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.

Edmon Levon conducts the Valencia Youth Orchestra in Coleridge-Taylor, González Gomá, Rossini and Tchaikovsky, with Ignacio Soler

 

In human affairs, enthusiasm is often associated with youth, whereas competence that approaches perfection is usually only possible in maturity. Occasionally - just occasionally - the two qualities are combined in a single and therefore memorable event. Here, it was the music making of the Valencia Youth Orchestra. It married enthusiasm and perfection in a musical evening that all involved, musicians and audience alike, will never forget.

The Valencia Youth Orchestra can recruit players up to their mid-twenties, so here we are talking about musicians who are on the verge of their careers. In this concert, they were directed by their current guest conductor, Edmon Levon, who also introduced each piece to the audience.

The performers began with a piece by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, an English composer, less well known in Spain than in the United Kingdom, where he is undergoing a revival that is reviving his music from an anonymity achieved by a hundred years of neglect. Despite playing for a US president and having packed out the Royal Albert Hall for years on end with his Hiawatha, his music must now be re-discovered. A movement from his African Suite had more than enough to spark interest in his always melodic music.

Enrique González Gomá, whose Ofrenda a Colombina followed, is a little-known composer even in his native Spain. He was a Valencian by birth, from Tavernes, born in 1899 and living until 1977. After the bravura and frenzy of an African dance, González Gomá’s piece offered a significant contrast. Quiet and reflective, even impressionistic, this music explores textures to evoke feelings. The effect was both magical and surprising.

In comparison to what proceeded it, Rossini’s Bassoon Concerto is quite a well-known work, though in over 50 years of concert going, I was hearing for the first time in performance. Ignacio Soler as soloist was both faultless in execution and as enthusiastic about the music as the orchestra he fronted. Rossini’s treatment of the form was distinctly operatic, with the bassoon often sounding like a singer delivering an opera aria in Rossini’s distinctly bravura, if sometimes rather predictable style. The quality of invention in his music, however, is undeniable, even if at times one feels as though one may have heard it before somewhere else!

The enthusiasm of the audience reaction prompted Ignacio Soler to present an encore, for which he was joined by two of the bassoons from the orchestra to play the Tango by Martinez. In this piece, a perhaps cliché tune is passed skilfully between the three players. The sonority of the bassoon trio is utterly surprising, and the ensemble suggests improvisation, even in its absence.

In the second half, the Valencia Youth Orchestra played one of the symphonies that define music. Tchaikovsky Pathetique, Symphony No. 6, is not just a staple of the orchestral repertoire, it is one of its mainstays. This is a work that not only never disappoints, but it also actually grows with repeated hearings.

It is music that, I believe, is ruined by applause between movements. The transition, especially from movements three to four, is crucial to the work’s emotional argument and all tension associated with being “right up there” one moment and “right down there” in the next is dissipated by audience intervention. Edmon Levon, I suspect, agrees with this, and when the audience applauded after the first movement, he half turned to acknowledge but in a single gesture managed to communicate that the end of the work would be more appropriate.

Tchaikovsky 6 is a mammoth work that demands real musical maturity alongside perfection of ensemble. There were one or two rhythmic stutters in the fast third movement, but nothing to detract from the experience. Personally, I found the horns of the opening of the fourth too loud, but I am splitting hairs.

The audience reaction to this great music was nothing less than ecstatic. Thus, we were treated to an encore. What to play after a work like Tchaikovsky 6 is a problem. Edmon Levon contrasted Tchaikovsky’s emotional paroxysms with Ravel’s detachment. We heard the final section of the Mother Goose suite, and its largely modal harmonies were quite surprising after the symphony’s outbursts. We had a real Valencia bash to finish, a piece that the orchestra played largely undirected, with Edmon Levon taking a seat in the stalls. At the end, the whole orchestra stood, still playing. The audience followed suit, applauding.