More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2014
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23 May
Apologies that, at the time of the Vaughan-Williams-focused preview of this concert at Cambridge’s Corn Exchange (@CambridgeCornEx), it was overlooked that The Royal Philarmonic Orchestra (@rpoonline) is the Orchestra in Residence.
Under the baton of rising conductor Nicholas Collon (increasingly guesting with big orchestras, as well continuing The Aurora Orchestra), we had a programme of Britten, Elgar, and Vaughan Williams. (And the RPO return next season with highlights such as Stravinsky’s Suite* from The Firebird, and Brahms’ Symphony No. 2…)
Four Sea Interludes – Benjamin Britten
The programme note tells us that Britten resembled Stravinsky*, in conducting the Interludes as a separate entity days after Peter Grimes’ premiere.
Titled ‘Dawn’, ‘Sunday Morning’, ‘Moonlight’, and ‘Storm’, they evoke not only moods, which crucially punctuate the opera, but also a location in time and space : Collon was wisely unhurried with ‘Dawn’, not led on by its beautiful surface appeal, and getting an unfussy, clean, but sweet, sound from the RPO – allowing the resonant brass and rumble, as of swell, both to contrast with the rest of the ensemble, and come together.
In the next portrait, the cross-beats and near-dissonances were a delight, with the chromatic slide excitingly brought off, and filling the moment both with energy, and that trio of bell-notes, doom, and dread. ‘Moonlight’ was again controlled, daringly awaiting those fresh piercings of light from space : yet the xylophone that – with the harp – captures them ends with tortured motifs against the strings.
Finally, Collon built not the noisiest ‘Storm’, but with the strong natural suggestion of possibly going higher. He brought out the laughter in the brass, and ended crisply and exactly. A refreshing first course !
Cello Concerto in E Minor, Op. 85 – Edward Elgar
Another work (as the symphony is) in four movements, but a good contrast with the Britten, because of the different emotive qualities of the solo cello part, not least under Guy Johnston (who was playing because of Julian Lloyd Webber’s unlucky forced retirement), who, amongst other things, expressively brought to this well-known work :
* Pacing, and an inward interpretation, of the first main theme, but reaching out for brighter things, and bring it back with electricity
* Unforced string-tone, and a plaintive, guitaristic feel to plucking strings
* A teasing tremolo, as if of a young animal playing
* A lightness of touch in sustained passage-work
* Singing, not shouting, the famous melody-line, with Johnston leaning into the instrument, as if hearing the music within it
* Moments of quiet, leading to a different mode of projection, where some single notes just spoke volumes
* The physicality, and swaying, of playing after a theme that felt full of weariness and preoccupation
* A sense of rumination, and ending with a voice resolved to follow its own counsel before reprising the main theme and a momentary tutti at the close
Symphony No. 3 [no stated key, and first entitled A Pastoral Symphony] – Ralph Vaughan Williams
At the outset, a light, floral feel is weighted by the bass, then joined by Vaughan Williams’ beloved obbligato violin. Nicely balanced playing and phrasing suggested the magical, yet tinged with something indefinably other. Collon ran the first two movements together, which, when the Molto moderato ends (after sensations of a gently drifting swell) with the moving, plangent reediness of the oboe, makes sense for introducing the horn sonority.
In the strings, Collon brought out hesitancy, uncertainty, which developed into an uneasy sense of anxiety. Whatever exactly the trumpet calls may mean, the pianissimo was pregnant, and reminded of the composer’s words (describing Boult’s conducting**) : it was a positive, sensitive pianissimo, full of meaning and tension.
Next, the Moderato pesante seems to break through the tension, rising to its lovely main theme, but Collon held course, allowing no slackness in the brass theme (accompanied by cymbals). Gloriously sonorous brass intervals then heralded the carol-like coda.
For the Lento finale, Collon had soprano Sally Harrison placed off stage, singing wordlessly in an unshowy but haunting way. After the well-located harp melody came feelings of richness, an excitement that gave way to tenderness, revisiting previous themes, and a soaring sense of pride. The song recurred, and the strings faded away.
However many knew this work, people seemed both quietly attentive to it and appreciative of the RPO and Collon’s skill.
End-notes
* Though unclear whether it is that from 1911, 1919, or 1945 (as Stravinsky, as an ambitious composer, was forever making arrangements).
** The final movement of Symphony No. 6.
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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
Showing posts with label Sir Edward Elgar. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sir Edward Elgar. Show all posts
Saturday, 24 May 2014
Sunday, 6 May 2012
Setting what text to music?
More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2012
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)
7 May
Well, I have heard, in the last week, Mark Padmore's choice of a text, which Jonathan Dove turned out to end up setting several years later, and now more in the collaboration between Jim Tomlinson, Stacey Kent and Kazuo Ishiguro in a song (to whose words the link takes you) called Postcard Lovers.
Honestly, I cannot feel that either poem was worth the attention, and it puts me in mind again of writing about Elgar putting together his own libretto for The Apostles...
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(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)
7 May
Well, I have heard, in the last week, Mark Padmore's choice of a text, which Jonathan Dove turned out to end up setting several years later, and now more in the collaboration between Jim Tomlinson, Stacey Kent and Kazuo Ishiguro in a song (to whose words the link takes you) called Postcard Lovers.
Honestly, I cannot feel that either poem was worth the attention, and it puts me in mind again of writing about Elgar putting together his own libretto for The Apostles...
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Sunday, 8 April 2012
Elgar and The Apostles
More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2012
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)
8 April
Unless I had heard excerpts when Sir Edward, through the medium of Donald Macleod, was Composer of the Week fairly recently on Radio 3, I certainly had not heard the entirety of his - what I suppose is one - oratorio The Apostles until last night.
Two of those whose views I value thought, with me, that the first part lacked a spark, and I was even - calumny though it is - prepared to blame Stephen Cleobury as conductor for not keeping it moving: we all felt that there were very loud orchestral eruptions that fitted neither with our notion of the subject-matter, nor with the audibility of The Philharmonia Chorus. (I was also not alone in thinking that, whatever the issue was with hearing Susan Bickley, it had been resolved in the second part, whereas Ailish Tynan - despite not even credited as being Mary, Jesus' mother, as well as The Angel Gabriel - was thrilling and energizing throughout.)
Although the work, as shown after the interval, did have greater pretensions to the abiding excellence of The Messiah, and certainly worked better as a narrative once the more cosmic aspects (albeit of Jesus' life, not really that of his apostles), I cannot also help feeling that Elgar, in deriving his own text, would have been better served by a Jennens.
Such a person might also have fitted in, in place of other material in this rather loose and limp first part, some demonstration of apostleship as those who, in two or threes, were sent out by Jesus to do his work. Even so, as Elgar dwells so much not only on the rebel apostle Judas, but also with Mary Magdelene - apart from the perhaps arbitrary identification of her with the woman who anoints Jesus with costly perfume and, in another account of quite possibly a different episode, dries his feet on her hair - beyond the role in finding the tomb empty and meeting the risen Jesus, the title of the piece has already become not fit for purpose.
Certainly, a notion that the text that Elgar has set does justice to the role of the apostles after the resurrection, and then after the ascension, is a doubtful proposition. On this, The Messiah will always be very much superior, because there is absolutely no doubt what it is about, but I do not believe that the embodied theology necessarily puts off agnostic or atheist music-lovers from appreciating the work any more than they do Bach's Matthew Passion.
Having chanced upon this last night from the Proms, and righly guessed that I was hearing it again, I want to blog a bit more, in due course, about the piece, the Radio 3 interval feature about Judas and his historicity and centrality to The Apostles, and Sir Mark Elder's interpretation...
If you want to Tweet, Tweet away here
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)
8 April
Unless I had heard excerpts when Sir Edward, through the medium of Donald Macleod, was Composer of the Week fairly recently on Radio 3, I certainly had not heard the entirety of his - what I suppose is one - oratorio The Apostles until last night.
Two of those whose views I value thought, with me, that the first part lacked a spark, and I was even - calumny though it is - prepared to blame Stephen Cleobury as conductor for not keeping it moving: we all felt that there were very loud orchestral eruptions that fitted neither with our notion of the subject-matter, nor with the audibility of The Philharmonia Chorus. (I was also not alone in thinking that, whatever the issue was with hearing Susan Bickley, it had been resolved in the second part, whereas Ailish Tynan - despite not even credited as being Mary, Jesus' mother, as well as The Angel Gabriel - was thrilling and energizing throughout.)
Although the work, as shown after the interval, did have greater pretensions to the abiding excellence of The Messiah, and certainly worked better as a narrative once the more cosmic aspects (albeit of Jesus' life, not really that of his apostles), I cannot also help feeling that Elgar, in deriving his own text, would have been better served by a Jennens.
Such a person might also have fitted in, in place of other material in this rather loose and limp first part, some demonstration of apostleship as those who, in two or threes, were sent out by Jesus to do his work. Even so, as Elgar dwells so much not only on the rebel apostle Judas, but also with Mary Magdelene - apart from the perhaps arbitrary identification of her with the woman who anoints Jesus with costly perfume and, in another account of quite possibly a different episode, dries his feet on her hair - beyond the role in finding the tomb empty and meeting the risen Jesus, the title of the piece has already become not fit for purpose.
Certainly, a notion that the text that Elgar has set does justice to the role of the apostles after the resurrection, and then after the ascension, is a doubtful proposition. On this, The Messiah will always be very much superior, because there is absolutely no doubt what it is about, but I do not believe that the embodied theology necessarily puts off agnostic or atheist music-lovers from appreciating the work any more than they do Bach's Matthew Passion.
Having chanced upon this last night from the Proms, and righly guessed that I was hearing it again, I want to blog a bit more, in due course, about the piece, the Radio 3 interval feature about Judas and his historicity and centrality to The Apostles, and Sir Mark Elder's interpretation...
If you want to Tweet, Tweet away here
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