The last time a new Principal Conductor stepped onto the Hallé’s rostrum, the orchestra – and indeed the rest of the world – were in a very different era. In fact, one only has to go back five Principal Conductors to see John Barbirolli taking up the post in 1943. With the considerable weight of attendant scrutiny on the back of his shoulders, this concert gave some hints as to what might be in store in the coming years.
Compared to his predecessor’s famously stately pace wandering on-stage, Kahchun Wong cuts an excitable figure as he bustles to the rostrum, beaming. His choice of work to commence his tenure was notable; he is an ardent Britten enthusiast, and here began proceedings with a suite from The Prince of the Pagodas, curated by Colin Matthews and Wong himself, soon to be released on the orchestra’s own label. The late removal of a couple of segments from the suite may have raised an eyebrow, but the fanfares and drumrolls of the Prelude swiftly established that if nothing else, heady times lay ahead. What followed was a superbly enjoyable tour through the ballet. There was much to admire in outstanding solo playing from oboe and muted trumpet, though the sea imagery in the Act 2 music for Sea Horses, Fish creatures and Waves was remarkably well conjured, string slurs graphically depicting rolling waters. Later, the gamelan effects and ensemble between two pianists, celesta, marimba, vibraphone and glockenspiel were breathtaking.
Mahler’s First Symphony is a good test piece, with plenty of opportunity for stirring individual moments but also for an overarching directorial vision. Here the emphasis was very much on the former at the expense of the latter, with Wong tightly managing every detail of the music with fastidious attention to nuance. His conducting is well choreographed, often balletic. Though here conducting from memory, he is generous with his cues and hyper-literal in visually demonstrating the sound he requires. This was often distracting – do trills really need a vigorous shake of the baton? – but more importantly left some sense that the overall direction of movements and indeed the whole symphony was not quite clear.
While the opening seven-octave A was floated as beautifully as I have ever heard, and the hero convincingly ran away laughing just as Mahler intended at the first movement’s end, there was little sense of how we got from A to B. The woodwind playing was undeniably elegant in the middle section, but the pacing (or lack thereof) meant that the ensuing Durchbruch did not feel as though it had been truly earned. The inner movements were more successful, with some interesting effects applied to the minutiae of phrasing and articulation in the Scherzo and magical string playing in the slow movement. With all string vibrato seemingly banished temporarily, Principal Double Bass Billy Cole played his solo with nerves of steel and a movingly vulnerable sound. Similarly bold character was to be found in the woodwind solos. The finale was rousing in its final minutes despite occasional miscues and wobbles in ensemble. Again, there were abundant moments of enjoyable and original innovations of phrasing, but Wong’s windmilling arms did little to contextualise the journey from inferno to triumph.
With a striking if strangely familiar new yellow and black colour scheme adorning the promotional materials for this concert, Hallé bosses will have been dismayed that a new conductor leading a popular Mahler symphony on the first night of a new season could not attract a more substantial audience. Many leapt to their feet as the last chords of the symphony crashed down; there was undoubtedly much to admire in this programme, and no one could doubt that the coming season will be exciting.
