The BBC Philharmonic Orchestra’s latest concert at the Royal Northern College of Music’s Concert Hall paired two rhythmically driven, texturally intricate works: Stravinsky’s Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments and John Adams’ Grand Pianola Music. Under John Storgårds’ direction, the performances demonstrated the orchestra’s formidable technical command and an evident commitment to the bold sonorities of both composers. Yet despite moments of striking brilliance, persistent issues of balance and an unforgiving acoustic meant that much of the evening’s subtlety was lost beneath sheer volume.
Stravinsky’s Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments began strongly, its solemn opening reinforcing the work’s dissonance and resolution, with crisp dotted rhythms strongly evocative of French Baroque overtures. From the piano’s entrance, however, the evening’s recurring problems became clear. Storgårds relished the music’s intensity but often seemed to sacrifice balance in pursuit of it, with soloist Tamara Stefanovich at times drowned out by the orchestra.
Stefanovich fully inhabited Stravinsky’s singular sound world. The concerto’s shifting demands, from quasi-continuo accompaniment to sharply etched solo flourishes, were met with intelligence and flair. In the more exposed passages, she shone, bringing clarity to the contrapuntal writing and vitality to the jazz-inflected rhythms and harmonies.
Her range of colour in the Largo was particularly impressive, with subtle shifts of tone creating moments of real beauty. Towards the movement’s close, she found passages of genuine expressive introspection within a work that is otherwise resolutely bold and unsentimental. The final Allegro saw both Stefanovich and the BBCPO embrace the music’s playful energy, driving towards an ending of near-frenetic force. Yet once again the brass-heavy balance diminished what might otherwise have been a truly impressive performance.
As the programme notes observed, Stravinsky’s concerto emerged during the same period in which he was producing piano-roll transcriptions of his works. John Adams’ Grand Pianola Music, although written much later, shares with it a fascination for piano-driven rhythmic propulsion and bright, wind-heavy textures. There are also clear parallels with Adams’ Harmonium, particularly in the repetition and gradual development of musical ideas.
From the outset, the orchestra played with palpable cohesion, breathing as one as Adams’ hypnotic rhythmic patterns unfolded. Yet the balance issues heard earlier soon resurfaced. In the opening section, the two pianos – Stefanovich joined by Katherine Tinker – were frequently overshadowed by the woodwinds, while climactic passages became uncomfortably loud.
The three vocalists, Patricia Auchterlonie, Rachel Ambrose Evans and Sarah Anne Champion, sang beautifully, their pure, almost vibrato-less tone perfectly suited to Adams’ sound world. Yet even amplified, they were often submerged beneath the brass, especially in the final section, On the Dominant Divide. The quieter central movement offered welcome relief and revealed the refinement too often obscured elsewhere.
The RNCM Concert Hall was perhaps acoustically unsuited to this programme. Its close seating, bare brick walls and hard surfaces produced a harsh immediacy that ricocheted through the hall, preventing the performances’ finer details from fully blooming.
What remained unmistakable, however, was the exceptional musicianship of the BBCPO and its soloists. Storgårds’ gesture of shaking the hand of flautist and piccolo player Jennifer Hutchinson was a fitting acknowledgment of her outstanding contribution to an evening whose ambition and artistry deserved more accommodating surroundings.
