ADDA Alicante hosts RTVE orchestra and chorus in Brahms, Nielsen, Strauss and Borodin

 

Alicante’s ADDA hosted the Orchestra and Chorus of RTVE in a concert entitled “Don Juan and Prince Igor”. The title rather ignored the first half, which featured three works, two choral pieces by Brahms and Nielsen’s Flute Concerto. I will therefore describe the second half first.

Twenty minutes was the listed performance time for Richard Strauss’s tone poem, Don Juan. It is a race through the biography of a character who occupied Daponte and Mozart for a couple of hours and Lord Byron for a lifetime. And in this performance, these 20 minutes, absolutely whizzed by. Richard Strauss’s orchestration in this symphonic poem is so massive that the audience members in the first few rows regularly had to duck to avoid the kitchen sinks.

But what subtlety lies within this apparently broad brush! From the second row, I could see the percussionists behind the first violins and was astounded to hear a triangle played softly rising above an orchestral tutti. Richard Strauss certainly knew how to write for orchestra, and this performance, at speed, was virtuosic. As the good times roll by, we know the character is going to receive his come-uppance, and that duly arrives with the finality of pizzicato marking a truly quiet end to a raucous life.

And then we launched into Borodin’s Polovtsian Dances from Prince Igor. Now this is a real show-stopper. Not only does it present a thoroughly familiar tune in its opening passages and at the end, the Gliding Dance of the Maidens, a tune made famous by its incorporation into Kismet in Hollywood, but its upbeat central section is it itself a pop classic. Someone behind us in the audience sang along with the RTVE chorus with the words of “Stranger in Paradise”, but it was not disturbing, because the volume of sound produced on stage in this work is immense.

We did have an encore. It was another pop classic in the form of the chorus of the Hebrew Slaves from Nabucco. It all makes musical sense, if you can imagine an entire race incarcerated in a prehistorical concentration camp and faced with extermination joining in with a waltz sung in a major key. I suppose faith is powerful.

The first half started with the two with two significant works by Brahms. In Nänie, Op. 82, we are presented with a rather funereal atmosphere that anticipates some of Brahms’s later works, but without the obvious lyricism. In Schicksalslied, Op.54 we have full blown Brahms in mid-career. Brahms, complete with a smoker’s shortness of breath, presents his characteristic short phrase – pause – short phrase – pause (repeat) structure that he so commonly used. My personal theory is that he liked to sing along with his work, but his lungs could no longer sustain a long phrase.

And so to the problematic piece in the program. Make of this what you will – and our soloist, whose name is Mónica Raga, resident of the RTV Orchestra, did just that. The playing of this enigmatic work was utterly breathtaking, nothing less than perfect, even inspired. And this despite conductor Christoph König at one point letting go of his baton and hitting her mid-stream. Not a note was lost. Quite brilliant.

But Nielsen’s Flute Concerto is a late work and the composer, already at work on the Sixth  (and equally problematic) Symphony presents his audience with a piece that vacillates between serious and tender, between cynical and sincere throughout its two movements. One wonders where Carl Nielsen had convinced himself by 1926 that a composer’s life was the pits and his offerings were without worth. In his own words, he wrote, “If I could live my life again, I would chase any thoughts of Art out of my head and be apprenticed to a merchant or pursue some other useful trade the results of which could be visible in the end ...” This concerto, neither modern nor traditional, neither the tonal nor abstract, neither serious or frivolous, presents a challenge for an audience and a soloist. Mónica Raga truly rose to the occasion, and she made sense of this enigmatic work. It is, however, an enigma worth revisiting.

The third Gonzalo Soriano Piano Competition in Alicante

 

From 23rd April 26 April 2025, some 90 competitors took part in the third Gonzalo Soriano Piano Competition. The participants competed across five categories based on age, right from “prodigios”, who were very young indeed, up to the adult category D, in which the participants are basically already professional or semi-professional pianists seeking to enhance their careers. The Gonzalo Soriano Piano Competition is organized by Ars Alta Cultural (arsatlacultural.com) with the cooperation of Alicante’s Conservatorio Profesional de Música Guitarrista “José Tomás”.

The adult category was scheduled over the first two days of the competition and the final took place on the Friday evening. Three participants were selected to play half hour programs in the final, being Luis Cabello López from Spain, Yui Higashijima from Japan and Michał Selwesiuk from Poland.

The competition’s first prize went to Yui Higashijima. Second prize went Michał Selwesiuk and third prize to the 19-year-old Luis Cabello López from Spain. All three performances in the final were superb. Luis’s interpretation of the Second Sonata of Prokofiev was both exciting and witty. He stresses the angularity of the writing, but uses liberal legato where tenderness shows through the composer’s is almost metallic sheen. Bartok’s percussive Sonata completed his program. Now this is a very difficult work to interpret. It’s quieter sections can sometimes seem lacking in direction, but overall, Luis’s interpretation was exciting and satisfying.

Yui Higashijima’s program was a complete contrast to what had gone before. She offered JS Bach’s Toccata in D Minor, BWV 917, which she played with complete lyrical control. It’s amazing how Bach’s music suggests harmonic complexities by juxtaposing ideas rather than sounding chords. All this music’s elegance and sophistication came alive in her performance. She followed with Rachmaninov’s Variations on a Theme of Corelli, Opus 42. Unlike Rachmaninov’s Paganini Variations, this work has few memorable tunes, and fewer technical gymnastics and, of course, is for solo piano. But nevertheless it is still by Rachmaninov, and it is designed to be technically demanding. Yui played it in such a way that the technical demands were not obvious because the music flowed by virtue of the energy and accuracy of her performance.

Michał Selwesiuk also programmed Rachmaninov. He began with Moments Musicaux No1 from Opus 16 which, if anything, is Rachmaninov in a more reflective, understated style. He played the piece almost as if it were prelude to what followed, which was Chopin’s B-flat minor Sonata, Opus 35. This is a major work in the piano repertoire and Michał’s playing and interpretation of it with faultless.

Personally, I am not a judge of piano playing. The Gonzalo Soriano Piano Competition, however, had four judges who all have extensive experience and expertise in the role. Helena Sul from Sweden, Denise Lutgens from the Netherlands, Dorian Leljac and Danijel Gašparović from Croatia judged collectively that Yui Higashijima would be awarded first prize, Michał Selwesiuk second prize and Luis Cabello third prize. As a lover of music, I can testify that these three performances, covering such a different repertoire, were all thoroughly professional, and what is more, musically and artistically moving.

In the other categories, Mara Spitz was awarded absolute first prize in category C, Petar Vidošević in category B and Deedeh Rouhani in category A. All the prodigies who took part were awarded prizes.

Four days is a lot of piano music. But the hard work, dedication, and practice by these young players is a pure joy to witness. And if it were to happen again next week, I would want to attend every session, but this time in the audience! One can only hope that music lovers can have a chance to hear more of these gifted performers in the future.

Vilde Frang, Vladimir Jurowski and the London Philharmonic Orchestra play Beethoven and Schumann in ADDA Alicante

 

A few years ago, a concert program comprising two works by Beethoven, and one by Schuman would not, for me, have aroused much interest. That is the value of an abono, a subscription, because a subscription means that you have opted for an entire season of performances and thus one goes to whatever is on offer. My wife and I have had a subscription to Alicante’s ADDA auditorium for several years and so we are now used to attending concerts that would not usually be in our comfort zone, which is that of twentieth and twenty-first century music. Last night in ADDA, we received a clear statement of what we have been missing over the years when we repeatedly tried to edit out what we didn’t “like”.

The concert was by the London Philharmonic Orchestra under Vladimir Jurowski and featured the violin playing of Vilde Frang. Right, that has got the star billing out of the way! The concert presented Beethoven’s Coriolan Overture, Robert Schumann’s Violin Concerto, and then Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5. For someone who does not normally warm to Beethoven’s symphonies, I confess that in concert over the last two months I have heard numbers four, five and seven, and all three in their own way, have proved to be the highlights of a very rich musical year. My fear of cliché often gets in the way, but these three performances, and last night’s number five included, have all been outstanding.

Vladimir Jurowski needs no introduction. He is a justifiably a world-famous conductor. He is very economical, highly proficient and a very precise conductor. There are no grand or grandiose gestures, just content. The way he communicated what he wanted to stress in this performance of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony was both subtle and dramatically perfect. His indication of the syncopations in the final movement, for instance, were both precise and perfectly judged. In the central movements, Beethoven’s memory of wind bands in the street were clear, but the context was always architectural, with nothing being played for momentary effect. The pace of the first movement was fast and this “knock of fate on the door” was truly frightening. Again, I am tempted to describe the playing and the conducting as perfect.

The Coriolan Overture in its own way a masterpiece. Here Beethoven is trying to give us a complete Shakespeare play in five minutes. The ending, where treason results in public disgrace, is telling.

The Violin Concerto of Robert Schumann is potentially at least a problematic work. It is a late work, perhaps conceived when Robert Schumann was not fully in control of his own mind. But how many of us care when the result is what we heard? Vilde Frang’s playing made sense of this rather rambling score and the orchestral accompaniment was always sympathetic to her substantial dynamic. The sound from her Guarneri was something to behold. She did play an encore, which I believe was Montanari’s Giga Senza Basso.

I intend to repeat the subscription for another year at least!