Tonight’s concert opened with the warm string tones and broad, sweeping phrases of Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen Suite; the UK première of a little-known arrangement by František Jílek. Debuted after Václav Talich’s more familiar 1937 suite, Jílek’s arrangement hasn’t enjoyed the same exposure in concert halls, even though both conductors were highly esteemed interpreters of Janáček’s work in their day. Whereas Talich only used material from Act I of the opera and with alternative orchestrations, Jílek reverted to Janáček’s original orchestral passages, using material from all three acts. In contrast with Talich’s intricate zoning-in on the first act, the effect of Jílek’s approach in performance was to create a broad overview of the opera – which actually suited Jakub Hrůša’s big-picture conducting style to a tee. The work also went down well with the younger members of the audience in this so-called family concert, as Janáček’s skill at characterisation was expertly brought to the fore with exciting rhythms and orchestral textures.
Rolf Hind’s new accordion concerto The Tiniest House of Time took the audience on a very different journey, inspired by a mixture of ancient Eastern poetry, folk and gypsy music, meditative techniques and his own philosophies on life and spirituality. Hind focused on the experience of the present moment: the work opened with a cacophony of sound including a piercingly high piccolo, and presented seven speeds of music at once. This overwhelmingly chaotic passage interrupted the first movement several times, interspersed with accordion flurries – the objective being to express the insanity of the poem by the 13th-century poet Rumi on which the movement is based. A few unsolicited vocal interruptions from the audience were a little unsettling and will surely be cut out of the broadcast when it is aired; however, to my mind these disturbances weren’t entirely out of place with the theme of the work.
A calmer, more reflective atmosphere prevailed in the second movement, “Tonglen” – a Tibetan meditative practice where one inhales others’ suffering and exhales happiness. Soloist James Crabb was pushed down to the deepest notes of the accordion as he made the instrument “breathe”. In his programme notes, Hind indicates that he intended the accordion to be a “magician, party-animal, healer, rabble-rouser”. I cannot say that I recognised this characterisation a great deal, since the accordion didn’t appear to play as much of a solo role as one might expect. Undoubtedly the most magical moment of the piece was at the very end, which, despite nervous giggles from the audience, had me spellbound. Based on another of Rumi’s poems, the fourth movement again focused on being solely in the present, but this time the chaos of the first movement had been reduced to music in its simplest gestures. The accordion imitated very realistic birdsong accompanied by high string harmonics, percussionists poured water methodically from one bowl to another, and string players mimicked the beating of a bird’s wings by rhythmically swishing their bows through the air.