Gustavo Gimeno and the Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana in Sibelius and Mahler

Gustavo Gimeno conducted the Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana in the latest concert of ADDA’s Pasions season. The program juxtaposed two symphonies that were premiered about thirty years apart by composers who were both born in the 1860s. The contrast, however, was immense.

Composed almost at the end of Jean Sibelius’s creative life, the Seventh Symphony is much more revolutionary than it might appear at first sight. Its compressed form is perhaps more reminiscent of a tone poem than a symphony, but at twenty minutes duration, its single movement is longer than many eighteenth century symphonies that advertise multiple sections. And here there is a sense of development, even evolution as motifs come and go, resurface and transform in this seemingly organic form. The whole takes on the feeling of a valediction, with the trombones effectively waving goodbye, hardly animated, but certainly determined, to a creative life that was soon to be retired.

Sibelius’s Seventh Symphony is a very moving work, full of wonderful, slow textures, where sounds seem to melt at the edges as they brush past one another. The Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana under Gustavo Gimeno’s direction, played the work sympathetically, always keen to bring these textures to the fore.

Gustav Mahler’s First Symphony, by contrast, came at the start of his composing career. Its gestation was protracted, and the composer revised the score almost each time it was played during its first five years.

The result, however, is an often-played masterpiece. Only two of Mahler’s symphonies, the first and fourth, are of half concert length, and the fourth needs a soloist. This makes the first symphony the easiest of the composer’s output to programme, and so one feels that its presence might sometimes be perfunctory. An orchestra wants Mahler on its curriculum vitae, and the first offers the least resistance.

But there was no such pragmatism on show for Gustavo Gimeno and the Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana, who had clearly rehearsed the piece at length. Here we had a reading and performance that stressed detail and contrast. Mahler’s juxtaposition of light and heavy, light and shade, loud and soft, fast and slow were perfectly communicated and played. But this was no mannerist display of the possible for possibility’s sake. Here all the lines were well drawn, and the overall shapes made sense, musically at least, which is often not the case with this intentionally episodic work.

It was so detailed that the musical allusions came to the fore. The funeral march’s juxtaposition of popular song alongside Jewish celebration was clear and also stark, and it seemed to be delivered with the wry smile that no doubt the composer wore while writing it. Also evident was the similarity at one point to the Fifth Symphony’s Adagietto. Also notable in the scherzo, just before the contrasting slow trio, there stood out of figure in the cellos, just a series of repeated notes, that were lifted verbatim by Shostakovich into his fourth symphony. No perfunctory presence for this symphony for that great composer.

Mahler’s rousing finale was delivered by standing brass and horns, but it was the whole orchestra that shone. Gustavo Gimeno was careful to present each section of the band for acclaim at the end. They had all deserved the applause.

 

Josep Vicent conducts Beethoven and Montsalvatge in Alicante

 

Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony is one of those works I can hear anytime I want. I play it to myself in my head - at least, I think I do. It's a work I and many others have heard so many times, I sometimes wonder what might be gained from hearing it again. On this occasion, I need not have worried.

This is always a concertgoer’s dilemma, at least, if you are a concertgoer like me, who always craves new and original experience. There are many concertgoers, perhaps even a majority, who want only to hear what they know, hence the rather repetitive and perhaps, at least to me, the rather stultified and predictable nature of a lot of programmes.

As a season-ticket holder, however, one does tend to go to whatever is billed, and on Sunday, 10 December 2023, Josep Vicent and the ADDA orchestra chose to play Beethoven Nine.

I tried to remember the last performance of the work I attended. It must have been that Promenade Concert over twenty years ago that I attended with an old college friend, when an original instrument group performed it. “It’s being sung on the original voices,” said my friend with more than a smile. We were a long way from the stage in London’s Albert Hall. The work, of course, filled the space. More often than not an overlooked but regularly visited friend is full of surprises when we do finally make contact.

And it was true with this performance of Beethoven Nine. There were even surprises in Josep Vicent’s reading. The opening bars, for instance, are so often played with the first violins cutting forte through the general tremolo. Here they were subdued, understated. In the last movement, when the famous theme establishes itself on wider strings after cellos and basses have introduced it, Vicent had the woodwind come almost to the fore with its argumentative counterpoint. Thirdly - and what a masterstroke! - the presence of the chorus on the stage meant the timpani had to move. Vicent brought it almost to the front of the stage alongside the violas and cellos. The timpani, of course, plays a thoroughly significant role in the work, and not only in the groundbreaking second movement, where it played melody for perhaps the first time. The four soloists, Erika Grimaldi, Teresa Iervolino, Airam Hernández and José Antonio, were all more than up to their tasks. Positioned just ahead of the chorus, they sang with remarkable clarity, volume and commitment.

But the real star of the show was the chorus, Orfeón Donostiarra. The chorus were not just committed to the task, they sang as if their lives depended on it. But they were always totally musical, never prone to stress volume rather than tone, always accurate, with every dynamic change respected. The amazing quality of their work was recognized by the audience’s loud cheers at the end, a gesture that was both noticed and appreciated by everyone present.

In the first half we had Montsalvatge’s Cant Espiritual de Joan Maragall, a twenty minute work for chorus and orchestra. Maragall’s words concentrate on the prospect of life after death, in contrast to Schiller’s which, as we know, are really interested in the here and now. Montsalvatge’s music, understated neoclassicism, mixed with modernism and popular song, came across as the perfect foil to the grandiloquence that was to follow. But in Beethoven’s case, the grandiloquence works every time. It’s grandiloquence with consequences and there’s not an empty second in the experience. In our current world, we need more, not less calls for brotherhood and sisterhood amongst all people.

 

Programa 13 de diciembre Festival de Piano de Denia - Tsisana Kikabidze tocará Beethoven, Liszt, Bartok y Rachmaninov

 

Programa 29 de noviembre Festival de Piano de Denia - Mihaela Manea tocará Scarlatti, Brahms, Enescu y Liszt

 

Pimchas Zukerman plays Elgar with Orchestra National de Lyon under Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider in ADDA Alicante

When writing reviews, the pressure to express opinion often leads to overstatement. It is a position. I usually try to avoid, and I do so by concentrating on the positive aspects of the object under review. I will do the same here.

To say that everyone went away happy from this evening of Elgar and Brahms would be an understatement. They had been treated to an outstanding performance by an outstanding violinist. They had also been delivered a going-away lollipop in the form of the ever-popular Nimrod variation from Elgar’s Enigma to round off the evening.

Pinchas Zukerman is now seventy-five years old. He has been making music in public for over five decades of his life, and if anything, he seems to get better with time. There are few pyrotechnics to see in his playing. But when the eyes are closed, the true force of expression becomes clear in all of its colours.

The Elgar Violin Concerto that started this evening was beautifully played. Its complexity of argument, where orchestra and soloist seem regularly to exchange roles and material, seems like an intellectual process at times, an intellectual process that is conducted purely via emotion. This Elgar concerto is a thoroughly modern piece, dressed in nineteenth century form, as evidenced by the unconventional techniques the soloist is directed to use. Brahms, and indeed Mendelssohn are here, but so is the idea that violinist and orchestra combine and compete in dissecting a musical argument. This is no simple showpiece for a soloist to fill with emptiness.

And the communication between artist and orchestra this evening between Pinchas Zukerman and the Lyon Orchestra was superb. The soloist even joined in with the first violins here and there to keep himself busy. His tone throughout was a joy to hear, as was his obvious understanding of the problematic score. Elgar was always a showman, but his lack of personal confidence always persuaded him to be retiring. He considered himself an outside, an underdog who was always trying to gain entry to an establishment that he felt shunned him. It is rather strange, contradictory even, given that his music is now seen as thoroughly “establishment”. Personally I hear this dichotomy in the music, as exemplified so often at the start of his pieces, which sound is if we are entering into the middle of a conversation that was already underway before we arrived. It’s as if the composer is apologising before he has said anything!

After the interval, the Lyon Orchestra played the Symphony No. 1 of Brahms. It’s an orchestral standard, which, surely, most full-time professional orchestra have played many times, and can probably render convincingly from memory. It can be a challenge, not least for a member of the first violins who lost a string. She proceeded to play through the piece as if the problem did not exist. Remarkable and congratulations!

Personally, I don’t have much to say about the Brahms Symphony, except that if it had been written in the age of recording technology, Johannes Brahms would have been labelled a plagiarist. History, however, might mark the influence of Beethoven in his music as “inspiration”. It was an inspiration, as we know, that caused the composer, great difficulty, and perhaps this symphony had to be written to unleash creativity that otherwise would have found no voice. 

Another great ADDA evening.

Jesús Reina, Pierre Bleuse and ADDA Alicante in Ravel, Strauss and Mozart

For the third time this season, Alicante’s ADDA audience heard a major piece by Richard Strauss. The Violin Concerto is an early work, written when the young man was a teenager and still searching for a mature voice. As a consequence, it does remind one of Brahms, Mendelssohn here and there, amongst others.

But its overall conception is quite different. For a start, there is no obvious cadenza. Even at sixteen years of age, Richard Strauss was trying to write a concerto where soloist and orchestra were to combine to deliver an integrated musical experience. This was never conceived as a vehicle to allow a soloist merely to show off. And so it needs to be performed cooperatively, with the soloist always mindful of the orchestra’s contribution.

On this occasion, the soloist was Jesús Reina, a musician who devotes much of his time to playing chamber music in small ensembles. If anyone would be sympathetic to this need for integration, then, surely, he would be. The audience was not to be disappointed. He was so completely sympathetic to the orchestra’s role that he often turned during the time when he was not contributing to face the orchestra and actually listen to what they were playing. The result was a truly integrated work, with a musical argument coming to the fore. Pierre Bleuse’s direction also allowed the perfect balance to develop.

The concert had begun with the orchestral version of Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin. Now this work is often played almost as if it were conceived as an eighteenth-century concerto grosso, rather than an homage to the form from the point of view of a twentieth century composer.

This performance crafted by Pierre Bleuse was different. The shape was still there, but the hard, staccato edges seem to be softened. The strings seem to be offering commentaries rather than statements. The result was a beautifully balanced, surprising and thoroughly post-impressionist, twentieth century piece. It paid homage to the past while saying something quite new. It is such a familiar piece, but what a surprise!

Mozart’s G Minor Symphony occupied the second half of the concert. It is hard to find anything new to say about the work, but it is also a work that does not need novelty. It is so well crafted, so perfectly conceived, that it makes its own points every time it is played.

Pierre Bleuse’s direction brought out every aspect of Mozart’s score. It was serious, threatening, lyrical, playful, and always inventive. A real treat brought the evening to a close in the shape of Chabrier’s Habañera, a surprisingly subtle an interesting little piece. Another surprise!

Programa 15 de noviembre Festival de Piano de Denia