If we accept that not all music is for all people (which we should), and if we also accept that conductors are people (which we must), then it stands to reason that not all music is for all conductors. In his time at the helm of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Kazuki Yamada has tackled a wide range of repertoire, and it’s starting to become clear where he’s particularly at home, and where, perhaps, he’s not.
Elgar’s Violin Concerto in B minor is a large and unwieldy work, but that doesn’t fully explain the curious way it unfolded on Wednesday evening. The opening Allegro practically began in medias res, with an instant sense of being in stride, the musical argument immediately up and running. Yamada brought out a welter of inner details within Elgar’s fastidious orchestration, allowing for a considerable shift in tone when Eugene Tzikindelean entered, now more considered and intricate, with the CBSO conjuring up delicious velvety textures beneath his violin.
Things came unstuck in the following two movements. The central Andante was just weird, articulated with such a meandering outlook it made the occasional moments of orchestral emphasis apropos of – well, perhaps not nothing, but nothing clear or obvious. Avoidance of impetus seemed to be a deliberate effort on Yamada’s part to continue to allow Tzikindelean to shape the music, but the results were just shapeless and flabby. The same issues plagued the final Allegro molto, though not initially, its first two-thirds re-establishing a sense of focus, with everyone on the same lyrical page, the CBSO again proffering passionate responses to the violin’s material. Yet the momentum fizzled, and we were eventually back in an aimless place where the concerto kept sounding as if it were ending, only to restart for no very good reason, making its bold conclusion sound like a bolted-on final cadence.
Yet if Elgar is not for Yamada, the opposite was the case in the two works by Walton. Here Yamada was in his element, leaning heavily into the rambunctious language of Orb and Sceptre, whipping up the CBSO to such a state of gleeful irreverence it felt a million miles from the primary-coloured politeness of both Elgar and the world of all things royal. As such, the more conservative middle theme sounded almost sarcastic, a tongue-in-cheek tugging the forelock before launching back into the mayhem with even more mischief than before.
Walton’s woefully underperformed Second Symphony was given precisely the same treatment. Yamada established a lovely heightened tension from the start, the orchestra deftly articulating its rhythms and angular melodic shapes with lithe light-footedness. Again the broad pivoting between lyricism and exuberance, the CBSO’s effortless gear-shifting displaying an almost fantastical mix of absolute clarity and utter élan. Their reading of the central Lento assai was excellent, revealing it as no conventional slow movement but something altogether more turbulent, bristling with potential to shape-shift. Nonetheless, their rendition of the lyrical line running through it was beautiful, like a river in a vividly multicoloured valley, militated against moments later by such nervous energy its hard-edged music felt positively malicious. Somehow, without trying for a non-existent equilibrium, it all cohered wonderfully.
The closing Passacaglia was similarly multi-faceted, a hectic back-and-forth between fleet velocity and lingering just a little in its jazzy and mysterious asides. The sound world was gorgeous, oblique but opulent, culminating in a meticulous fugato and delirious conclusion, yet without a trace of bombast, filled with nothing but joy.
Elgar has been interpreted to death; Walton certainly hasn’t, and in Kazuki Yamada he may just have found his most ideal interpreter.
