Fumiaki Miura, Josep vicent and ADDA Simfonica in Ravel and Shostakovich

This was a concert of two halves, both superb, both contrasted, both within and between. Shostakovich in the first half and Ravel in the second provided the between contrast between. The works chosen, two by each composer, provided the contrast within.  To the second half first.

Ravel’s Daphne and Chloe Suite No2 is a concert hall favourite. It is a post-impressionist splash of colour, like Matisse cutouts dancing around their own space. But it’s also symphonic: it feels like the colours develop and transform, though strangely they do not seem to merge, except in the opening sunrise. Josep Vicent used two locations for the wordless chorus, one group, at the rear right of the stage as the audience saw it, and the second in a box, higher and further to the right, above the stalls. The effect was akin to surround sound. The orchestral playing in this work, and the one that followed was outstanding, with all the timbre and textures of the music glowing in their own right.

Ravel’s Bolero has been described as the music of madman. Ravel’s own assessment of the opinion was that it was correct. The work is so well known that I will say nothing about the music itself, except to point out one aspect which Josep Vicent chose to stress. The drum rhythms are usually insistent and ever-present in this piece. There are performances where the audience hears very little else. But this was not one of them. Josep Vicent had the drum’s contribution in dynamic balance with the rest of the instruments. At the start, the drum was barely audible above the pizzicato strings. As a result, the superb orchestral playing was able to communicate all the textures the composer chose to exploit, and these became the focus. That magical passage where a horn and celeste play together sparkled like Christmas lights. We even got an encore of the final sections, just in case we had missed it first time round.

In the first half, the ADDA audience heard two works by Shostakovich. The Jazz Suite No1 was played by an ensemble including saxophones, trumpets, trombone, violin, bass, various percussion, an upright piano, a banjo, and a slide guitar. As always with the music of Shostakovich, the listener is never quite sure whether to take anything seriously. He always seems to be looking over his shoulder to judge reaction, except, of course, when the subject with himself, when he wallows in DSCH, as in the Eighth Quartet or the Tenth Symphony. The personal signature motif, however, seemed to be lacking from both the Jazz Suite and what followed. The textures and witticisms of this music came across vividly, as did its inherent self-doubt mixed with tragic whimsy. It was, after all, Shostakovich.

The piece that ended the first half of the concert was something completely different from the rest of the evening. This was Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto No2 with Fumiaki Miura as soloist. This particular concerto is not played often and dates from thirty years after the rest of the programme. Like much late Shostakovich, such as the Viola Sonata, quartets and symphonies, it seems almost distracted. This is music made of lines that don’t seem able to decide where to go, never mind join up. It’s an unsettling experience, full of questions that are not even finished, let alone answered. Unlike the other works in the program, however, this second violin concerto by Shostakovich does invite further listening. The almost chamber music feel of the orchestration, where particular sounds stand out unexpectedly, is surely part of what the composer was trying to achieve. And what would you make of the interjections from a tom-tom that seem to interrupt and threaten? The solo part often seems to be screaming, but quietly, almost trying to hide its nervous agitation.

All of this complexity was perfectly interpreted and conveyed by Fumiaki Miura, the soloist for this performance. It’s not performed as much as other concertos, so Fumiaki Miura understandably chose to have a score in sight. But his interpretation of this narcissistic, self-conscious, self-referential. perhaps self-mocking music was as close to perfect as I could imagine. And that drum? Is it fate knocking on the door, or the police? Or is it Shostakovich waking up the audience?

Despite all the brilliance of Daphnis and Chloe, the firework show of Bolero and the witticisms of the Jazz Suite, it is Fumiaki Miura’s playing of this enigmatically understated work that will last in the memory. And, just to add to the surrealism, he played the Vieuxtemps Variations on Yankee Doodle Dandy as an encore. Memorable.

Costa Blanca Arts Update - Brahms concerto and symphony in ADDA, Alicante with Rumon Gamba and Nelson Goerner

Personally I quite like being proved wrong, especially when the result is beneficial. When that is accompanied by a realisation that assumed values always need to be questioned, the result can be refreshing, even cathartic. A dispassionate assessment of a concert programme that offered two of Johannes Brahms’s best known and most often played orchestral works would under normal circumstances probably have not got me in the car to make the drive, not prompted me to be early so as not to find the parking full, or certainly not to arrive home so late. Having a subscription, however, prompted this Yorkshireman to guard his wallet and so I did not miss the concert.

The resident orchestra, ADDA Simfonica, for this particular concert was under the direction of a guest conductor, Rumon Gamba, who was making his first visit to this particular podium. After this performance, it will surely not be his last. Equally, Nelson Goerner’s return to the ADDA auditorium will surely also be soon. He is a pianist who eschews visual pyrotechnics, so it was behind closed eyes that the real musical fireworks coming from his hands were revealed. The touch, precision and interpretive skill were simply perfect. The ADDA orchestra, as ever, played beautifully and noticeably they seemed actively to enjoy this particular experience.

So what was surprising about familiar music played by a resident orchestra with a soloist and conductor whose work I have heard many times? The answer, surprisingly, is Johannes Brahms, whose music I thought I knew.

Personally I have always associated the second piano concerto of Brahms with a rather stodgy texture applied to long winded musical arguments that approach prolixity, albeit usually in a moderately enjoyable mix. These Brahms orchestral works have my respect, but over the years they have rarely made me stand up and take notice. But in the ADDA auditorium under the baton of Rumon Gamba and the hands of Nelson Goerner, there was throughout a delicacy, a refreshing humility, clear unambiguous expression and above all communication. And the overall effect was so surprising it was breath-taking. The gestures were light, the playing faultless and lyrical, with every phrase crafted to communicate. The concerto’s fifty plus minutes seemed to pass in a moment and we were already listening to a Brahms Intermezzo as a substantial encore.

If the Second Piano Concerto was a surprising experience, it was nothing compared to the Second Symphony. Of course this is a lyrical work, but it is not always interpreted as thoughtfully and convincingly as this. The music made perfect sense and again the stress was on delicacy and the ADDA orchestra was visibly enjoying the experience as much as the audience.

The beauty of being a subscriber and attending all the concerts guarantees that occasionally one is taken out of one’s comfort zone. With a Brahms double bill, I might just have stayed at home. To have foregone that complete surprise would have been a cardinal error.

Costa Blanca Arts Update - Marin Alsop, Kian Soltani and Vienna RSO play Eisendle, Schumann and Dvorak in ADDA

 

It’s hard to describe what a complete success this concert was. For the first time I have heard Marin Alsop conduct a live concert. I expected superlatives. I got much better than that. She is not one to show off. She is not one to grab the spotlight. But what she does is completely professional and carefully thought out. She is such an expert at what she does that her contribution seemed transparent, shunning attention that would always be better focused on the music, itself.

With a programme like this, with a new work which has been commissioned by the orchestra from a young composer, one would expect it to be delivered with care and attention, otherwise what was the point? Hannah Eisendle’s website indicates that she is interested in music for film and theatre. Well it showed, and advantageously. In under seven minutes, Heliosis visited Bartok’s Sonata for two pianos, Shostakovich’s string tones, a touch of Rite of Spring here and there and probably much more. But this was not mere pastiche. This was musically impressionistic, a series of pictures flashing through sound to make a satisfying and surprising journey.

But what more can one say about the rest of the programme? In an age where originality is seen as an essential right, or perhaps rite, and where it is so often absent, what can an orchestra and a soloist do with two mainstays of the mainstream repertoire?

Well, one can start and finish by delivering performances that are judged, faithful and at the same time exciting, because what is on offer is of great, enduring quality. One can also fail, of course, and fall short of the possibilities that these great composers have offered. But when the conductor is Marin Alsop and the soloist is Kian Soltani then nothing less than perfection is almost guaranteed.

Schumann’s Cello Concerto is a staple of the repertoire, one of perhaps three concerti for the instrument that every cellist must learn. It is also therefore a piece whose vitality and freshness can be hard to recreate. Kian Soltani’s interpretation, however, was both vital and fresh, but also it was tense where conflict surfaced and lyrical where tenderness appeared. It was certainly far more than a mere performance of standard repertoire. Such playing reopens a listener’s interest in a work, allowing it to be approached anew, as if for the first time. It takes more than technical virtuosity to achieve that. His encore was a Ukrainian folksong with a miniature but utterly delicate orchestral commentary. It delighted everyone, not just the much-applauded resident Ukrainian contingent.

And what of Dvorak’s Seventh Symphony? Again one must be faithful to the score, but there is always great space to fall short. I always feel that the lines in Dvorak’s music should stand out. Where we start and finish as listeners in such music should feel like a journey, not a slide show. And of course Marin Alsop’s reading of the score created the momentum that drove the travel and of course the audience was totally in step.

The two encores were similar in concept, but diverse in style. A nineteenth century romp of a dance from the orchestra’s home city was followed by a modern parody of the same idea, just to ensure that no-one took anything too seriously. As we had already been reminded, there were other things happening in the world.

Costa Blanca Arts Update - Shostakovich 5 and Symphonie Espagnole in ADDA, Alicante

The fifth Symphony of Dmitri Shostakovich was reportedly “a Soviet artist's creative response to justified criticism”. That past criticism came as a result of official displeasure at the direction the composer’s work had taken in the opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk and, crucially, in the unperformed fourth symphony, a work the composer withdrew when it was in already in rehearsal. He waited twenty-five years before he eventually heard it. After a performance of this extraordinary fourth symphony under Gergiev, the audience at Alicante’s ADDA auditorium waited just two weeks to hear the fifth, the composer’s symphonic self-correction, from the ADDA orchestra under Josep Viicent.

And it was the similarities between the two apparently contrasting works that provided the most vivid memories for this listener. The fifth returns to the conventional four movements of the symphony, rather than the fourth symphony’s three. But together, the opening moderato and the scherzo are like the vast first movement of the fourth. The next movement of both symphonies form their respective emotional cores, intellectual in the fourth and self-pitying in the fifth. The finales of both works offer unconvincing apotheosis and the only major difference comes at the end. Both symphonies offer a triumphal statement of achievement in orchestral tutti and it has to be said they are both hollow and lack self-belief. But at the end of the fifth the major chords offer an apparent resolution, a statement of optimism, albeit false, whereas the fourth drifts into an agnostic cessation of existence with the merest of whimpers. Strange it seemed, however, to hear the celeste bring to an end the fifth’s first movement, albeit without the obvious question mark that concluded the fourth.

Josep Vicent’s tempo in the finale tested everyone. Originally marked as allegro non troppo, Vicent’s pace could have been described as presto. And his judgment proved memorable, because it brought to life both the urgency and impetuosity that underpins the music. By the end the ADDA string section might not have thanked him so enthusiastically, because it did make their job more taxing. A final observation must be that I have never heard this music without an error at some point amongst the French horns. This performance was therefore a first, because they were perfect.

Earlier, the audience had been treated to a performance of dazzling virtuosic communication by Leticia Moreno of the Symphonie Espagnole by Edouard Lalo. Now this is a work that wears its emotions on its sleeves. Here we are closer to Offenbach than Wagner and often refreshingly so. The solo violin part is more taxing than many concertos and there are not many bars of rest for the soloist in this five-movement work that lasts more than half an hour. The rapturous reception for Leticia Moreno’s playing was perhaps even understated because her projection of the solo part was nothing less than stunning. It was quite hard to take in such genius all at once!

And what artistic presence she displayed by playing an encore that offered musical as well as stylistic contrast. With the accompaniment of Carmen Escobar’s harp orchestrally-placed harp, Leticia Moreno gave a controlled and restrained account of Manuel de Falla’s Nana from the Popular Songs. Musically and philosophically this was almost the antithesis of the grandiloquence that had preceded it. This little encore underlined Leticia Moreno’s virtuosity. It would have been much easier had she tried again to show off. Here, less was certainly more.