonies with mixed success, presenting an excellent account of no. 1 alongside an inconsistent no. 5 at Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall.Throughout the evening, Storgårds showed a keenness for capricious tempo fluctuations and remarkably heavy brass and timpani. This worked better in the first than the fifth.
The second instalment in the BBC Philharmonic’s Sibelius cycle saw the mighty Second Symphony paired with the darker Fourth at Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall. Both received superb performances.The Fourth is perhaps the hardest to enjoy of Sibelius’ seven symphonies. It lacks the obvious heroism of the First, Second, Fifth and Seventh and ends bleakly.
Sir Mark Elder conducted the Hallé in the final concert of their 2012/13 Thursday Series, with a truly titanic account of Mahler’s First Symphony at the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester.The evening began with the première of Near Midnight, the first commission for Helen Grime in her role as Associate Composer of the Hallé.
François-Xavier Roth conducted the BBC National Orchestra of Wales in a varied programme of Mozart, Webern and Strauss, concluding with a powerful performance of Also Sprach Zarathustra at St David’s Hall in Cardiff.It was hard to spot a linking factor between the programmed works, but they seemed to complement each other nicely.
Welsh National Opera’s contribution to the Wagner bicentenary is in the form of a summer season entitled Wagner Dream, consisting of Jonathan Harvey’s opera of the same name, a run of Madam Butterfly, and Antony McDonald’s new production of Lohengrin. Lothar Koenigs conducted an excellent performance of Wagner’s romantic opera at a packed Wales Millennium Centre.
Neeme Järvi brought his fine Swiss orchestra to Manchester for a deeply moving evening of Pärt, Grieg and Tchaikovsky, leaving a large audience very quiet as they left the Bridgewater Hall.Tchaikovsky wrote his Sixth Symphony amid substantial personal turmoil, despite the relatively recent success of his Fifth.
Juanjo Mena concluded his season-long exploration of Stravinsky ballets with a sharp account of the most famous, The Rite of Spring, as part of a programme of unusually grand proportions.It was a hundred years ago this month that the Rite received its première in Paris.
Iván Fischer conducted the Budapest Festival Orchestra in impassioned performances of Dohnányi, Beethoven and Brahms to an appreciative, if criminally small, audience in Manchester.More than any other Music Director one could think of, Fischer has a large claim to the BFO being his orchestra. Since founding the orchestra in 1983, he has been its only chief and has guided it to wide acclaim.
Manchester Camerata’s series of Mozart concertos, an ongoing theme in their 40th anniversary season, came to a close with pianist Ferenc Rados joining fellow Hungarian Gábor Takács-Nagy for a superb account of the Piano Concerto no. 15 at the Royal Northern College of Music.The broader theme of the evening, though, was movement, and two modern works began proceedings to fascinating effect.
At the end of a successful week in which the orchestra’s recording of The Apostles won BBC Music Magazine’s Disc of the Year award, Sir Mark Elder conducted the Hallé in a joyfully youthful account of Mahler’s Des Knaben Wunderhorn, followed by graphic Janáček and Hadyn.The concert programme was interesting on several fronts.
Sir Mark Elder conducted the Hallé in an unusual programme of music themed around hunting. There were many excellent performances, most memorably in Britten's Our Hunting Fathers, which added substantial depth to the evening.Assistant conductor Jamie Phillips began proceedings with a solid account of Haydn’s Symphony no. 73, “La Chasse”.
Herbert Blomstedt brought the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester to Birmingham for the ninth of their eleven-concert, two-week Easter tour. Their magisterial account of Bruckner’s Romantic Symphony, and a fine performance of Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto by Leif Ove Andsnes, earned them a vociferous reception.
Sir Mark Elder conducted the Hallé in fine performances of Haydn’s final symphony, no. 104, and Mahler’s most humble, no. 4.There is a neat symmetry in pairing Haydn with Mahler symphonies, respectively viewed as the grandfather and zenith of the genre. There was further interest in coupling Haydn’s very last symphony with Mahler’s most classical, conceived almost a hundred years later.
Andris Nelsons continued his Beethoven cycle with deeply personal and thrilling accounts of the Sixth and Seventh Symphonies to a sold-out Symphony Hall.Beethoven’s first Romance for violin and orchestra was moved to open the concert late in the day.
Andris Nelsons followed up his 2012 Tristan und Isolde with a stirring performance of Wagner’s breakthrough work, Der fliegende Holländer, with a fine array of soloists and the CBSO in Birmingham.
At a little over two hours, The Flying Dutchman is one of Wagner’s shorter operas, but it shares its supernatural themes with many of his other works.
Chief conductor Juanjo Mena conducted a programme of energetic Beethoven and Schubert alongside an original reading of the Mozart Clarinet Concerto at Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall.Hearing little-played Beethoven is a rare treat in the concert hall, and Mena made a strong case for the great man’s Ritterballett (“Knight Ballet”) music.
Few things could unite such a large group of people as the Hallé’s Meistersinger did tonight. Some 515 performers, drawn from three orchestras and five choirs, gathered to present highlights from the first two acts of Wagner’s opera and the third act in full.
Having previously been Assistant Conductor at The Hallé, André de Ridder returned to a bitterly cold Manchester to conduct a fascinating programme, culminating a beautifully autumnal account of Brahms’ Symphony no.4.The Brahms was by far the most successful of the evening’s works.
