ADDA Simfonica with Irene Theorin under Josep Vicent in Strauss and Shostakovich

 

Concerts seasons often parade a procession of “great works” calculated to promote ticket sales. Anything less well known is often regarded as risky because audiences, though they tend not to know what they like, always like what they know. Performances of great works often become mundane acknowledgments of the work’s existence, without getting to grips with its substance. Audiences go home happy, ticket sales are satisfactory, and the works of thousands of composers never see the light of day.

So would the program of the Four Last songs of Richard Strauss followed by Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony fall into this perfunctory category? It might. But in Alicante’s ADDA concert hall last night, it definitely did not. Indeed, this is never the case when it comes to the playing and interpretation of ADDA Simfònica under Josep Vicent. Last night, the audience was surely in the presence of living greatness, not just past achievement. During last week, I met a friend whom I knew would also be going to hear the music and expressed the opinion that Shostakovich’s Leningrad Symphony was a life-changer. I understated the reality. And you might be wondering why a concert review opens like this… I hope to make that clear later. First, the facts.

The hall was packed to hear Iréne Theorin sing the Four Last Songs of Richard Strauss and the ADDA Simfònica under artistic director Josep Vicent play the symphony. To say that this audience loves its resident orchestra would also be an understatement. Every player is applauded onto the stage and off it, every time. This adoration is individual recognition, communally expressed, of both the work the orchestra does in presenting taxing programmes and also the quality of the experience they regularly deliver. ADDA Simfònica is now a great orchestra, and their artistic director is the leading light.

We began last night with Richard Strauss’s songs, with Iréne Theorin as soloist. The opening phrases might have suggested that she might have a little too much vibrato for this work, but like many initial fears this proved groundless. This is a work that needs control and expression, rather than power or decoration, and Iréne Theorin not only delivered, she excelled. There was a slight surprise when at the end of the fourth song, when the valedictory trills on the flute were played rather softer than is often the case. In the context of the work, this low-key wave of goodbye fitted perfectly. It is not surprising, given the soloist’s experience in performing the music of Richard Strauss that Iréne Theorin’s interpretation proved nothing less than exceptional. We did have an encore. It was one of Strauss’s orchestral songs, which ultimately gave Iréne Theorin an opportunity to demonstrate a little of her power.

And then what more can be written about this symphony? Let’s take for granted that it was played wonderfully, was interpreted to perfection and was received in absolute silence with every note absorbed by its audience.

For me personally, the opening movement has a clear programme. The complexity and sophistication of ordinary life in Leningrad is portrayed in the opening section in music that regularly changes key and rhythm. The simple message of the opposing theme portrays the idea of fascism. Keep it simple and keep saying the same thing. People will believe you. It starts small, indeed it does. But with each new adherent, the ideology grows into something that creates a powerful need to impose itself on everything. Ideologically this is the fascism of the 1930s. Musically, it is the ideology of pop, being populism, not popularity. That comes later. Just try getting away from pop music… And, I might add, I don’t mean Indian pop, or Tanzanian pop. I mean an international pop, nearly always in sung in English, where the visuals trump the aurals. Here I return to the idea at the start of the piece, because it is a marketing necessity that the product should always be presented that way. Make sure there are no surprises, and then you will not offend. And you will sell more worthless product.

At the end of the first movement, after the idea of fascism has led to huge conflict, the sophisticated life of those who don’t want everything to be the same returns, but it is exhausted. Though the movement ends lyrically, the fascist tendency is still there, perhaps in the form of a dictator, perhaps acknowledging that this desire to impose the conformity of a group is part of us all. At the end of the symphony, when the triumphal but unconvincing fanfares ring out, proclaiming what is clearly a rather hollow victory, the memory of conflict, complete with its conformity-imposing mechanical rhythm is still there. But is it now at least the rhythm of the opening of Beethoven’s Fifth?

The symphony’s central movements are full of reflection, lyricism, nostalgia, desolation and nightmare. It is an acknowledgment of the excellent design of the ADDA hall to record that even pianissimo pizzicati can be heard anywhere. We assume, of course, as ever, that there is near total silence from the audience. There always is.

My introduction of the work to the work came from Leonard Bernstein’s CBS recording with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Throughout, he uses significantly slower tempi than we heard last night. It’s a different take on what is, after all, a personal experience. On this recording, there is a moment during the first movement, when the sophistication of the people returns after the war, after the exhaustion is expressed and the desolation is recorded, when the sophistication represented by the strings returns with renewed but exhausted energy. On the recording, just before this entry, Bernstein issues a long side of relief which was picked up by the microphones. Personally, I cannot listen to this music without hearing that unscored sigh. I heard the reissue of the same recording a few weeks ago, and the engineers have removed the sigh.

At the start of the symphony last night, Josep Vicent decided to project images of the siege of Leningrad on the backdrop, closing the sequence with a statement that there were currently fifty conflicts in the world and that collectively we wanted to be ambassadors of peace. I said earlier that the Leningrad Symphony is a life-changer, and it still is, no matter how many times it is heard. Let’s put the people back into music, no matter how much we crave standardized products. Experience is unique. And this one was no exception. And it will live a lifetime.

Costa Blanca Arts Update - Alfaz del Pi February concerts - Pilar and Pedro Valero, Duo Evocacion and Maria Kosenkova

Music can take an audience to many different places. It all depends on where they want to go. But during a period of coronavirus restrictions, merely out of the house might just be enough. The Comunidad Valenciana rules for public gatherings are clear, and it is within these rules that Alfaz del Pi Classical Music Society operates, complete with socially spaced seating, temperature checks and contact lists. But once out of the house and in that space, music can still transport us and there was no better example of how this happens than during the Society’s two February concerts.

On Saturday 20 February in Casa Cultura, we heard the piano playing of Pilar and Pedro Valero in a program that featured composers from no less than eight countries, probably mirroring the cosmopolitan nature of the small but highly appreciative audience. What the pianists presented was effectively two solo programs with a little four hands at the end.

Pilar Valero first performed Ravel, a Prelude followed by Ondine and then she played the Rachmaninoff Prelude Opus32 no12 and Study Op39 no5 before finishing with Rondeña by Albeniz. Pilar Valero’s playing really did illustrate the stylistic differences between these composers, whose active life spanned shared decades. In many ways, the music of Albeniz is the most unconventional of the three and marries the post-impressionism of Ravel with the nationalism and sentimentality of Rachmaninoff.

Pedro Valero offered three pieces, Schubert’s Sonata in A major D664, Fazil Say’s Variations on Summertime and then Resurrección del Angel by Astor Piazzolla. The amazing understatement of the Schubert was often contradicted by how darkly many of the phrases finished. The contrast with the jazz-inspired glitter of the Fazil Say variations was stunning and then Piazzolla’s slow, halting dance supplied a troubled tranquility.

And then to conclude we had four-hand versions of the Dance from La Vida Breve of Manuel de Falla and finally Brahms’s rousing Hungarian Dance no5.

And then on Sunday 21 February in Albir, we had Dúo Evocación with Maria Kosenkova in a program of songs and arias. Dúo Evocatión comprises soprano, Olha Viytiv and the piano of Hilario Segovia Badia. They opened with the Mozart concert aria, Io No Chiedo, before mezzo-soprano Maria Kosenkova took the stage to start with two of four Strauss songs. Like all such concerts, the list of pieces is long, so I will not list them all by title. After the Mozart, we heard four songs by Richard Strauss, two pieces each by Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff, and then Delibes, Massenet, and Thomas. We then heard an aria from Barbieri’s El Barbarillo, two of Manuel de Falla’s popular songs, Nana and Polo, and then Ma Llaman La Primarosa of Gimenez and Nieto. An encore of the Barcarole from the Tales of Hoffmann brought the concert to a rapturous close. The sheer volume created by the two sopranos was, at times, simply stunning, especially in the vocal acrobatics supplied by the aria from Delibes’s Lakme.

But what shone through both events was the musicians’ determination to interpret and communicate, an approach that reached out to the audience and was gratefully received and acknowledged. In these difficult times, these two concerts were bright examples of how performed music can uplift and regenerate.

Bel Canto by Anna Patchett

As a music lover, I wish I could sing the praises of Anna Patchett’s Bel Canto. I always look forward to reading books about musicians, especially composers, and usually I am disappointed. Bel Canto was no exception. Anna Pratchett is in good company, however, for I was not convinced by Ian McEwan’s character in Amsterdam, nor Carpentier’s in The Lost Steps, to name but a couple. Being a singer, I thought that Bel Canto’s principal character, Roxane Coss, might be more responsive to a writer’s pen, but she wasn’t.

Music is always a strange, inconstant friend. Though it never revolts, it can often disappoint. Even when programmes and performers seem completely matched, a spark may fail to ignite the whole into complete experience. Bel Canto lacked that spark. Bel Canto’s programme presents much promise.

Roxane Coss is a world renowned singer. She has performed everywhere, sung all the famous roles in the greatest houses and worked under the baton of every maestro. People don’t just admire her: it goes much further than that. Mr Hosokawa, a Japanese corporate bigwig, is one such worshipper.

When, for some reason, he finds himself in an unnamed amalgam of South American countries on his birthday, he is treated to an invitation only recital by said soprano at the house of Ruben Iglesias, Vice-President of the republic, no less. It’s interesting to note that the President himself had been invited, but he never attends any function that clashes with Coronation Street, or its Spanish language equivalent on the tele.

So, while Roxane Coss is waxing lyrical through her arias, the President no doubt is up to his neck in innuendo, melodrama and pouting looks that tell of treachery, infidelity, scorn and envy. Not a bit like opera… just add soap. Back in the Vice-President’s house, an admixture of invitees lap up the Italian in their diverse languages. There are Japanese speakers, Italian, French, Russian and Spanish, amongst others, as well as the occasional sentence in English.

A young Japanese interpreter in the employ of Mr Hosokawa, a lad called Gen, has all the gen needed to translate, sometime with a touch of humour. His skills were always going to be needed, but they become essential when the evening is hijacked by a terrorist group seeking hostages and their leverage. It’s not quite, “Take this residence to Cuba”, but it’s well on the way. While Graham Greene in his Honorary Consul used the incompetence of the act as plot device, strangely Ann Patchett never really explores just why it was that her own gang of terrorists missed their own boat by such a long way.

But then these guys – and gals – are not real terrorists, at least not the real terrorists that actually kill people. They are of a more refined type, a kind of semi-professional bunch with military connections as well as pretensions, but not much of an ideology. Early on, the unfortunate Vice-President gets one in the mush and needs sewing up around the face. It’s a pity that wound seemed not to affect his speech.

So here are the elements. A worshipping assemblage of music lovers divided by language but united by their interpreter are held hostage in a prominent residence which becomes besieged. They are held together by the commonality of their plight and the heavenly voice of Roxane Coss, which, luckily for all of them, holds up despite the strain. The relationships between the hostages, their love of music, their situation alongside tensions provided by captors and their pursuers ought to offer a wonderful opportunity for character, plot, relationships and reminiscences to come to the fore.

Unfortunately, they don’t and frankly, not much else emerges to fill the void. There’s a couple of romances, French lessons in the broom cupboard under the stairs, unlikely endings, even less likely beginnings. There’s a modicum of humour, but neither of the book’s threads, its music and its languages, are developed. It’s worth reading, but, like a concert where the performers didn’t gel, it ultimately disappoints.