Blake Pouliot plays the Violin Concerto No1 of Shostakovich and the ADDA Orchestra under Josep Vicent triumphs with the First Symphony

The last time I heard the First Symphony of Dmitri Shostakovich in a concert hall was perhaps over fifty years ago. It is not that I have not been avoiding it. Broadcast on radio, a performance of the work is not at all rare, but I have not until now been in the right place at the right time to hear it in performance. Alicante’s ADDA Orchestra under their director Josep Vicent offered a performance of the work as part of the current season and coupled it with the Violin Concerto No. 1. So last night, we were to hear two works by Shostakovich, an acknowledged masterpiece alongside a graduation piece written by a nineteen-year-old.

I found it revealing how even the most familiar music can be transformed into something fresh and new in live performance. Though I have not heard the symphony recently in the concert hall, I have heard it broadcast repeatedly over the years. But in performance, the utter originality is breathtaking and the continual flow of the young composer’s ideas both surprises and frustrates. First appearing in the middle of the 1920s, this is music which seems not to be modernistic, nor neoclassical, nor atonal. Neither is it obviously Late Romantic. Stylistically, at least, it is quite original. There are dissonances certainly, but no matter how much Glazunov criticized the young Shostakovich for his excesses, we hear a work which, if anything, is rooted in Mahler, especially in its treatment of slower themes.

Faster sections illustrate just how focused the young man was, in that the themes have the feel of the mature composer and indeed could have been written at any time in his career. In much of Shostakovich’s music, these spiky themes are often cited as evidence of cynicism, but these particular spiky themes were written by a nineteen-year-old young man who clearly just thought that way. Programme notes on the evening stressed the fact that the first movement has a humorous flavour throughout. As the evening progressed, we had more evidence of the composer’s humour, but it seems that this quality was evident in his works from the start.

I can remember the programme notes which accompanied the performance I heard decades ago. It said that the inclusion of a piano “to fill out the harmonies” was a sign of the inexperience of the composer. I wonder if the same author would have written the same opinion about Symphony Nos. 5 and 7, both of which have piano parts. In fact, in this First Symphony, the piano part contributes in no uncertain way to the statement of themes, rather than filling out anything.

Overall, the symphony surprises with its multiplicity of ideas. This does lead to an overall lack of focus and it is, perhaps this lack of focus that gives away the youth of its writer. But you are only young once, and these ideas would later percolate through a lifetime of composition.

The First Violin Concerto is a masterpiece from Shostakovich’s maturity. Unusually, it has four movements, slow-fast-slow-fast and indeed, the first movement almost seems like a lento continuation of the First Symphony, so hard is it to pin down. The scherzo and the passacaglia that follow are more conventional, but beautiful. The finale is a romp, and the humorous composer gives free rein to celebrate, and provides an opportunity to “play your heart out”, which was gleefully taken up by the ADDA players. Everyone seem to be enjoying the release after the tension and brooding of the first movement. And it was in fact in that first movement that the evening suffered a minor flaw when, at least to my ear, the soloist and the orchestra momentarily diverged rhythmically. But it was only a moment in an otherwise perfect performance.

Blake Pouliot was the soloist and, apart from that passage in the first movement, both his playing, and his pace were superb. He was clearly enjoying the rhythmic drive that the ADDA Orchestra brought to the music. The ADDA audience was greatly appreciative of his efforts, to such an extent that he played two encores in very different musical styles. The first was his own arrangement of The Last Rose of Summer, whose folk song like melody rang out, but quietly and shrouded in gentle, subtle decoration. The second encore was the more conventional, the Gavotte en Rondeau from the JS Bach’s Violin Partita No. 3 in E Major. But the concerto and the two encores did provide a picture of Blake Puliot’s talent.

We also had two encores after the symphony, and these two orchestral encores showed off two other characteristics of the music of Shostakovich. The first was the Waltz No2. I have written before of this strange masterpiece, but it is worth saying again that this waltz with its hummable and memorable tune is in a minor key. So Shostakovich the enigma triumphs again, with a sad song appearing to be celebratory. Fascinating. Then we heard Shostakovich the comedian in the Galop from the Cheryomushky music. The ADDA Orchestra provided the vaudeville.

Gustavo Dudamel and Venezuela Youth Orchestra play Shostakovich’s Leningrad Symphony in Alicante

After almost a year involving two postponements that included military action against the state and then an earthquake, the Venezuela Youth Orchestra finally took the stage at ADDA, Alicante under the internationally famous directorship of Gustavo Dudamel. The experience was worth the wait.

The orchestra’s programme featured a single work, Shostakovich’s Leningrad Symphony, his seventh symphony. I have written elsewhere on the possible meaning contained in the piece, so I will not repeat myself here.

What was undoubtedly true about this particular performance of the work, and a qualification that would be heard quite rarely, was the extraordinary number of musicians on stage. This certainly gave the music extra power when it was needed. Precisely how many musicians were on stage is not important, but regular concert goer will be interested in the observation that the number of double basses reached double figures.

The Youth Orchestra of Venezuela is made up of players ranging from 14 to 19 years of age. I heard Jakub Hrůša say recently that he is not a follower of the “required age” theory about musical performance, stating that musician of whatever age will perform the most profound and the lightest scores as pieces of music. Differences in interpretation are not born of maturity: they are a product of what the music signifies – or indeed does not signify - to a performer at the time of the performance. We would not, for instance, demand that only 19-year-olds should perform Shostakovich’s First Symphony, to be heard in Alicante later this week, because that was the age of the composer when it was first performed.

But that said, what was truly impressive about this performance was the apparent musical maturity displayed by these players. Gustavo Dudamel’s reading of the score was conventional overall, but the speed at which he chose to open the work was surprising. Previously, I have been used to the tempo of the first movement’s opening from the recordings I have and the quick survey of these reveals that the composer’s tempo marking of allegretto usually allows space for the opening theme to make its sophisticated point. Gustavo Dudamel chose to open the work with what sounded like an allegro first movement, prompting me to think that the performers wanted to end the evening as quickly as possible, as a result of their hectic tour schedule. But, having made the point, the tempo did settle to an allegretto for the remainder of the movement. I was equally surprised by the senority of the woodwind chords early in the symphony. Initially, I felt that these had missed their point of balance, with perhaps a particular part underplayed.

But why am I concentrating on minor shortcomings of performance when the overall experience was so memorable? Ask a critic. Overall the musicianship of these young players was beyond criticism, and Gustavo Dudamel and the orchestra provided an experience that I am sure no-one in the audience will ever forget.

In the conflict climax of the first movement, the orchestra’s weight really did come into its own. Before that, the colour of the composer’s orchestration was displayed to the full, muted brass, pizzicato strings and spiky woodwind all sounded out clearly, never retiring, never dominating, all combining their textures to communicate a musical experience like no other.

It would be wrong to single out individual performances from such an array of talent, but I am going to do so. The horn section in general and its principal were outstanding, as was the diminutive pianist in this very important part within the orchestral texture. When the first movement explodes into conflict, the orchestral sound was quite outstanding. Throughout, the string textures were precise, but the way in which they added the story underneath the tumult was quite outstanding.

And at the movement’s end, the drum beat of dictatorship, of the false promises of populism is still there, reminding all of us that we can still be fooled. At the work’s end the three-note threat is also still in evidence, reminding us that dictators should always be feared, whatever their politics.

Personally, I find the symphony’s emotional core comes in the third movement. The sonorities here are different. Last night the Venezuela Youth Orchestra under Gustavo Dudamel played these to perfection. Up until now, despite having heard the symphony literally hundreds of times, I found it astounding to realize that the musical material of the symphony’s final three movements is largely derived from the opening themes. It somehow all made perfect sense.

There was an encore involving a quartet at the front of the stage. A miniature guitar, a harp, maracas and bass were joined by a solo violin to let rip with what was obviously a popular form in Venezuela. The orchestra accompanied, conducted by facial expressions and dance. And so we heard a performance of Alma Llanera by Gutierrez, which I am reliably informed by Wikipedia is derived from a dance called a jaropo and the piece is widely regarded as the unofficial Venezuelan national anthem. The musicians involved gave it their all, as did everyone else on the platform. It was a night to remember.  

It was a fitting and hopeful end to a concert that had been introduced as a memorial to the victims of Venezuela’s earthquake, and indeed the victims of Spain’s recent train crash. And let’s not forget the victims of war, no matter where or when.

The Düsseldorf Symphony under Adam Fischer play Mahler 3 - perfection

 

Normally, I don’t read reviews of a concert before drafting my own. This time is different. The Düsseldorf Symphony are currently on tour in Spain and last night they played in ADDA, Alicante, having previously played the same program in Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia. The single work in each of the tour concerts is the Symphony No. 3 of Gustav Mahler. Frankly, I came home so moved by the experience that I broke with my tradition and searched for reviews of the previous concerts on the Internet.

It seems from the reviews that Adam Fischer’s interpretation of Mahler is not universally appreciated. The criticism seems to seem to concentrate on his handling of the first movement of this symphony. There was a reference in one review to problems with the orchestral tuning. I find that hard to believe. It seems that to be a reviewer of classical music – whatever that might be! – it is necessary to talk primarily about another version of the same piece, rather than describe the specific performance.

As an audience member last night, it was obvious from the start that Adam Fischer has his own approach to this symphony. In the hands of less inspired conductors, the first movement becomes a rather conventional allegro when the marches appear. The slower material thus tends to take on the nature of an introduction to the eventual allegro. Mahler’s own title for the movement is Pan Awakes: Summer Marches In, signifying the Pan of mythology has something to do with the scenario. I am saying nothing unconventional if U state that this particular Pan is associated with the wild, shepherds and flocks, rustic music, and impromptus. This is the key, I think, to Mahler’s title and, indeed, Adam Fisher’s reading of the first movement.

In the slower sections of the first movement, Mahler effectively wrote chamber music, full of contrasting textures, sonorities and orchestral effects, often in surprising and striking combinations. Adam Fisher, by varying the rhythm here and there, and by inserting often quite long pauses, emphasizes the rusticity and the impromptu nature of music. And by this means the audience can hear essential elements, all the detail and really appreciate the texture. These elements combine together to evoke the feeling of an early morning or evening stroll across Alpine Meadows, where birds sing in the distance, where animals somewhere wander across the field of vision, but remaining distant, even out of sight. The emotions that such sounds evoke are close at hand, but nothing else is, apart from, of course, the emotional reactions they create. Then, when the marches takeover, outlines become clearer, more tangible.

Personally, I find Adam Fisher’s treatment of the first movement, utterly convincing. I heard sonorities I had not heard before. I became conscious of transitions that other conductors had clearly airbrushed out of their interpretations, and I was able to marvel at the unusual juxtaposition of instruments that we don’t expect to play together.

Mahler’s subtitles for the other five movements are derivations of this monumental first movement’s title. He is successively alluded to the world of flowers, animals, man, angels, and love. And throughout, Adam Fischer’s attention to the detail of the score seemed to emphasize these meanings. The minuet second movement was suitably delicate, the third scherzo-like in its abruptness and energy. In the fourth, mankind is revealed contemplative and reflective, whilst in the fifth the angels sing out in perfect harmony.

In the finale, we find Adam Fischer at his best. The long theme was played with little stress and emphasis, enabling it to expand into the space available with all its beauty. Too often, in my opinion, interpretations concentrate on making the material over-profound and overtly beautiful. The emphasis thereby required causes us to stop a marvel rather than go with the flow. And this flow is so mesmerically beautiful that, whenever I hear the symphony played, I feel as though I ought to stand up towards the end and acknowledge the breadth of the musical vision and its emotional power.

It was this, the emotional power that was enduring throughout the performance. I, for one, notwithstanding the criticism of other, will treasure the experience of Mahler 3 under Adam Fischer. It was, simply, one of the most emotional experiences I have had in sixty years of concert going.

I realise that I have not mentioned Catriona Morison, who sand the contralto part in the fourth movement superbly. I state again that this performance was not only memorable. It will live in my memory as long as I have such a facility!

 

Spanish National Orchestra under Pablo González plays Espla and Mahler in ADDA Alicante

 

In Alicante last night, the Spanish National Orchestra made its debut in the ADDA auditorium. They chose to play a piece by an Alicante composer to start their program, El Sueño de Eros, The Dream of Eros by Óscar Esplá. In Alicante city, there is a main thoroughfare named after the composer, and indeed one of its prestigious conservatories also bears his name. It is a name, however, that few concert-goers away from the Costa Blanca will recognise. 

During a long career, Óscar Esplá wrote over one hundred works. He lived from 1886 to 1976 and studied in Paris in the early years of the twentieth century, and it shows. His music of the time shows a strong French influence, especially that of Debussy. But El Sueño de Eros predates the time he spent in Paris and indeed the composer was only a young man when he wrote the work in 1910. It was in fact while Óscar Esplá was studying first engineering and later philosophy in Barcelona that he received a handwritten text of a lyrical poem from the Alicante writer Gabriel Miró and the work lay unperformed for two years. It is thus revealing how French influences are the fore. The composer had studied with his father and two Spanish teachers, and he must have developed a love for the music of Debussy from an early age.

As its title suggests, the music is dreamlike, not actually finding a tonal identity, eschewing recognisably “Spanish” themes, though at one point, there is a suggestion of a local song in the strings. The work is based on Gabriel Miró’s poem in which Eros dreams of love, is caressed by the moon. wakes up startled, fires his arrows, and the moon, wounded, retreats. It is about unrequited love, and the uncertainty that can induce. El Sueño de Eros was the only collaboration between the writer and the composer, who continued to share respect for one another.

Here we are we are in the world Debussy Pelléas et Mélisande. Nothing is real, even suggestions are only part-heard. There is some influence of Richard Strauss here, particularly in the use of divided strings. Óscar Esplá often used juxtaposition of two quite mundane themes to heighten musical drama, but in this piece, it is the atmospheric orchestration that impressed. It certainly is an interesting piece that should be played more often, as should Óscar Esplá’s other compositions.

In the second half of the concert, the Spanish National Orchestra under Pablo González played Mahler’s Fifth Symphony. Personally, I found the attention to detail by Pablo González interesting, but it rather got in the way of the music flow. I also found some of the tempi quite strange. The first movement, for instance, is a funeral march, but the tempo chosen stressed the funeral, not the march. These things are always a matter of taste. There is no right and wrong, only difference and originality.

The orchestra’s playing was suitably dynamic on virtuosic, but I for one found that the pause for tuning after the third movement reduced the impact of the adagietto, which is such a change from the tutti of the opening movements. As ever, Gustav Mahler’s concept was exhilarating and moving.

New season of ADDA concerts opens with The Ring Without Words

 

The new season of ADDA concerts, titled Naturaleza, vida y amor, began last night with an unusual program. Single work programs are often symphonies or oratorios, or theatre pieces scores played primarily as musical experience. But The Ring Without Words is an arrangement, which is unusual.

The work is not a reconstruction. Neither is it an invented fantasy. Commissioned by Telarc from Lorin Maazel, The Ring Without Words is pure Wagner, his own music as selected by the conductor who must have led performances of the Ring several times. He made no revisions, added no notes and stuck to the running order of the story. What Lorin Maazel did might be characterized as a musician’s technical skill, but this would miss a point. What Maazel accomplished with this work is almost incredibly creative.

Lorin Maazel effectively condensed fifteen hours or so of music drama into a seventy-minute orchestral suite which kept Wagner’s music and story in the correct order. What he created was an orchestral showpiece of the most wonderful kind. It is, of course, full of familiar music, some of which is as well-known as any pop song, even more than a century and a half after it was written.

But what is also amazing about the work is that it comes together to tell the story. Almost absent from Lorin Maazel’s construction is Valhalla, the Giants, the fire music at the end of Die Walkűre and importantly Siegried’s forging of Nothung. Fafner is there as a dragon in just a few chords before he is similarly dispatched. But what remains is coherent and convincing.

The Ring Without Words preserves Wagner’s orchestration, which means that the sound of a hundred musicians on stage is filled out with Wagner tubas, whose penetrating tones underpin an already vast score. What is so amazing to an audience member listening to this music is the realization of how utterly original it was in its style. Almost incredibly, we are talking about the middle of the nineteenth century. All right, there was Berlioz and there was Meyerbeer and there was Liszt. But Wagner surpassed all of these in the way that he integrated his choice of material into the orchestral texture to create a musical language that was truly communicative. Thus the experience of The Ring Without Words is not primarily loud or brash. There is a genuine and successful attempt to stick to the story, so we have Wotan telling Brünnhilde why he has to surround her in fire – this will hurt me more than it hurts you - but then there is only a hint of his call to Loge to set the fire.

Lorin Maazzel was not the only person to create a purely orchestral score from the Ring. The Ring – An Orchestral Adventure by Henk de Vlieger is another attempt and also lasts about seventy minutes in concert. But whoever the arranger, it is Richard Wagner that survives via his utterly original music.

Last but not least, I have to mention the impeccable playing we heard from the ADDA orchestra. The quality of their playing means that the concert series will be a success.

 

When superlatives are not enough – Josep Vicent and Anna Federova with ADDA Simfónica in Rachmaninov and Mahler

 

Last night the 2025-2026 season of ADDA concerts was brought to close. On paper, for a seasoned concert goer, there was nothing particularly outstanding on the program. We were to hear Rachmaninov’s Paganini Rhapsody, and then the First Symphony of Mahler. In the end, the performances of both works approached perfection and originality. Despite the fact that both works were very familiar, the performances achieved memorable status, in the Rachmaninov because of the level of communication between the soloist and the orchestra, and then the Mahler because of the highly original approach to the work taken by Josep Vicent, conductor and artistic director of ADDA Simfónica.

Anna Federova was soloist in the Rachmaninov Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. The ADDA audience had a preview of the music during the previous concert when Andrey Baronov played the Caprice number 24 as an encore. Rachmaninov’s variations on the same theme are an orchestral showpiece. There is rhythm and colour in every phrase, but despite all the massive contributions from the orchestra, the composer manages never to impinge on the soloist’s audibility. This is not surprising, since Sergei Rachmaninov was writing the piece to show off his own skills as a pianist, but the handling of the orchestra is also literally brilliant. Everything seems to shine, but the Rachmaninov bells are still in evidence.

The work contains the eighteenth variation, of course, which is become without doubt one of the most popular pieces in the repertoire. It is how it is hard not to sound clichéd in this music, but, as ever, the pace of the performance without pauses between the variations keep the work alive. Context is all – and breaking that context is a recipe for disaster. But ADDA Simfónica under Joseph Vicent brought the whole work to life, not just the famous bit! Anna Fedorova's playing was superb throughout, as would be expected from a soloist who has become so famous for her interpretation of Rachmaninov.

The eighteenth variation also provided the first encore. This was followed by a solo piece by Rachmaninoff, the Prelude Opus 32 number 12 I think. The music did not surprise because it is well known, but the musicianship of all concerned approached perfection.

And then to the second half featuring Mahler’s Symphony No1. I point out that this is the sixth time I have heard the work in concert performance in the last decade. I have probably heard it broadcast many times as well. It was, however, the first time that ADDA Simfónica have played it in a concert that I also attended. I was therefore prepared to renew an acquaintance with a work that I know well and that I first heard about sixty years ago in a recording by Bruno Walter.

Put simply, I have never heard Mahler’s First Symphony played like this. Josep Vicent’s take on the music – because it was surely a personal re-examination of the score that led to this performance – stressed the impressionistic nature of the first movement. The composer himself stated that it is supposed to be infused with nature. It is supposed to be evocative of sounds that one might hear on a country walk. Josep Vicent used rubato throughout the first movement, whenever it would make a point of stressing the detail of every sound combination that Mahler wrote. The off-stage trumpets of the start were miles distant, but the variable rhythm allowed the conductor to bring to the fore every detail of the score. Also clear was how easy is the transition in the slow movement from funeral march to Jewish klezmer. And again the use of tempo change stressed the contrast.

The result was just like hearing the music for the first time, so differently did the performance bring out the contrasts in this music. The approach was wholly original, ADDA Simfónica clearly enjoyed the challenge, it was a clear triumph for Josep Vicent and superlatives were not enough to describe the effect.

Armenian National Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Eduard Topchjan with Sergey Khachatryan as soloist

The program for the Armenian National Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Eduard Topchjan listed three works. These were, in printed order, the Brahms Violin Concerto with Sergey Khachatryan as soloist, Francesca de Rimini of Tchaikovsky, and then Khachaturian’s Gayaneh. What we heard was considerably different.

The concert actually opened with two movements from Khachaturian’s suite from Spartacus. It certainly was not the Brahms Concerto, which we had expected. It was already going to be quite a long concert, so it was with some relief that the piece that followed was the concerto.

Sergey Khachatryan is a world-renowned violinist. For a seasoned concert goer, there is not much more to say about the Brahms concerto, except to comment on the playing of the soloist. Sergey Khachatryan’s playing was technically perfect and indeed elegant. Personally, I found his reading of the work rather too mechanically expressive. His quiet sections, I found, were excessively quiet and on occasions I found the orchestra overpowered his playing, which is a characteristic I do not often find in this concerto. Personally, I find this concerto works best in the concert hall when the soloist does not try to over interpret. There is enough structure in Brahms’s writing, and the drama is all in the music. This is not a criticism of Sergey Khachatryan’s playing, it is a statement of my own prejudice. Certainly the audience was enthusiastic about the performance.

The soloist gave a substantial encore. Against almost a drone of tremolo played by the front desks of the first violin, Sergey Khachatryan played a modal piece that I suggest was Havoun, havoun by Grigor Narekatski. The piece was written in the tenth century by an Armenian monk and mystic, also known as Gregory of Narek. This is music that the soloist plays regularly as an encore. It does not offer any opportunity to show off, being rather quiet, modal, and slow. What it does display is control, spirituality, and identity. It was received in silence by an attentive audience who absorbed every note. We then had an interval.

Thoroughly expecting Tchaikovsky’s tone poem Francesca de Rimini after the break, the audience was surprised to hear the opening bassoon solos of the Fantasy Overture Romeo and Juliet, which did not appear on the printed program at all. The Armenian Philharmonic gave a spirited performance of an intensely dramatic work, which, somehow, did not approach tragedy.

Then, expecting Gayaneh of Khachaturian, the audience got their performance of Tchaikovsky’s tone poem Francesca de Rimini. This is an enormous piece, described in the program as one of the composer’s most powerful works. It is a real opportunity for an orchestra to show off, and the Armenian Philharmonic Orchestra did just that. In over five decades and once going, this was the first time I had heard the piece “live”, and it makes a considerable sound, with paroxysms of modulation, peppered with gigantic brass chords. The work makes a vast statement and the playing was up to the challenge.

Khachaturian’s Gayaneh is for another day. It was not the encore!

 

 

Yui Higashijima in Schumann's Piano Concerto with the Elche Orchestra under Achim Holub in ADDA, Alicante

 

Yui Higashijima won the third Alicante Piano Competition “Gonzalo Soriano” in 2025. As part of her prize, she was invited to play a concerto with the Elche Symphony Orchestra. The Schumann Piano Concerto was chosen, and last night she played the concerto with the orchestra in one of three concerts in the cycle. This particular concert took place in the ADDA auditorium in Alicante, and there will be another performance in Torrevieja tonight.

As one of the organisers of the competition in Alicante, I would be expected to give a positive review of the concert and the playing of the soloist. I will not disappoint. But I will go considerably further than that.

I have heard the Schumann Piano Concerto many times in concert and literally hundreds of times in broadcasts and recordings. As anyone who reads my reviews regularly will already know, I maintain that I have a musical blind spot when it comes to Robert Schumann. I often find his music rather empty, with emotion worn on the sleeve of his frockcoat to make up for the absence of the real thing. Well, I realized last night that, in order to understand this music, I needed someone who could communicate the musical experience with both confidence and vision.

The first thing to note is the tempo marking on the first movement. It is “alegro affettuoso”. Now, in previous hearings of the work, I was never musically conscious of the intellectual conflict that Schumann wanted to describe. The conflict is between a youthful vigorous figure and more contemplative character who is conscious of humanity’s darker side. Whether on previous occasions this conflict has been lacking in the interpretations I have heard or whether I missed it in my eagerness to pre-judge the composer, I have no idea.

But last night in the hands of Yui Higashijima, and under the expert and committed direction of Achim Holub, the musical conflict took centre stage. Soloist and conductor were not afraid to vary the tempi to stress the dialogue which leads to conflicting arguments. Now this sounds simple, but in performance it requires discussion, rehearsal and execution. Anyone who has performed in public will know that “getting it done” can be paramount. To exert control and interpretation to this level of performance is a real achievement and both soloist and conductor were of the same mind. Together, they opened the ears of this particular listener, who came away from the performance, as if hearing the work for the first time. Perhaps I had heard it for the first time, all the previous occasions, being “hearings”, not “listenings”.

Yui Higashijima’s performance of the piece was simply outstanding. She brought meaning and shaped to every phrase of the score. Achim Holub’s conducting was expert. He demanded a lot of the Elche Orchestra and the players responded with perfection. I will simply never listen to the concerto again, or indeed, Robert Schumann’s music in general, without having this performance in mind as a new benchmark.

Yui Higashijima followed with an encore of one of Mozart’s well-known rondos, the one in D major K485. It was interesting to hear how she played this familiar music. She managed to emphasize the surprises without being without losing the overall playfulness of Mozart’s music. Perhaps Yui Higashijima worked magic with Mozart as well!

The concert was subtitled “Portraits of Romanticism”, and the phrase was important. Having heard Schumann’s mid-century version, we then heard the Elche Orchestra under Achim Holub perform the Symphony No. 4 of Johannes Brahms from 1885. By the fourth symphony, it seemed that Brahms had relaxed a little. Again, the music was given space to express itself and it did so with expert guidance and playing. When last year the same orchestra also played the Brahms Symphony No. 4 in a concert, I wrote that there were some difficulties with the experience. The first movement on that occasion lacked shape. Not so on this occasion, when clearly the direction of Achim Holub made a real difference that reshaped the experience. Last year, the work was listed as lasting 42 minutes and this year it was 45. The three minutes extra were probably of the result of Achim Holub’s choice of tempi. Clearly an expert in the performance of Brahms symphonies, he conducted from memory and successfully transmitted his personal feelings for the music to the orchestral playing, which was nothing less than superb.

 

 

BBC National Orchestra of Wales plays Grace Williams, Saint-Saens and Elgar under Jaime Martín with Akiko Suwanai

 

Last night’s concert in ADDA, Alicante was given by BBC National Orchestra of Wales under Jaime Martín with Akiko Suwanai as soloist. On the face of the published schedule, they were just two works, the third violin concerto of Saint-Saens and Elgar’s Enigma Variations. A little short, one might think… Well think again!

The evening’s programme scheduled a third work, a substantial piece as well. It was Grace Williams’s Sea Sketches for string orchestra. At nearly twenty minutes, this rendered the concert’s length substantial at least.

Written in 1944 by its Welsh composer, Sea Sketches predates Britten's Peter Grimes, which, of course, includes the now separately performed Sea Interludes. Sea Sketches by Grace Williams comprises five movements that explore the sonorities of a string orchestra, as well as giving an impressionistic portrait of the sea in five different pictures– in wind, in song, with mysterious sirens, breaking on the shore and becalmed in summer. The textures of Grace Williams’s writing for strings stressed the coolness of a windy beach, with neo-classical flavours hardening the language of late Romanticism. One might think of Britten’s string writing when listening to Sea Sketches, but Grace Williams in the piece speaks to an audience with her own voice and communicates her own personal feelings. Grace Williams died almost fifty years ago, and her music richly deserves a wider audience.

Akiko Suwanai was soloist in Saint-Saen’s Violin Concerto No. 3. Her playing was simply breathtaking. From the work’s quiet opening and then into the opening allegro, she gave everything the work needed. If Saint-Saens was anything, he was a composer of technical mastery, and in this concerto there is both real dialogue between the orchestra and soloist and, indeed, that dialogue is always audible. The composer’s handling of the orchestra is nothing less than expert. A listener is always aware of its power to dominate, always conscious of its lines of argument, but also confident that none of the soloist’s statements will be drowned.

The slow movement was pure delight after the energy of the opening. Its longer lines allowed Akiko Suwanai to show the lyrical side of her playing, and she used the opportunity to give a beautiful performance, stressing the elegance of this music. The final allegro is again full of energy and Akiko Suwanai’s playing reproduced the communication of the first movement. It was a superb performance of the spectacular music. Akiko Suwanai gave the audience a little unaccompanied Bach has an encore. As she played alone, it was interesting to note how attentively even the orchestra listened.

Elgar’s Enigma Variations is so well-known seems unnecessary to say any more about it. But the work as a whole is not as well known as the Nimrod variation, which is often played stand-alone. It is decades since I last heard a live performance of the entire work, and I was struck by the extreme dynamics, the composer demands.

A challenge of variation writing is to keep an audience interested in the familiar. Elgar’s solution in Enigma is to present the theme and then fourteen variations which exploit the full range of orchestral possibilities. Each variation is ostensibly a portrait of an individual and the composer ups the pace by keeping the variations short, except of course, for Nimrod, which is always too short for an audience from an audience's point of view.

What had turned out to be quite a long concert finished with a Russian encore, Glinka’s Russlan and Ludmilla Overture. It was played with real gusto and enthusiasm, as was everything else we heard. What a delight, also, to hear a British Orchestra playing two works by British composers on a foreign tour.

Josep Vicent and the ADDA Orchestra programme one of the twentieth century’s major works and a concerto by Campogrande featuring Meta4

 

The challenge of reviewing a performance of a work that one is deeply fond of is to remain objective. Well, I have already failed to be so. I first came across the Symphony No. 4, The Inextinguishable by Carl Nielsen when I was in my late teens. I have been listening to it regularly since then, so I must have heard it several hundred times. One might have thought that over the years its effect would grow less intense, its originality might have blurred, its surprise diminished. Not so.

Live performances of the work – except on radio – have been rare. It must be forty years since I last heard it in the concert hall. In a near lifetime of concert going, I have never heard the composer’s first or second symphony in concert. I have heard the Espansiva once, the fourth maybe twice and the fifth maybe four times. The enigmatic sixth, Sinfonia Semplice, once only. At home, I regularly listen to recordings, but Nielsen in the concert hall is something of a rarity.

Thank you, thus, to Josep Vicent and the ADDA Orchestra for programming the work and performing it with such commitment. For me. It was the highlight of the season and did not disappoint.

Written in 1916 and containing the composer’s references to The First World War, The Inextinguishable is a revolutionary work despite being musically conservative and sharing with Nielsen’s other works a considerable debt to Johannes Brahms. Carl Nielsen became one of music’s most original voices and it is in this symphony that we hear some of his most profound musical statements.

The fourth, for instance, has four conventional movements. But they are played without a break. Nielsen developed the idea of “progressive keys” in which music starts in one key and ends in another, thus suggesting in the listener’s ear an idea of “progress”. In the case of the fourth symphony, this is enhanced by playing the movements without breaks. And within those movements the musical material is very varied. Other composers might have used the progression of keys for entirely musical reasons, but in Nielsen there is this added layer of a journey for the listener. And the effect is subtle. Carl Nielsen never wanted to lead his audience by the nose through a “programme”. The effect is personal, even Romantic, and utterly convincing.

Two timpanis go to war occasionally in this work, and the orchestra manages to overcome their anger by being level-headed and positive, thus reflecting the composer’s fundamental optimism. In the fourth symphony, this optimism still triumphs, whereas in the fifth symphony, this optimism still comes through in the end but for all of forty minutes, the music is in minor keys, only finding its way to a major key in the closing coda. But by the time Carl Nielsen wrote the sixth symphony, cynicism had got the better of his optimistic spirit, and that is why the work remains problematic.

But still in the fourth Symphony, the compositional style is late Romanticism. It is still the individual that matters, though Nilsson is modern enough to frame the experience in current events in the external world. He is musically conservative enough to use fugues, but they bite with sharp edges, their counterpoint being jagged and modernistic. But within this conservative approach to composition, the composer manages to present material that is succinct, to the point and always subservient to an overall idea. The music is almost Neo-Classical despite being written before the term was invented!

But above all, there is energy in this music. The energy is “life energy”, which the composer thought would shine through current difficulties and result in positive outcomes. As a symphonist, the conservative Carl Nielsen became overall a thoroughly modern individual, ultimately wearied by the life he so desperately tried to affirm. How modern is that?

In the first half of the concert, we heard Josep Vicent’s selection of Manuel de Fallas’s Three Cornered Hart and Liberi Tutti, Nicola Campogrande’s Concerto for String Quartet, and Orchestra. The ADDA audience has heard the former work regularly and it never fails to rouse. The latter work featured the now superstars of Meta4, who performed brilliantly, if at the same time a little anonymously. Personally, I found the work always interesting, but eventually disappointing. Its generally minimalist style seemed to concentrate on creating a sheen of sound which was in itself convincing but also seemed to envelop the soloists in an overall orchestral sound which rather hid their significant and substantial contribution. The problem for me was not in the performance but in the handling of the musical material.

Overall, I found the Nielsen still much more modern, despite its being written over a century ago.

Escandinavia – ADDA hosts Joan Enric Lluna and Joana Carneiro in Grundman, Bach and Schumann

 

The concert was subtitled “Escandinavia”, a label that some of the audience found a little confusing. But a program note clarified that the Symphony No. 2 of Robert Schumann is also often called Escandinavia as a nickname. Despite being premiered in Dresden in 1845, it was also dedicated to King Oscar of Norway and Sweden – hence the nickname.

Baffling labels aside, there was nothing in this program to challenge a concert-going audience, apart from possibly a world premiere of a piece by locally resident composer, Jorge Grundman. The History of a Smile for clarinet and orchestra was listed as his opus 96, no less. The orchestra in question turned out to be strings and a percussion section of a vibraphone and a marimba. These latter instruments played a significant part in creating a soundscape for the work, while, if anything, the full complement of strings was, if anything, underused.

But this is essentially a show piece for solo clarinet, though it would be stretching things to say it was a concerto. Minimalist structures are heard here, with many figures relying on minor scales or modes around a bass pedal. The overall effect is perhaps rather monotonous, but, given the minimalist inspiration, that is part of the point. Joan Enric Lluna’s playing was superb, as were the two encores he offered, both his own compositions and forming two parts of his Homenaje á Maestro Rodrigo.

Joana Carneiro’s conducting of this opening work was itself astounding in that she prompted every detail of the score. It came, therefore, as no surprise to read that she often specialises in contemporary music. When she moved onto Bach’s Orchestral Suite No. 3, she was equally precise with music that demands above all precision. Now this is every well-known music, especially the second movement, the Air, which is often heard as a standalone piece. The ADDA Orchestra’s playing, especially that of the trumpet, was breathtaking.

And in the second half we heard a Romantic symphony that epitomises the mid-nineteenth century approach to music. It is often levied as a criticism against minimalism that the music is all process, not product. Anyone thinking that this is a characteristic of modern music should listen to the Symphony No. 2 of Robert Schumann, where the composer’s assumptions of form, modulation and orchestration are more than evident. In the end, it is a satisfying work, but, for all Schumann’s reputation for unpredictability, this particular concertgoer tends to find his approach formulaic. It’s a personal opinion.

The orchestral playing, the conducting, and the solo playing were all superb. The program also held together beautifully and as a whole it was also superb.

Martha Argerich, Charles Dutoit and the Orchestra Della Svizzera Italiana present a star-studded concert in ADDA, Alicante

 

Star billing often does not live up to audience expectations. Such events tend to attract attendees who are more interested in seeing a star name than in listening to what that performer might be able to do. There was not one minute like that in the entire evening last night in ADDA, Alicante, where we were privileged to hear music made by Martha Argerich and Charles Dutoit.

They are both getting on in years. Martha Argerich is 84 and Charles Dutoit 90, but no one who listened to the music they made would have had any inkling of their advancing years, so fresh and eager were both in their music making.

 Martha Argerich’s name would grace any concert in any auditorium. Here she played the first concerto of Beethoven, the same work that opened her concerto-performing career just 76 years ago. It is hard when listening to this music to imagine that it was written before 1800. This is fresh, sophisticated, jolly, and serious at the same time, and displays the kind of integration between the orchestra and soloist that was to shape and so completely change the form so completely from the elegance and decoration of the eighteenth-century model.

Though it was not Beethoven’s first attempt at the form - we know that he was in intensely self-critical - it has a freshness and directness that belies its complexity. Here Beethoven wanders wide from the declared C major and makes abrupt transitions, both rhythmic and harmonic. This can make a performance of the work seem disconnected, but not, of course, in the hands of Martha Argerich, who first recorded the work over 40 years ago.

The followed an encore. Scarlatti’s Sonata K1 41 is a piece that Martha Argerich plays regularly as an encore. What her right hand has to do in this piece is both fast and intricate. But the effect is above our musical: there is no show here, only quality.

The orchestra and Charles Dutoit had started the evening with a performance of Ravel’s Mother Goose. Now Ravel’s music is always surprising. Here, Charles Dutoit chose slow tempi that stressed both of the beauty of the phrases and the detail of the orchestration. Nothing in music exists, of course, if the musicians are not up to the task. In this concert, the Orchestra Della Svizzera Italiana was not only up to the task, their playing and integration as an ensemble sculpted every phrase to perfection.

In the second half, Charles Dutoit directed the Orchestra Della Svizzera Italiana in the fourth symphony of Mendelson, the Italian. At 90 years of age, Charles Dutoit keeps gestures to a minimum, but what he gets from his players is superb. And it was especially joyful for the audience to witness how much the players were enjoying the experience, a response, which kept the music, both lyrical and vibrant. Charles Dutoit announced that the encore would be a piece that was “very well known”, and it was. Perfection.

Gregorio Nieto plays Saint-Saens Cello Concerto alongside Tchaikovsky in an ADDA concert that approaches perfection

I normally start my concert reviews by focusing on the programme, then the performance and then the personalities. This time I want to reverse the order and start with the performers, or at least one particular performer.

Josep Vicent is artistic director of the ADDA auditorium and the conductor of its orchestra. For many years, he has worked hard throughout the Valencian region to raise standards of playing and performance. First with the Jeunesses Musicales World Orchestra and subsequently with ADDA, he has worked tirelessly to achieve perfection of programming and performance that the audiences in ADDA currently enjoy. The scale of his achievement in Alicante surely ranks alongside Rattle in Birmingham or Dudamel in Caracas. Now, the sense of anticipation felt collectively by ADDA audiences is tangible. Every concert is not merely an event, it is a guaranteed memory for life. After over fifty years of concert going, I look forward to the ADDA experience in a way that recent visits to world famous venues cannot match. Congratulations to Josep Vicent for having the vision, talent, and persistence to make it happen, for the achievement is primarily his, though the ADDA orchestra that you created still owns the playing!

Last night’s programme provides a perfect example of the quality we have come to take for granted. At first sight, there is nothing particularly special. A Tchaikovsky Symphony, Saint-Saens’s Cello Concerto No. 1, and then Tchaikovsky’s popular favourite, the Fantasy Overture, Romeo and Juliet.

Now this last piece is so widely played and known that it might be hard to say something new about it. Personally, I first heard this over sixty years ago and my enthusiasm for it is undiminished. To call it a masterpiece is to belittle it. The perfect blend of conflict, falling in love and tragedy of the story is beautifully drawn by its composer, who both understood the play and knew how to create music to convey meaning. The transitions in this piece are apparently seamless, but they happen suddenly enough to keep the audience surprised, as well as charmed, even if the work is familiar to them. No matter how many times one hears this piece, it works the same every time.

It does, however, need to be played properly and with commitment. As has happened so often with very well-known music, musicians and conductors often rely on familiarity for effect so the performance itself becomes perfunctory. This was not the case last night with the ADDA orchestra under Josep Vicent’s direction. Both and interpretation were perfect and in under twenty minutes, the whole of Shakespeare’s drama played out before us. More Tchaikovsky followed. More swans, we were told, as the orchestra offered an encore of music from Swan Lake. The reference to “more swans” came after Gregorio Nieto had chosen Saint-Saens’s The Swan for his own personal encore after the work that proceeded Romeo and Juliet.

The work in question was Saint-Saens’s First Cello Concerto and Gregorio Nieto’s playing of it was a virtuosic, vivid and utterly communicative. It was the kind of concerto where the soloist and orchestra engage in musical dialogue, without obvious cadenzas where the soloist plays alone. This assumes sufficient orchestral skill on behalf of the composer to facilitate that dialogue and sufficient skill on the part of the performers to remain aware of the required balance. This is therefore difficult music to perform and last night soloist alongside the virtuosic ADDA orchestra under Josep Vicent gave a faultless interpretation. The experience was memorable.

As was the opening work in the concert. Josep Vicent has championed Tchaikovsky’s symphonies over the years and has given multiple performances of the equally famous numbers four, five and six. But this was number two, the Little Russian. It is a symphony that is performed less than the famous three, but on this evidence, the Little Russian should be a concert hall standard. The enthusiasm encapsulated in the writing of the finale alone might render it a permanent favourite.

The symphony was a complete success: a success in terms of performance because the ADDA orchestra gave an exciting and perfect rendition of it, and it was a success of programming by Josep Vicent. The performance, and indeed the whole concert was utterly memorable, which in the end presented three pieces by Tchaikovsky alongside two by Saint-Saens. The concert was entitled Conexión Latina II, in recognition of the evening’s soloist being Venezuelan, but a more apt title could have been Esencia del Romanticismo, since the three works on the programme were all composed in the 1860s and 1870s, so our experience was concentrated on a very short period of musical history. What a masterpiece of programming! It was musically perfect.

 

Bach’s Brandenburg Concerti – an authentic experience

 

When writing a concert review when the pieces performed are as familiar as Johann Sebastian Bach’s Brandenburg Concerti, one concentrates inevitably on what might have been different this time around. In ADDA las night we heard a performance of this music which had authenticity as its main goal. The instrumentation, therefore, was exactly what JS Back had originally specified. The forces of the English Concert, thus, were small and the hall large.

The English Concert was founded by Trevor Pinnock in 1972 as part of a movement that in those days was quite new. This was the “original instrument” movement which sought to discover and recreate how early music had originally sounded. Over fifty years on, and The English Concert is still doing it’s laudable work. I personally am old enough to remember Stokowsi’s versions of Bach for full orchestra and the absolute revelation that in Harnoncourt’s 1967 recording of Monteverdi’s Vespers cornetti were used instead of trumpets. In the twenty-first century, we have perhaps come to expect instrumental authenticity in early music to such an extent that when, a few years ago, I attended a performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony at a Prom, a friend joked that it was on the original voices.

Last night in ADDA Alicante, we heard The English Concert under Kristian Bezuidenhout in the complete cycle of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Brandenburg Concerti. The order in which they were played was itself interesting, being 1-6-2-3-5-4. This presumably allowed the brass players to put their feet up in the second half, or to do what brass players do when they are not on stage. It was probably born of a desire to keep the sonorities varied.

The playing was exquisite, despite the fact that the natural hunting horns in number one are notoriously hard to control. The trumpet playing in number two, however, was simply divine.

What was a little frustrating was the rearrangement of the stage between pieces. This seemed a little perfunctory at times but perhaps was essential. It was Johann Sebastian Bach who chose what instruments to use, after all.

A packed ADDA concert. hall received the concert very well, but it was quite a marathon. One is always astounded by the harmonic and rhythmic invention in this music.

As a final note on authenticity, I would personally go as far as to suggest that setting is important, as well as instrumentation. Johann Sebastian Bach would not have recognized a new concert hall seating over one thousand people as a venue for the performance of what is essentially chamber music, perhaps. And the final note on popularity: the Brandenburg Concerti had fallen into obscurity for over a century before being rediscovered in 1849, a hundred years after their composer’s death.

Claudio Constantini and Josep Vicent deliver surprises in music by Gershwin and Beethoven in ADDA, Alicante

 

Sometimes a conventional concert program springs surprises when, as an audience member, you least expect it. This evening’s main surprise was the soloist, Claudio Constantini, who is one of the very few “classical” musicians who has made his name across genres on two different instruments, the piano and the bandoneon. Peruvian by birth, but educated in Finland, the Netherlands and France, he has never lost his passion for Latin American music and indeed the popular forms of that music. Having been nominated in 2019 for a Latin Grammy for his playing of Gershwin, it was fitting that in this concert the first half was devoted to the American composer.

We began with the Cuban Overture whose rhythms seemed to infect the whole evening with energy. This is by no means a light introduction to a concert. From the beginning, it is a major piece that might be considered as a tone poem for orchestra. It features Cuban rhythms (it was originally titled Rumba), and Caribbean percussion instruments. Gershwin wanted these at the front of the orchestra, but last night in ADDA a compromise was struck, with percussion at the back of the stage but regularly featuring large, projected onto the back wall of the auditorium. The musical effect of the piece combined with the expert playing of the ADDA Orchestra we sheer delight.

Then we heard Claudio Constantini as soloist in Gershwin’s Rhapsody In Blue. Approaching a work such as this, which in many respects can present a parody of itself, can be problematic. For my personal taste, in the hands of classical musicians, there is often not enough risk taking. In the hands of popular interpreters, the music often comes second behind the performer’s ego. This particular performance, however, was memorable both because the harmonies and rhythms were properly stretched to excitement, but also because the playing was accurate and respected the score. Claudio Constantini’s playing of the solo part illustrated the fact that he has he has he has played it before. His dynamics and timing were exquisite.

Now usually, the ADDA audience demands an encore from a soloist. Often performers appear reluctant to offer one. Not so Claudio Constantini, who needed no repeated curtain calls to come back on the stage with a bandoneon. He played one of his own compositions with string accompaniment, a tango of sorts, a milonga perhaps, where the cadences often sounded like Piazzolla. Superb. Quiet. Very successful.

In part two we heard a performance of Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony, No. 6. But this was different from any other performance of Beethoven 6 that I personally have heard.

ADDA programmes often list the movements of a piece alongside their timings. Last night’s programme did list the movements but gave only the duration of the whole symphony. Josep Vicent clearly decided that this performance of the work would have no pauses at the movement breaks and so we heard forty minutes of music without a break. It worked beautifully and Beethoven’s vision of rural life did come across as a vast picture of both landscape and people’s place within it. This playing of the piece without a break was a real surprise, and it was truly memorable.

Gimenez’s The Marriage of Luis Alonso closed the evening, and Josep Vicent encouraged the audience to accompany by clapping.

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.