Even if you were born in Paris to Irish parents, a family name like Holmes sounds pretty ordinary. Et voilà, the addition of an accent grave transforms Augusta Holmès into something superior, n’est-ce-pas? Artists, too, are not immune to vanity.
That said, Holmès’ music has been surprisingly overlooked. Listening to the short interlude from her much larger work, Ludus pro patria, made me want to hear more of her oeuvre. Think the Intermezzo from Franz Schmidt’s Notre Dame, with echoes of Frank Lehár, and you’re in the right territory. The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra under its Music Director, Kazuki Yamada, played the work to the manner born, full of French elegance and charm, the lushness of the cello line being especially memorable.
Earlier, at the start of the evening, the CBSO and Yamada had demonstrated in the five pieces that make up Ravel’s Ma mère l’Oye suite what a fine partnership they already are. All the dreamy sensuousness and delicacy of the score was realised in the refinement of the playing: in Les entretiens de la Belle et de la Bête the entire orchestra showed how it can hum gently like no other.
It was also the orchestral playing in Mozart’s Piano Concerto no. 27 in B flat major that impressed me more than the soloist’s contribution. Yamada secured wonderful buoyancy from his strings and characterful woodwind solos, very occasionally putting Paul Lewis in the shade. There is no reason to suppose when Mozart completed this concerto in early 1791 that he sensed it would be his last. It has plenty of scope for elegiac intimacy, but still needs a strong solo voice to command attention. Lewis showed in the cadenzas of the outer movements some of the personality that was missing elsewhere: excessive self-effacement and fastidiousness can at times suck the life out of a piece.
Seven years before Ravel’s more ubiquitous orchestration of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, the founder of the Promenade Concerts, Sir Henry Wood, made his own arrangement. In March of this year, London audiences had already been treated to Stokowski’s version, which came much later, and it was once again intriguing to hear how the character of the original piece shifts with the instrumentation. Wood’s chief structural change is to dispense with all but the opening Promenade, given the quality of a strut rather than a majestic opening. Consequentially, the visitor to the gallery moves swiftly from one picture to the next.
Wood’s Gnomus is aggressive, terrifyingly even, echoing the composer’s original version of Night on Bald Mountain, with ferociously repeated wood blocks, furious timpani and strings stabbing violently. No familiar saxophone for Il vecchio castello, instead a soft euphonium and trumpet placed high aloft in the gallery. This had the effect of viewing the castle from afar. Bydło sounded more like a caravan of camels in the desert, with the liberal application of camel bells. In the concluding tableau Wood pulls out all the stops, with the first appearance of real bells (brought all the way from Liverpool) in the gallery tolling softly, as if the traveller catches sight of the golden-topped onion domes in Kiev from a distance. He then has the bells pealing festively and with full force, supported by organ, full orchestra and here the cheering voices of the CBSO players. Nine minutes of very loud bells was like being trapped in the bell tower of St Paul’s, but the Promenaders loved every moment of being whacked for six. Wood’s arrangement may in places be more than OTT, but in all its sections the CBSO played magnificently throughout.
