Rune Bergmann conducts the ADDA orchestra in Alicante in Mozart and Sibelius and a moment to reflect

Last night’s concert in ADDA with our resident orchestra under Rune Bergmann, our invited director, was memorable for perhaps regrettable reasons, none of which were musical. Regret came at the end, and more of that later.

The program was a conventional one: overture, classical symphony, and then a Romantic one, much loved and much played. The program did not disappoint and as ever our ADDA orchestra brought the music to life with virtuoso playing, enthusiasm and ensemble.

We began with Mozart’s Overture to the Magic Flute. After its slow introduction, the composer projects real energy through fugal music before pausing for a central section in which Masonic chords in the brass intervene. In the late eighteenth century, this might have been seen as a revolutionary gesture, perhaps reminding those in the audience of what was currently happening in France. It would not have provided them with the kind of comfortable listening that the piece provides today. Those brass interludes are nothing more than a “Look out!” perhaps reminding everyone that status counts for nothing, perhaps to remind people of how lucky they were to be alive. Mozart himself was not alive by the end of the run of the Magic Flute.

The Prague Symphony that followed is Mozart’s 38th Symphony. It was one of the pieces that introduced me to listening to music that was not pop, because there was a recording of it in my school’s small record library. To this day, I cannot either predict or understand the slowing of pace in the first movement, where the string lines cross over a rhythmic structure like punctuation. All I know is that every time I hear the piece, which is quite often, it takes me by surprise. Rune Bergmann’s pace with this piece, and indeed, overall across the concert, was brisk, giving the music extra drama here and there.

This Sibelius Symphony No.1 that we heard in the second half is a concert hall standard. Having just written that, I checked and I have not heard it live in concert for at least fifteen years! (Live television, excluded!) It is a work that is always impressive, but for me, personally, lacks identity. In it, I sense the composer is still searching for a musical identity that only crystallized later. Here we have passages straight out of Tchaikovsky, some folk influence, some undiluted late Romanticism. In fact, the symphony is brim-full of ideas, to such an extent that the music seems to be episodic. But one what wonderful episodes they are.

Rune Bergmann chose a very fast tempo in the scherzo and equally fast for sections of the finale, a speed which emphasizes musical contrast, less so the inherent lyricism. But it was a memorable performance of a familiar work.

And then the regret. ADDA’s artistic director, Josep Vicent, who had been listening to the concert, took a microphone and reminded the audience of the recent rail accident in Spain that claimed many lives. He asked for respectful silence, and the ADDA audience observed it faultlessly.

There was always going to be an encore. Conductor Rune Bergmann went up high to a box and low strings introduced his playing of the Norwegian bukkehorn in what I think was a performance of Michael Strand’s Men går jag över engarna (But I walk across the meadows). Anna Nielsen, invited concertmaster for the evening, then took up the melody in song. She was joined on stage by Rune Bergmann and the bukkehorn to conclude the work. It is a simple song, rather sad and folksy, musically modal and thus fit the requirements perfectly. Like the Masonic chords in the Mozart, this reminded everyone how lucky they were to be alive and provided a deeply personal and reflective experience for all involved, on stage and off.

ADDA Cameristica play two pieces for winds and then a Mahler version of a Beethoven String Quartet in a concert of pure musical joy

These days, one always expects a lot from any performance by members of the ADDA Orchestra and one is never disappointed. This subgroup, called ADDA Cameristica, gave a free concert last night in the Sala Ruperto Chapi featuring the kind of program that a commercial concert would simply not present, because commercial considerations would preclude it. As a consequence, the likelihood that music lovers would ever have a chance of hearing pieces of this kind, especially those included in the first half of this ADDA concert, is minimal. Certainly in over fifty years of concert going, I have never had the privilege of hearing the Strauss Serenade performed as a chamber music piece.

This was a concert of under an hour of music but involved two quite different ensembles. In the first half we heard two pieces of music for a wind band, one of which also had percussion. Jesse Passenier’s Overture for 13 winds and percussion was a world premier performance of a piece that uses jazz idiom alongside formal structures in its ten-minute duration. It is based on two sections that are then repeated with variation. A slow, highly textured section gives way to a rhythmic and staccato dance-like second section, where the percussion adds weight. These two sections are then repeated with variation to complete the work. Writing a piece for thirteen winds and percussion is a very laudable exercise, but one wonders whether the composer would ever have expected to hear it professionally performed.  Memorable were the shared textures that the contrabassoon and the bass clarinet created. This was an exciting work that should be played often.

Richard Strauss’s Serenade for thirteen winds is a masterpiece. The programme listed the work as Opus4, but I think it is Opus7. The Suite Opus 4 is considerably longer that the ten-minute piece we heard. The fact remains that Richard Strauss was just seventeen when he wrote it. If it is played at all, it tends to be played at the opening of a symphony concert, in which these gentle sonorities become somewhat lost in the oversized acoustic. It was then a revelation to hear the piece played in a small auditorium designed for chamber music. It is a youthful work, written by teenager for his father. It is a masterpiece, albeit in Richard Strauss’s terms, a miniature. The four horns that are that are demanded by the composer are worked quite hard, but these players of the ADDA Cameristica were faultless.

The second half of the concert was played by a string orchestra. And it was significant string orchestra, including two double basses. I point this out because the work played was Mahler’s string orchestra version of Beethoven’s Opus95 String Quartet. Now there are no basses in a string quartet, so Mahler did a little more than merely make more copies of the string parts.

And what work this is. It sounds as if it had been written for a string orchestra in the original. Beethoven’s often surprising use of rhythm and dynamics really did work extremely well in this larger setting. It was a memorable performance worthy of repeated hearings. Wonderful.

 

Nacho de Paz in Valencia conducts Scriabin and Messiaen and achieves revelatory sounds

Nacho de Paz had a challenging program to conduct in his concert with the Orchesta de València. It’s not that the music was especially difficult, it’s just that the three works included in the program are not often played together. The workload in rehearsals must have been tremendous, but it was time well spent because these performances were memorable.

In his pre-concert talk, however, Nacho de Paz explained that the two composers whose works we heard both held universe-explaining obsessions, albeit of radically different kinds, and thus both composed according to their philosophy.

The main attraction for me personally was the Scriabin Poem of Ecstasy. The composer at the time of its composition was becoming obsessed with theosophical ideas, where a synthesis of ideas, religions and human experience were raised to a force which could drive the universe. The Poem of Ecstasy predated his work on The Mysterium, that vast unfinished work, whose first performance in the Himalayan foothills in India might just bring an end to the universe, the composer thought. The Poem of Ecstasy, an orchestral piece in one movement, otherwise known as the composer’s fourth symphony, was much closer to the fundamental core of human experience. It has clear sexual meaning and, when all said and done, without sex there would be no humans. Nacho de Paz, in his pre-concert talk, seemed to ignore this angle, concentrating on Scriabin’s exploration of the multiple harmonics that naturally spring from a long note. For Nacho de Paz, the massive apotheosis of the Poem of Ecstasy was a symbol of Scriabin achieving a kind of mathematical perfection by synthesising the mathematical possibilities of harmonics. My view is that it represents a purely physical, not mental experience. The performance of the work regularly achieved the composer’s intended dynamics, thus rendering the experience of listening quite physical.

The other two works on the program were both by Olivier Messiaen. Now Olivier Messiaen was a devoted Christian, a Roman Catholic, who constantly strove to reveal a spiritual truth through his musical composition. The fact that audiences often find his work hard to appreciate is his apparent rejection of form in his work. Messiaen’s music rarely conforms to what anyone expects from a concert piece. It is always meditative and possibly also intensely personal, even when, for instance in the Nine Meditations on the Holy Trinity, he is exploring the transliteration of text in the music. He called the system he invented a “communicable language”, but often audiences find that they have never learned his language.

The two works on offer in this concert were Les Offrandes Oubliées and L’Ascension. The former is the more conventional concert piece, but in the end, when the music literally dissolves into silence, the effect is strange in that the music does not seem to embody emotion. It simply exists.

L’Ascension’s four movements are effectively a concerto for orchestra. The first movement concentrates on brass, the second on wind and the last strings. Messiaen explores the sonorities just like any other composer would when trying to show off what an orchestra can do, but doubly baffling then is the decision to use only the strings in the last movement and then only part of the strings on the platform. Harmonically, Messiaen’s music is always recognizable. His signature is complex and, for the casual ear, it is perhaps unintelligible. Repeated listening, however, reveals patterns that the composer uses time and again, but they remain unconventional. The complications of dissonant notes in ecstatic chords always seems to cast doubt into the meaning of the music, doubt that still might have troubled the composer.

Overall, the concert was a triumph. It presented three twentieth century masterpieces on a single programme, works that presented composers grappling with the philosophies that drove them. Harmonies used by both composer were truly ecstatic. But by then end of L’Ascension, the slow progression of the music was surely a vision of the infinite that no human being can comprehend.

Ruben Jais and Roberta Mameli surprise with Haydn and Mozart at ADDA Alicante - a concert to remember

 

The anonymous role that expectation plays in our lives is vastly important. Expectation satisfied can often result in a feeling of self-confirmation, that feeling that comes with sensations of “I told you so, and I was right”. On the other hand, expectations not met can sometimes be associated with poor experience, associated with thoughts such as “I knew this was a bad idea”. Just occasionally, one sets off with expectations that are not met, and the result is tantamount to revelation. “What on earth have I been missing all these years?”

Last night I went to ADDA in Alicante with preconceived expectations. On the bill were Haydn and Mozart, composers who I spend many hours listening to, or not listening to might be a better description. In both cases, I hear a lot of their music but rarely pause to listen. That is one of the joys of going to concerts, to be presented with music that one often ignores or is ignorant of. We thereby run the risk of being surprised. Last night in ADDA, at least in the first half of the evening, the music not only did not conform to expectations, but the experience was so rich that it may even have changed my listening habits.

Alongside the ADDA orchestra, there were billed two other musicians, an invited conductor, Ruben Jais and Roberta Mameli, a soprano soloist. All last night’s performers brought an enthusiasm and no little skill of execution to produce a performance that were not only as good as can be imagined, but they may have even been revelatory, at least for this hardened concertgoer.

We began with Haydn’s aria Berenice, che fai? with Roberta Mameli as soloist. The aria is in fact from one of Haydn’s operas. Joseph Haydn wrote fourteen operas. Why on earth are they never performed, especially since the librettists he worked with include Goldoni? Roberta Mameli’s singing of this aria was powerful, dramatic, exciting and vocally superb. There is a lot of sturm und drang around in this music, but it is perfectly crafted and allows the soloist adequate room to show off, while retaining sufficient musical sense not to be merely a showpiece. A program note reminded the audience that Haydn had become a musician via singing, and the composer’s handling of the voice and orchestra combined managed to convey just the right balanced blend of anger and elegance to convince. Roberta Mameli's performance conveyed every scrap of meaning it was possible to extract from both text and music. This was singing of the highest quality in the form of a surprise called Haydn opera.

What followed was a real ear-opener. A Haydn symphony in the first half of concert programmes is not unusual. They are usually mid-nineties onwards, with occasional forays into the eighties and even the seventies. But not the pre-fifties! That is specialist fare. I do often research the music prior to concert, but this time I had not troubled my recordings, since my expectations had convinced me what to expect. The program note did surprise in that it described a series of Haydn mid-career symphonies all composed in minor keys. But surely this was music to order from Esterhazy employers. What could have motivated Joseph Haydn to melancholy?

The reality of Haydn’s Symphony No49 La Passione unfolded. It was nothing less than revelatory. Not only did this music not meet my expectations, but it completely shattered them. They had told of elegance, dance-like rhythms and more icing than cake. And how utterly unrelated was the reality! The first movement never really seems to exist, except in gentle comments around a theme that seems never to be stated. It could not have been more different from what I unexpected. A strange second movement followed, and then even a downbeat minuet before a finale that tried and tried to establish a major key but eventually failed. The symphony provided a musical experience of such surprise that at home I immediately accessed a recording of it and listened to it twice again. There is a lot in this music, both musically and intellectually, and it provided an experience as rounded as any I have had in a concert hall for some time. Hence a New Year’s Resolution to explore more of the symphonies of Joseph Haydn.

But the experience was surely as much as a result of Ruben Jais’s vision for the music, as it was a result of compositional skill. In music, no matter how good the writing, it still has to be interpreted and performed, and it is these qualities that an audience remembers.

In a more familiar second half of the concert, we heard two works by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The Symphony No25 again explores sturm und drang, with what at the time must have sounded like a procession of dissonance. And in the early Exultate, Jubilate, Mozart conceived a show-off piece for a singer that also makes musical sense and provides a rousing end to any programme. This was especially the case as Roberta Mameli’s voice achieved levels of dynamics alongside purity of tone and musical interpretation that rendered this very familiar piece a real surprise. A standing encore of Corelli’s Christmas Cantata brought the evening to an equally surprising end, because, after all the sturm und drang that had preceded it, these overtly gentle Baroque sounds were truly elegant and relatively simple at the same time.

It is not often that expectations are so completely shattered with utterly surprising results. I will certainly never again listen to the music of Joseph Haydn with my previous assumptions. This was a truly memorable evening.

Verdi's Luisa Miller in Les Arts Valencia is a triumph for all concerned

 

Giuseppe Verdi set Salvador Cammarano's adaptation of Schiller’s Kabale und Liebe (Intrigue and Love) to music to produce the first opera of his now identified “middle” period. In this phase, the composer rejected previous formats of love duets followed by a chorus, which had previously dominated Italian opera. The opera is known as Luisa Miller, named after the apparently blameless heroine who, in the version Cammarano intended, dies tragically along with her lover at the end. In the case of Luisa Miller, the composer’s departure from the norms of stage melodrama initially led to the work’s troubled premiere in Naples. Verdi would never again write for Teatro San Carlo, but, as we know, did move onto other things. Cammarano’s adaptation of Schiller’s Intrigue and Love moved the plot decisively towards the “love”, but in a new production of the opera in Valencia, the intrigue is again in focus. The main themes, however, of this re-envisaged production are clearly social class, family loyalties, stereotypes, individualism, and feminism.

Valentina Carrasco’s production makes perfect sense, despite at times appearing to be merely decorative. We are presented with a doll factory setting. The director herself makes the point that dolls and the images they present are largely aimed at a female audience.

Luisa’s father, Miller, owns the factory and he is worried because his daughter is in love with Carlo, a stranger of unknown attachment or descent. When Luisa sings of her love for him, the factory workers immediately think of marriage and stereotypical dolls, representing grooms and brides, are brought together in an unfeeling embrace to signify the conventional marriage that awaits. At first sight, this could be literal, it could present a stereotypical idea of romantic love, but it could be kitsch, or it could indicate the conventional thought that dominates a small town. But as things progress it is symbolic of Luisa’s state of mind, a reality that will change by the opera’s end.

Carlo, it transpires, is in fact Rudolfo, the son of the local count, who regards his subjects as possessions. They must conform to his wishes, and certainly not oppose them. This is the kind of patriarchal society that this production of the opera will question. Wurm, the previous suitor of Luisa, reveals the true identity of Rudolfo as the count’s son and thereby casts doubt in everyone’s mind about the lover’s intentions. Was the name change just to hide the aristocratic origins of someone who just wanted to seduce a nice girl from the town? This is the doubt he sows in Luisa’s mind.

In a weak point of the libretto, and the count and Wurm reveal to the audience the fact that the count’s fortune came about by an act of murder against his own family. Here, the characters do little more than tell the audience the plot. It is clumsy, but then Wagner did it repeatedly. The two men, however, decide that their interests are best served by sticking together. The count reveals that he has marriage plans for his son, the suitor being Federica, a rich, well-connected duchess. Rodolfo, who is sincere in his love for Luisa, is not impressed despite having grown up with his intended spouse.

To signify a hunt called by the count, the toy factory displays cuddly dogs. Again, at the time, this could be taken as petty and decorative, but they reinforce the concept indicating that the count will hunt his own prey and stop at nothing to get his own way. When Miller, Luisa’s father, criticizes the count, he is imprisoned. Luisa is then confronted with the plot hatched by Wurm and the count to lever Rodolfo out of her life and replace him with Wurm, thus achieving what he himself and the count want. The dogs, incidentally, reappear in act three, this time set as a pack by Luisa to indicate that now she has become the huntress in wanting to achieve a change her own life. It is this aspect that becomes the twist that makes this production of Luisa Miller so convincing.

Threatening consequences for her father, Wurm has Luisa write a letter in which she falsely admits to her duplicity in leading on Rudolfo to get her hands on his money. It is clear that Luisa is being manipulated, but in the context of events, what other choice does she have? She cannot countenance her father’s death or even suffering, and this is in marked contrast with the count’s act of familial murder to amass his fortune. Rudolfo, on reading Luisa’s letter, takes it at face value and such is his desire to internalise his grief, he contemplates death whilst at the same time threatening his father with the revelation of his crime. Wurm, meanwhile, rubs his hands together in expectation of triumph, the same hands that will explore Louise’s body. The letter is written, Rudolfo suspects intrigue. The plan is working. Wurm and the count will get what they want. Louise’s father can be released.

With marriage preparations on the way, Rodolfo has decided that it he cannot get his own way then no one else is going to have Luisa. He decides that the two of them will take poison in the final act of defiance and enduring love (as he sees it!). Luisa seems to have not agreed or even been consulted about such a plan. It is another example of how the males assume they can impose their wishes on women.

Luisa has, however, lined up her hunting dogs. She has thus become the huntress, and it dawns on her that she can take control of her life. We suddenly see lots of brides and grooms, stereotypical dolls, of course, hanging by their neck. The stereotypes are going to be erased. Rodolfo takes his poison in what is now perceived as a selfish, self-seeking act of revenge born of his own pride, perhaps. But, in this production, Luisa throws her helping of the poison onto the ground, thus refusing to conform with Rudolfo’s wishes.

Thus we have the final redemption, not Wagnerian adoption into heaven, as Luisa sees the light of her own independence from all this male intrigue and in-fighting. As the dying Rodolfo and Miller, Luisa’s father, bemoan the death of a bride doll representing Luisa (signifying their stereotypical view of women), Luisa herself walks towards the light of her own future carrying a groom doll, a stereotype she now controls. If you remain Romantically inclined, it is heaven she approaches via death, and she carries with her memory of Rodolfo. She did not, however, take the poison, and she had previously become the huntress by lining up her pack of dogs. It is enigmatic, perhaps, powerful, yes, and, in the end, it brings together in perfect sense a production that might at first sight have seemed disparate.

The singing of all concerned was, however, the opera’s undoubted highpoint. Freddie De Tommaso as Rodolfo and Mariangela Sicilia as Luisa were simply faultless. They were more than this, however. Rudulfo’s arrogance and at the same time sincerity were clear. Freddie De Tommaso struck the balance between confidence of his masculinity married with a sense of inferiority with regard to his father. Mariangela Sicilia’s Luisa combined the simplicity of female prospects at the start of the opera with the growing realisation that something had to change to release her from the frustrations of a life controlled by others.

Alex Exposito’s count was convincingly powerful, whilst conveying the fact that he was hiding something embarrassing behind the status. Gianlucca Buratta’s Wurm was slimily convincing. Germán Enrique Alcántara as Miller sang every line elegantly and with clear meaning, and the Maria Barakova as the Federica, the duchess-suitor played a role that was a little one-dimensional, but she sang and acted with terrific and convincing style. This was a woman who knew what she wanted, but, because of Luisa’s assertion of independence, she was denied her prize. At the opera’s end, it is only Luisa who walks towards new existence with confidence. Everyone else has suffered, but then everyone else was in some way involved in the intrigue that was designed to entrap her. It is therefore, but triumph for feminism that Luisa’s new resolve prevails.

It must be sad that I have not mentioned the music. Having opened the review with the name “Giuseppe Verdi”, I have not yet mentioned anything about the music. Verdi has apparently played second fiddle, but not so on stage. The music of this opera bursts with ideas and textures, all perfectly communicated and played by the Orquestra de la Communidad Valenciana under Sir Mark Elder. Luisa Miller might not be one of Verdi’s better-known operas, but in this production, it is a roaring success that makes perfect dramatic and musical sense.

Leticia Moreno plays Fazil Say's 1001 Nights in the Harem with ADDA orchestra under Josep Vicent in Alicante

Last night’s concert in ADDA featured a program of unusual style. The main work on offer was a half hour violin concerto, and there is nothing strange about that. This, however, was a violin concerto with a difference. But the rest of the program comprised three works by Ravel, two of them excerpts and the third, that strangely familiar experience we call Bolero. Throughout this concert featuring effectively a Spanish-Turkish sandwich, a thread linking these works was their “orientalism”, that nineteenth century concept blending mysticism and magic in the eyes of then colonial Europeans. But the orientalism imagined by Ravel was here contrasted with the voice of a contemporary Turkish composer, whose claims to authenticity were surely justified, despite his having studied in Germany and his liking for jazz. In this world, after all, everything is syncretic.

The concert started with Ravel, the Feria from Rhapsodie Espagnole. The orchestral sound, textures and ensemble were perfect throughout. This was Ravel at his most joyous, and perhaps once forgetting manacles that kept his asceticism to the fore. The playing of this piece, so familiar, was exceptional, and was duly noticed by and remarked upon, via applause and acclamation, by the audience.

In the second half, a second Ravel excerpt, the Ouverture de Féerie from Shéhérazade was, by contrast, much more restrained, much more of a conscious recreation of a scene in the composer’s mind than a depiction of a place and time.

Then, to complete the Spanish-Turkish sandwich, we heard a performance of Bolero. It is such a strange piece of music that I doubt anyone other than its composer understands what it is doing. The composer himself said there was no music in it. In some ways, it is an essay in orchestration, which is eventually one orchestral tutti played in slow motion with a drum beat. Here, the master orchestrator has the majority of the strings played pizzicato for half the piece, and some of the strings remain pizzicato until near the end. In Ravel’s music, however, you can always hear the harp.

But despite the strangeness of this music, basically two repeated melodies varied only in dynamics in texture, it has gained remarkable popularity. And this performance, as ever by the ADDA Orchestra under Josep Vicent was greeted with cheers of appreciation.

The main part of the Turkish filling in this sandwich came from the evening’s main work, which was 1001 Nights in the Harem, a violin concerto by Fazil Say. In this world, the composer mixes extended violin technique, Turkish percussion, a traditional song in the slow movement and a multiplicity of understated orchestral textures to create the quiet world in which Sheherazade might have told her bedtime stories. Leticia Moreno, who was soloist, gave a truly memorable performance of this monumental solo part in which she is rarely silent throughout the half hour duration of piece. Some of the scrapes and scratches of the first movement perhaps had the audience worried that she would have no bow left by the end, but all was well. This is virtuosity that rarely involves simply showing off. Much of the solo part is very quiet, accompanied by mere orchestral punctuation. Here is a concerto where the soloist must feel like a specimen under a microscope. There is simply no room for error whatsoever and every detail is audible. The fact that the orchestra and the soloist gave such a faultless performance of this strange and reflective work is testament to everyone concerned, Josep Vicent. Leticia Moreno, the ADDA orchestra and ADDA audience, attentive as ever. I did listen to Kopatchinskaja with Pappano in 2024 in the same work before writing this this review and I could spot no difference in interpretation or playing. Both were faultless, followed similar tempi and phrasing.

There were two encores. Having taken her bow at the end part one, Leticia Moreno returned to the stage to play Piazzolla’s Oblivion with orchestral accompaniment and then we had the final section of Bolero repeated. This was one to remember.

ADDA orchestra under Darrell Ang plays Brahms and Zhou Tian with Albert Gionovart as soloist

Zhou Tian’s Concerto for Orchestra was written in 2016. It was commissioned and premiered by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and their recording of it received a Grammy nomination. In Zhou Tian’s own words: ‘My Concerto for Orchestra is a love letter to the symphony orchestra, featuring passages that range from epic to intimate. It is scored lushly through four parts: “Glow,” a journey to splendor through two contrasting themes; “Indigo,” a musical postcard from a walk in the forest one late summer night; “Seeker’s Scherzo,” a retro miniature; and “Intermezzo – Allegro,” a fierce rhapsody that begins with a lyrical fugue. Beneath the power and edginess, there is an unmistakable sense of romanticism in the music.’

So, what we heard last night in a performance by the ADDA orchestra in Alicante was, in all but name, a rather conventional Romantic symphony following the usual four movement pattern of allegro, adagio, scherzo and allegro-finale. The fact that it was titled Concerto for Orchestra indicates that the composer tried to highlight the individual sonorities and capabilities of each instrument and instrumental grouping of the orchestra. And the composer did just that. The fourth movement, for instance, starts with effectively a string quartet which, late Shostakovich style, angularly introduces the themes of the fugue that builds via woodwind to an orchestral tutti. The writing for timpani in this section is prominent. Zhou Tian explains that ‘in the fourth a fugue builds’ where ‘occasional touches of jazz syncopation and harmony are mixed with folksy tunes in perpetual motion’.

But there are also difficulties for the listener. In the first movement, for instance, alongside orchestral climaxes, the harp is playing arpeggios that cannot possibly be heard. Later on, the composer does make use of the harp’s individual sonority. Overall, I found that contrasting sonorities were often lost in a similar broad brush of orchestral colour. In that first movement, Zhou Tian states that ‘Keen listeners may discover hidden homages to some of the great concerti for orchestra from the past.’ I did find myself sifting through memories to locate references, but, as will be seen later, my mind was otherwise engaged. One did sense that the composer, however, did use quotation liberally, even, at one stage near the end, Messiaen’s Turangalila.

Of the second movement, the composer says that ‘Plush strings, lyrical oboe solo, dashing flutes and harp, and dark brass paint shades of blue into indigo…’ The use of colour to express sound is relevant here in a movement that sounds like it could have been written at any time in the last century, or perhaps before.

There follows a conventional short scherzo. The third movement ‘draws inspiration from the classical form while incorporating new turns and twists, constantly exploring different colors and timbre’.  Zhou Tian used the term ‘a retro miniature’ in his own description, and apart from ‘miniature’ hardly applying to a work scored for large forces, the term ‘retro’ could be applied to the whole work. Stylistically, it might draw on jazz, popular music, film music and other things, but essentially this is music of and from the past. It is no criticism to state that, but anyone coming to a work written in the last ten years and seeking something more “cutting edge” is going to be disappointed. The overall, impression of the work is both competent and exciting, but perhaps falling short of the memorable.

There followed an encore that conductor Darrell Ang described as a present from China, a piece that is played whenever there is something to celebrate. It was rousing.

In the first half we had heard Brahms Piano Concerto No1 played by Albert Guinovart. The soloist was a last-minute replacement for Judith Jáuregi, who was ill. At such short notice, Albert Guinovart did a superhuman job. This work is no mean feat for anyone, let alone someone who has had a minimal amount of time to prepare. The ADDA audience was wholly appreciative of the soloist’s efforts and the performance was enjoyed by all.

Albert Guinovart offered two short preludes of his own composition as an encore, the first a homage to Chopin, the second, as he himself described it, “original”. It was here that for just a short while we heard the true artistry of the performer. As ever, of course, and throughout, the ADDA orchestra was superb.

My own mind from the start was somewhat distracted by the trills that Brahms used to open the work. My mind immediately recalled another piece, but what? I have to admit that I spent much of the first half sifting through my musical memory to locate it, but locate it I did. Those trills are reminiscent of the opening of Berthold Goldschmidt’s opera Beatrice Cenci, so similar in fact that the later composer must have had the Brahms in mind when he wrote the score in 1949. The work waited until 1988 for a first performance and was not staged until 1994. It is, for the record, written in a late-Romantic style that very much pre-dated the year of its composition. The memory itself proved prescient.  

 

Gülsin Onay at the Denia International Piano Festival gives an exquisite performance

 

At 8pm on November 26, 2025 in the Centro Social in Denia, we heard Gülsin Onay play the piano.

Programa 

Johann Sebastian Bach - Partita No. 1 in B flat major, BWV 825

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Sonata in A major, KV331

Ahmed Adnan Saygun - 2 preludes in Aksak rhythm, op.45 nos.4 & 12

Frédéric Chopin - Sonata in B minor, op.58

I am breaking a self-imposed rule not to review concerts that I have been partly responsible for presenting. In the past, there were a lot of opportunities to do so, and I became repetitive. But the reason for this departure from the norm is to pay some homage to the exceptional talent, artistry and musicality of Gülsin Onay, who performed for us last night in the Denia International Piano Festival, courtesy of a group that I assist with, arsaltacultural.com.

On the face of it, the concert did not look like it was to be so memorable an experience. Notwithstanding two short pieces by a contemporary Turkish composer, the program looked rather conventional, a Bach partita, a widely played Mozart sonata and the Op58 Chopin sonata. But appearances can be deceptive. With live music, there is always the possibility that it will surprise and, on this chilly evening in November, there proved to be nothing conventional about the playing of our soloist, Gülsin Onay.

From the moment she started the Bach Partita No1, BWV825, the audience could collectively sense that they were in the presence of a true artist. The touch, the phrasing, and the sheer musicality of the playing immediately communicated that Gülsin Onay was a supreme storyteller. The plot of the musical story was always uppermost in her playing of the Bach Partita, which in other hands can so often seem like a procession of unrelated notes, if played unsympathetically. Here, the shape of the story, the juxtaposition of dances with harmonic and rhythmic complexity was crystal clear, so clear that many people listening were really experiencing the music for the first time, no matter how many times they had heard it before.

The Mozart Sonata, that followed, K331, is also well known. The Alla Turca rondo that forms the finale is recognizable to those who don’t even know the music of Mozart. And in the hands of this Turkish pianist, the concordance of music and performer was perfect. Indeed, the whole piece was couched in remarkably un-Mozart-like emotion. The description only holds for pianists who follow the dots religiously and do not interpret them, and this charge could never be levelled against Gülsin Onay. This is not to say that she took liberties with the score. She didn’t. But she played the everything with the insight of a true musician, a real artist.

A complete change of style was needed from Gülsin Onay for two preludes in Aksak rhythm, op45 nos4 & 12, by Ahmed Adnan Saygun. They were rhythmically interesting, rather percussive pieces, and the ease with which Gülsin Onay made the transition to a different musical world is surely testimony to the quality of her relationship with this composer’s work over the years.

But it was her playing of the Op58 Sonata of Chopin that really convinced this audience of the pianist’s artistry. It should have come as no surprise since the program notes stated that she had been awarded a state medal by Poland for her interpretation of Chopin.

Here was a work that I have heard perhaps thousands of times. On the basis of last night’s performance, however, I did not even know it, because almost every note, every phrase seemed new. It was as if we had Frederick Chopin in the auditorium explaining exactly what each phrase of the Sonata meant. The communication was that direct, and like all good stories, it captivated everyone until the last note. It was a performance of such a virtuosity and artistry that I cannot recall, after 50 years of listening to music, anything that was ever equal to it.

Gülsin Onay received a standing ovation and responded by playing two encores. Ondine from Ravel's Gaspard de la Nuit is a piece that many pianists would prefer not to attempt. In her hands, it was a door to enter the private universe of Maurice Ravel, so perfectly did each phrase fit into the space revealed by Ravel’s imagination. And then the Op9 No2 Nocturne of Chopin brought the evening to a close. Again it was a familiar work, but it is rarely played like this, with communication, not mere beauty of sound uppermost. By the end, I found myself saying that Gülsin Onay was simply one of the finest pianists I had ever heard.

Milan Slijepcevic toca en el Festival Internacional de Piano de Denia - el programa por el concierto de 4 diciembre

 

Več Makropulos at the Royal Opera House in London, a triumph for Ausrine Stundyte and a convincing re-interpretation by Katie Mitchell

Več Makropulos is really a play with musical accompaniment. One wonders whether the singers would think the same! It was also the debut in the opera house of the telephone, which features in act one of any production. But here it played a central role in the establishment of a feminist interpretation of the work, an interpretation that eventually proved both successful and relevant.

Janacek’s opera was completed in 1925 and staged in 1926. The difficulty of updating the text means that most productions of the work stay in the 1920s of it’s original conception. Here in 2025 in this production the setting is contemporary, which means that when Elina Makropulos finally reveals her age, she has to add an unscripted hundred to the written 337 years. The only problematic detail that arises from the time shift revolves around the patrimony and matrimony of the central characters. In 2025 we have DNA testing to establish lineage, whereas in 1925 such things were unknown. The problem, however, has no impact on the story, since DNA testing takes time, and time, even for a 437-year-old woman, is here in short supply since the action of Vec Makropulos surely takes place over one or two days.

The long running legal case about the inheritance of an estate between the Prus and Gregor families might have been settled before a century had elapsed, let alone two, if the family lineage had been established. The lack of any will kept the dispute alive, so to speak. But until the arrival on the scene of Emilia Marti, who seems to be well informed about the history of the families, no-one involved had any idea that Baron Prus in 1827 had fathered an illegitimate child following a relationship with an opera singer called Ellian MacGregor. Emilia Marti - Ellian MacGregor 200 years on - knows the location of a will in a drawer ostensibly containing letters written by Prus to his lover. The will leaves the estate to the illegitimate son, but there is a problem with the name. As an illegitimate child, the birth registry was unable to record a true father’s name. The singer MacGregor, wary of scandal that might be attached to her fame, used Makropulos as the surname -her own original family name - but entered the name of her long dead father, Ferdinand alongside. Over years, the Mac dropped away and the family name became Gregor, but there existed no definite linkage between the illegitimate son and the name Gregor, and crucially no tangible link to prove that Baron Prus was the father. DNA testing could establish a link, but not in 48 hours.

There is also another document associated with the will. It is a single sheet and written in Greek. It is a recipe for the elixir of life that Ferdinand Makropulos prepared for the emperor Rudolf in the sixteenth century. Emilia Marti - the same woman who as a sixteen-year-old Elina Makropulos was the guinea pig for the elixir, is now reaching the end of it’s effect and, after 437 years, she needs another dose. It is her mission to track down the document that she gave to her lover 200 years before, believing that she would never need it again. Originally, she had fallen ill and the emperor refused the potion, called her father a fraud, had him imprisoned and executed. She recovered, escaped to Hungary and lived on in relative obscurity. “No-one knew I would live for a hundred years…” Then she became a singer and had several careers, several lifetimes.

437 years is a long time. Elina Makropulos has had many identities, gone through many relationships and has had several children. She is now tired of what men might do to her and for some time has preferred the company of women. But she is not one for a quiet life. She has been a famous singer throughout and has lived life in the fast lane. She drinks heavily, takes class A drugs intravenously and is into every sexual expression possible with her female partners. At the start of this production using a split stage, while Vitek and Gregor and Prus discuss the court case in a hotel cafe, Emilia Marti is on her mobile in her room setting up a date with Krista via text messages. Krista comes to the hotel and she and Emilia make love. Krista’s lines in act one describing her infatuation with Marti are here delivered by phone from Marti’s bathroom. It is utterly credible. Though the elevation of the written minor role of Krista into a significant character who drives events was a major risk, the credibility of the result is testament to the genius vision of the director, Katie Mitchell.

When Marti joins the others in the cafe to discuss law, Krista stays behind in the hotel room, riffles through Martin’s bags in search of valuables and communicates her findings via texts to her boyfriend Janek, Baron Prus’s son, who researches and values possible loot.

Thus we have a perfect storm. Everyone on stage is now in competition with everyone else in order to establish advantage, both personal and financial. These are all people who are not nice to one another. The fact that Krista shoots Janek, rather than him committing suicide after a tiff with his father, might stretch credibility, but Krista now regards him as a liability that might threaten her own chances, which are now identified as staying with Emilia Marti to take advantage of her wealth and celebrity. It all makes such sense, given these characters’ propensity for lethal competition.

There are several aspects of the libretto that give rise to a feminist interpretation. Emilia Marti reveals the multiple scars, physical scars, that men have inflicted over the years. She feigns sleep when Gregor tries to rape her. She regards having sex with Prus to get her hands on the elixir recipe as a purely business transaction. It’s all there, despite having been written by the potentially misogynistic Leo’s Janacek. So all this production does is emphasize a thread of the characterization, rather than invent it.

There are several points here where time stands still or at least runs slow. The action on stage mirrors this, and these moments happen when Marti, feeling the weight of years, starts to run low on energy. Jakub Hrůša’s phenomenal understanding of the score allows him to bring this off musically by adjusting tempi, without interrupting the musical flow or sounding clumsy even in an ear that knows the score.

In the denouement, Marti has the elixir formula from Prus, has told Gregor his history, has declared her original name, Elina Makropulos, and has finally run out of energy. It is Krista, the opportunist, who receives the elixir when Marti declares she is no longer interested in a life that has delivered only suffering for so long. Krista can profit and she does, totally, and in this production in character.

Performances do matter, however dominant the plot and Ausrine Stundyte as Emilia Marti plays a more than pivotal role. Not only is she on stage almost all the time, but she is also more often than not singing. In this production, when Emilia Marti is not centre stage, she is still on stage and still acting. As conceived in this production, the role thus becomes demanding throughout the one and a half hours of the three acts, played here without any interval. Sean Pannikar as Gregor is almost impossibly wild and flighty, and John Reuter as Prus is quietly confident, assertive, powerful but almost always wrong. A special mention should be made of Alan Oke who sung Count Hauk-Sendorf, the old man with dementia who remembers wild Spanish adventures with a woman called Eugenia Montez. Who else? Heather Engebretson and Daniel Matousek who play Krista and Janek had to act quite a lot. Their parts did not require them to sing a lot, but in this production their relationship is central to the plot and they are both on stage for a good deal longer than their vocal parts might suggest.

An experiment in reshaping a masterpiece it was. And the experiment was successful.

Denia International Piano Festival - programa 26 noviembre - Gülsin Onay

 

Torino - Andrés Orozco Estrada conducts RAI Torino in Rossini, Mozart and Berlioz with Michael Barenboim as soloist

There were some famous musical names associated with Orchestra Sinphonica della RAI, Torino in last night’s programme. Previous conductors of the orchestra had surnames Pretre and Sinopoli and the night’s soloist was a Barenboim. The current principal conductor of Orchestra Sinphonica della RAI, Torino is Andrés Orozco Estrada and it was he who directed them in this concert in Alicante’s ADDA auditorium.

The concert began with one of the most well-known and rousing of Rossini’s overtures. Everyone knows the theme of the William Tell Overture’s final section, but Rossini was always episodic in his compositional style and the quiet sections that preceded allowed the orchestra to show off some of its solo playing. Starting a concert with the sound of a solo cello is hardly likely to be a showstopper, but that is clearly what Rossini wanted for his master work, perhaps indicating that all heroes have first to be born and many of them humbly.

Michael Barenboim was then soloist in Mozart K218 Violin Concerto. This, especially after the tutti at the end of the William Tell Overture was quiet, playful, witty and precise. I can never imagine that Mozart, even as a nineteen-year-old was taking his audience seriously when he wrote these notes. I always feel that the phrase “This is what they can cope with” must have been running through the composer’s mind. Basically, I don’t trust Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. It has been a lifelong relationship, and there have been undoubted pleasures along the way.

Michael Barenboim and the orchestra’s playing, however, left nothing to be desired. It was sophisticated, accurate, witty and cute in places, secure and reflective in others. The composer’s ability to balance the solo part in the context of the orchestral accompaniment is a real achievement, for this orchestral part is no mere accompaniment, it presents a real dialogue with the soloist. Michael Barenboim gave the audience an encore of a movement of solo Bach in acknowledgment of warm applause.

The second half featured one work, Hector Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique. I confess the Berlioz is another composer whose music remains utterly baffling to me. It remains spectacularly baffling, however. Andrés Orozco Estrada had the third movement begin with woodwind played from high in the royal box, thus rendering the sound “far off”. The tubular bells that feature in the final movement gave a special sonority that I don’t recall from other performances of the work. But for someone who made his name for his orchestration to have called for two harps, just to keep them silent for most of the time, is beyond imagination. Perhaps he wrote the parts and then forgot about them. The orchestral playing was superb throughout, however, especially the muted horns, the brass, percussion and woodwind. Passages in the central movement were surely written by Mahler, sixty years before their time.

The orchestra offered a little piece of Italy to this audience in Spain as an encore. The Intermezzo from Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana is a superb way to follow the over-the-top Berlioz.

Denia International Piano Festival - programa 6 noviembre - Congyu Wang

 

ADDA sets off for a tour of Japan with Rimsky-Korsakov, Rodrigo, Tchaikovsky and Khachaturian with Kaori Muraji

 

In the second concert of the new season, ADDA Simfónica under their artistic director Joep Vicent last night offered a mix of perhaps overstated bravura interspersed with one of music’s great understatements. At the start, I will say that no longer is it necessary to describe this orchestra, conductor or venue in glowing terms. Everyone in last night's audience, ADDA regulars, knows that this is now amongst the finest orchestras in the world, and that the ADDA venue approaches perfection in terms of view and acoustics. The orchestra has by now set off on a tour of Japan. Success brings the pressures of demands, but the ADDA project has become a resounding success for all concerned.

Last night’s program opened with Rimsky-Korsakov’s Capriccio Espagnole. It made a popular start to a concert that did rather concentrate on well-known favourites. But these pieces are well known and favourite because, in the right hands, they continue to deliver unforgettable experiences and this version of Capriccio Espagnole did deliver. I still find Rimsky-Korsakv’s orchestration rather heavy, however.

Then there followed the evening’s understatement. If one is trying to make a noise, then the last instrument to choose is a guitar, which is almost impossible to play forté. The beauty of good writing for the instrument, however, lies in its ability to be totally personal, apparently to make public the player’s inner most thoughts.

Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez is the best known of all guitar concertos. Its fame is often as a result of the separation of the slow movement as a lollipop to sweeten an audience. The practice is mistaken, however, because by itself it can be played mournfully, making it a sad piece of music designed to make everyone in the audience sadder. In its rightful place, between two brightly lit neoclassical allegros, the slow movement becomes merely a time to reflect. Whereas the outer movements present a sunlit landscape, the central movement describes the exact same landscape at twilight. Everything is softer, cooler, gentler, but it is never mournful. The Japanese soloist, Kaori Muraji, who performed last night and will accompany ADDA on the tour of Japan, was clearly enjoying every moment. Rodrigo’s brilliant and sympathetic orchestration never drowns the guitar’s small voice and overall creates a spectacular tense excitement that is never lost. Superb: superb writing, a superb work, superbly performed.

Kaori Muraji offered an encore of one of her own pieces, inspired, she told the audience, by old Japanese temples. The audience heard, I would suggest, especially in the right hand, something that reminded them of more nearby historical sites.

The second half opened with another popular favourite. Tchaikovsky suite from Swan Lake has some of the most familiar tunes in the repertoire. What is often ignored, is how spectacular is the orchestration which, of course, the ADDA orchestra made crystal clear and exciting.

Our evening came to a close with a selection from Khachaturian’s Spartacus. If what had gone before was not sufficiently melodic or rhythmically arresting, then this selection from Khachaturian’s ballet was a perfect was the perfect solution. The grand, Romantic string theme, at least for British ears, remains associated with sailing ships on a Sunday evening, and the viciously rhythmic sections almost bit the ears. And this superb playing of the ADDA orchestra was offered twice, as they repeated the upbeat section as an encore.

Denia International Piano Festival - programme 30 oct Vasco Dantas, from Bach to Queen

 

An evening of firsts - Martin García García and Josep Vicent plus ADDA orchestra in Cano, Chopin and Tchaikovsky

In their first concert of a new season, the ADDA Orchestra under the direction of Josep Vicent began with a first performance. Composer Ximo Cano is from nearby La Nucia and his piece Ithaca Overture opened the concert. Ximo Cano’s piece embraces minimalism, but also lyricism and spectacular use of orchestral sound. Basically an overture in the Italian style of fast-slow-fast, it begins with a complex rhythmic figure in the strings which gradually disintegrates into a climax before the central slow section imposes calm on the process. There is extensive use here of the sonorous vibraphone, with the piccolo sustaining some of the higher notes’ overtones. Momentum then reasserts itself, and the piece burns bright until its end. Ximo Cano’s style could be likened to John Adams, but here there is a complexity in this work that comes across paradoxically as simplicity. This world premiere of Ximo Cano’s Ithaca Overture thus presented a perfect opening for a new season, being positive, affirmatory and celebratory.

On seeing the rest of the program, Chopin’s Second Piano Concerto, and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4, this particular concert goer felt that it might seem like a repetition of works heard hundreds of times before. How wrong can you be? What we heard was both fresh and enlightening. No matter how many times you have heard a piece of music, in performance it always has the potential to surprise anew, and both these works did just that, and to an extent that this listener, with literally thousands of concerts behind him, heard both pieces as if for the first time, so surprising were their effects.

Soloist in the Chopin concerto was Martin García García, a young man still in his 20s from Gijon. To say that his touch was delightful would be to understate the pure artistry he brought to this work. His playing was not only faultless, it reached a level of communication with the audience that one rarely witnesses. Especially in the slow movement, he engendered such a degree of concentration amongst the audience that even the most pianissimo of touches were heard, absorbed within a story that unfolded, told by fingers pressing on keys. This performance rendered a familiar work newly fresh, newly moving and completely satisfying musically. Memorable? Life-changing.

An encore of Tchaikovsky’s October followed. This is Tchaikovsky using understatement, in reflective mode as mists appear and trees colour, and then shed. For the first time I noticed in this piece the main theme of Scriabin’s Prelude And Nocturne For The Left Hand. Another first. I do hope that this first time to hear the playing of Martin García García will not be my last.

And then to Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony. It was for me personally to be the second time in performance in five months. Nothing from the past, however, could have prepared me for the surprise I felt during every moment of this performance by the ADDA Orchestra. Artistic director, Josep Vicent, had the orchestra sculpt literally every phrase. Nuances of feeling, musical details, and indeed overall structures within the work were revealed as if I had never heard the work before, so fresh was the approach, so energised and at the same time subtle was the playing.

Examples could fill a book, but particularly memorable was the way in which the main theme of the slow movement was phrased. It is far too easy, it seems, for an orchestra to rely on the overall beauty of the theme rather than pin down the transitional emotions that make it up. This performance did exactly that. The overall theme still worked fine, but it worked because its individual elements created an emotional journey that was complex and sophisticated, and made perfect sense.

The scherzo, also, provided its surprises. It again is easy to regard the whole movement as a piece of orchestration first and a piece of music second. We all expect to hear the episodic contrast between pizzicato strings, decorating woodwind, and firm brass. What we do not regularly hear in this work of the details that remind us of Slavonic dances, and variations of dynamics in the pizzicato of the strings that add shape and texture. I may have heard hundreds of performances of this work, but this was completely new, as if hearing it for the first time.

As an encore, Josep Vicent offered his audience Guridi’s Amorosa, a simple plea for people everywhere to share love for one another. The overall effect of this concert first was to underline yet again the fact that this ADDA Orchestra, created by the direction of Josep Vicent, is now among the first rank of world ensembles. Bravi!