Music from the Americas launches the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic season

The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra started its new season with a pair of concerts featuring the “dream team” of Chief Conductor Domingo Hindoyan and his fellow Venezuelan, star trumpeter Pacho Flores, who is an popular visitor to Liverpool where he has given many new works from Latin America. This time he performed the Trumpet Concerto written for him by Mexican composer Arturo Márquez. Subtitled Concierto de Otoño, it was an appropriate piece for the day before the autumnal equinox. Flores demonstrated an astonishing virtuosity on four different instruments, each with a different character. The Sound of Light first movement was a dialogue between the standard trumpet and orchestra, drawing the audience into this exotic world. The flugelhorn of the lovely flowing melodies of the second, with a gentle orchestral accompaniment, was particularly pleasing. The cadenza in the finale gave Flores the opportunity to joke with the conductor and there was even some audience participation. He looked as if he was enjoying it as much as the audience.

The concert had begun with another Latin American piece, La Rebambaramba, a ballet by Cuban composer Amadeo Roldán evoking an Afro-Cuban fiesta. It was first performed in a concert conducted by the composer in Havana in 1928. It became better known after a performance in Paris in 1931 but is still very much a rarity. The promising composer died at the age of 38 leaving a relatively small oeuvre. The RLPO and Hindoyan performed a suite of five short movements from the score, all infused with Cuban rhythms and colour. Each left me wanting more. A large orchestra was underpinned by subtle contributions from six percussionists. The second movement was an exotic, mysterious, slow interlude which contrasted with its surroundings.

In between, we heard a North American work: Jennifer Higdon’s Blue Cathedral. This was first performed in 2000 and is one of the most frequently performed works by a contemporary composer. It is a contemplative piece, suggesting an imaginary cathedral in the sky with stained glass, a work of rest and commemoration. It had a personal sadness for the composer. Her brother had died shortly before she wrote it; he was a clarinettist, and she played the flute; both instruments figure significantly in the work. For me the title evokes the remarkable blue light of the Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral, just a short walk along Hope Street from the Philharmonic Hall. A team of young percussionists joined the orchestra to create the unusual, ethereal timbres of the final peaceful minutes of this stunning work.

I was very much looking forward to the performance of Dvořák’s Symphony no. 9 in E minor, “From the New World”. I have heard Hindoyan and the RLPO play Dvořák on several occasions and have been bowled over each time. Somehow they seem to respond to Dvořák’s idiom instinctively. There was no danger of a routine performance here. The many woodwind solos were certainly impressive and the overall energy of the piece was palpable. However, there was a problem. From the beginning I detected an electronic buzzing sound that had not been present in the first half of the concert. Perhaps it came from a hearing aid or an induction loop. I do not know how much of the hall was affected. At least one person sitting near me left during the first movement. By the end several members of the audience commented on the noise, for it really spoiled this performance of the New World.