Pleasures were not completely unalloyed in several
prestigious Barbican concerts this month. Rostropovich's tribute to
Britten, conducting the LSO in early music by his close friend, did
not make for a great occasion. The American Overture, which the composer
had forgotten having composed, had enough of his individuality to deserve
exhumation. Maxim Vengerov played well in the violin concerto, which
was new to him (he has also recorded it for CD) but other players and
conductors have made the passacaglia more moving. John Mark Ainsley
did not bring anything to Les Illuminations special enough for a special
occasion. The Peter Grimes interludes are far better in context and
no longer need to be given in concert? Thomas Quasthoff is an icon in
the estimable line of Itzhak Perlman and Evelyn Glennie, but his bass-baritone
is better in the lower reaches and he had to resort to an uncomfortable
quasi-falsetto in Mahler's Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, sung with
hyper-expressivity, but with an unduly placid accompaniment by Kent
Nagano and the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester. That was followed by a
dull account of the original version of Bruckner's No.3, sounding longer
than ever and which left this imperfect Brucknerian vowing heretically
never to listen to it again, not in any version!
British and Spanish Youth
Orchestras
Over to the children! The National
Youth Orchestra of Great Britain, still in black armbands for the
Queen Mother, never fails to thrill and exhilarate, and this was one
of their finest concerts ever. Sir Colin Davis moulded Sibelius 3 with
extraordinary unanimity of rubato phrasing, and magical pianissimos
from a huge orchestra without any rough edges. Miraculous, with wonderful
sound throughout; the NYO under its guest conductors has become used
to balancing the orchestral sections. The cellos were especially memorable
in both symphonies. Elgar 2 capped the Sibelius - with its sumptuous
orchestration of a pessimistic tract, hollow heroics for a disappearing
age, a disturbingly unamusing scherzo and a finale which evaporates
to a quiet conclusion, its near-hour was draining; there was no reassuring
feel-good encore, nor should there have been.
NYO programmes feature major symphonic works to give
concert places to up to 150 eager young musicians, many of whom will
go on to careers outside music, but all will draw on their experience
for the rest of their lives. For Sir Colin Davis in Elgar 2, snap up
his interpretation in a great performance with the LSO on LSOLive
LSO0018 (No 1 is on LSO0017) at the ridiculous price of £5 each.
That other countries have different objectives and
policies was brought to my attention the same week by receipt of a portrait
CD of recent music by Ramon
Lazkano, whose music
and work with students has been reviewed several times on S&H.
With sponsorship it is often possible nowadays for not-yet-famous contemporary
composers to assemble CDs of chamber and ensemble music, but orchestral
scores pose greater problems.
This excellent compilation gives a welcome opportunity
to rehear Laskano's distinctive approach to the piano in Laugarren
Bakarrizketa, played by Jean François Heisser, whose
performance of that composer's El Cuarto Monologo had made a
particular impact in San
Sebastian . But two orchestral works U Loak and Zur-Haitz
display young musicians enjoying easy familiarity with modern complexity
idioms, not an opportunity which would come the way of students in our
NYO.
Ramon
Lazkano was Composer-in-residence for the National Youth Orchestra
of Spain 1998–9 and the performance and recordings of these two works,
conducted respectively by Josep Caballe and Pablo Gonzalez, are some
of the fruits of that arrangement. They are thoroughly original and
individual examples of music by a composer who shows great versatility
and integrity and has even, through my recommendation, contributed to
Thalia Myers' Spectrum
3. His new CD may be acquired through this
link, and should be heard by those responsible to guide our UK youth
orchestras through this exciting new century.
Peter Grahame Woolf
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