Sunday 30 November 2025
Bridgewater Hall, Manchester
*****
Manchester’s oldest orchestra become the city/region’s newest cultural ambassadors
At the beginning of the second half of Sunday afternoon’s concert, Kahchun Wong, Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor to the Hallé, announced that he and the orchestra had just returned from a trip to China, during which they performed seven concerts in nine days. Amusingly, in his enthusiasm to tell us about this significant cultural event in the orchestra’s long history, he couldn’t remember how long he had been with the orchestra – was it 18 or 24 months? (this is his second season). He also struggled to remember how long the orchestra had been running, eventually choosing 167 years (he was right).
“After China, we have a new mission: to represent Manchester and this region as cultural ambassadors, with your support”
Kahchun Wong, Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor to the Hallé
Wong said the orchestra had acted as cultural ambassadors, adding the Hallé’s name to a prestigious list that included the Berlin Philharmonic, the Vienna Philharmonic and the Staatskapelle Dresden. His orchestra had given ‘everything possible’ on the tour, which he found ‘moving and touching.’ As a result, he had found a new mission. He said when he came to the Hallé, he hadn’t wanted to change anything, but he now wanted ‘to represent Manchester and this region as cultural ambassadors, with your support.’ The audience applauded loudly to signify their agreement.
Football fans will know that after trips to Europe, players often suffer a metaphorical hangover on their return to domestic football a few days later. There was no sign of an orchestral hangover on Sunday, even though the orchestra, conductor and violin soloist Akiko Suwanai had played the same programme not only in China but also in Manchester on Thursday and Sheffield on Saturday. If anything, their shared travels invigorated them, perhaps because they had bonded over a significant experience.
The concert took us on a cultural tour of Europe, starting with Verdi in Italy, then Russian music written by Tchaikovsky on Lake Geneva in Switzerland, returning to Italy via the German composer Felix Mendelssohn. The concert began with a passionate performance of Verdi’s Overture to his 1862 opera La forza del destino (The Force of Destiny). This began with six repeated brass chords that represent Fate, with a counter-theme on swirling strings. There were smiles of recognition in the audience when a flute and oboe theme was introduced, which the French film composer Claude Petit adopted for the films Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources in 1986.
Conductor Kahchun Wong beautifully controlled the orchestral textures and dynamics, with dramatic use of his left hand in this most dramatic of overtures. There was Verdian warmth in the operatic theme on the upper strings, and a nagging note of doubt from the brass. Another melody appeared, with ravishing harps, restless strings and stabbing brass. Wong drew rich colours from the brass, and the upper strings played an urgent theme with perfect ensemble. There was well-deserved separate applause for oboist Stéphane Rancourt, and the harpists Marie Leenhardt and Jess Hughes.
The Japanese violinist Akiko Suwanai, wearing a long, flowing red gown, joined the orchestra for Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto. There was evident musical chemistry between her and Wong; they often stood facing each other during the solo passages: Suwanai angling the body of her violin towards the audience to direct the sound like a grand piano with its lid raised; Wong lightly keeping time for the orchestra with his right hand.
In her early, short cadenza, Suwanai played with a rich, expressive tone, with an almost cello-like lower register, beautiful legato and a lyrical top register. A cheerful orchestral melody burst out, which then descended into fragments of doubt. The violin picked up the melody, with a yearning version of the orchestral theme, with fiercely passionate double-stopping. The orchestra retorted with a militaristic version of their theme, building to a huge climax.
‘Soon vulgarity gains the upper hand and dominates until the end of the first movement. The violin is no longer played but yanked about, beaten black and blue.’
Eduard Hanslick on the premiere of Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in 1881
When the piece was premiered in 1881, the Austrian critic Eduard Hanslick famously wrote that ‘soon vulgarity gains the upper hand and dominates until the end of the first movement. The violin is no longer played but yanked about, beaten black and blue.’ His opinion seems absurd today, but perhaps he had in mind the remarkable central cadenza in the first movement. In his programme note, Anthony Bateman listed the violin techniques as glissandos, double stops, trills, vertiginous leaps and harmonics. On Sunday, the violin’s exquisite top notes seemed to be in a brutal battle with the lower notes. Suwanai’s playing was astonishing. If this had been a jazz concert, the audience would have applauded her immediately after this virtuosic display, but Sunday’s audience waited until the end of the movement.
“The whole movement was magical, with romantic Russian melodies and gorgeous string playing.”
The second movement began with a woodwind chorale, which could have come from Dvořák’s New World Symphony, written 10 years later. Here, as throughout the concert, the woodwind playing was delightful. The whole movement was magical, with romantic Russian melodies and gorgeous string playing. If there had been any sense of conflict between the orchestral and solo violin parts, that had all been forgotten. The movement ended with Suwanai standing in silence.
The third movement burst in without a pause. There was another violin cadenza, and a Cossack dance, which the orchestra joined in joyful dialogue. A study gypsy dance got faster and faster, with an orchestral drone that suggested bagpipes. There was a romantic theme on solo violin, slow and slightly mournful, which came to a moment of stasis before the lively opening theme returned. Wong’s conducting was very precise as the violins played superb pizzicato. Suwanai played with virtuosic energy as she flew through several key changes. The woodwind joined a merry dance with the horns, and there was a sweet restatement of the main theme on solo violin. Suwanai played a long, quietly ecstatic line, with judicious orchestral accompaniment. There was a massive climax as soloist and orchestra scampered together towards an invigorating finale. Without a pause, the audience applauded enthusiastically at the end. Suwanai played an encore, The Gigue from JS Bach’s Partita No. 3 for Solo Violin, with great ease and facility, prompting indulgent smiles from the audience.
Felix Mendelssohn completed his Symphony No. 4, known as the ‘Italian Symphony’, in the early 1830s, after he had been on a European Grand Tour. He wrote to his sister, the composer and pianist Fanny Mendelssohn, from Rome in February 1831,
‘The Italian Symphony makes rapid progress; it will be the most amusing piece I have yet composed, particularly the last movement.’
Kahchun Wong described it as a piece full of sunshine. In the first movement, he brought out the orchestral detail with vigorous but polished playing. The orchestra danced relentlessly; as Robert Philip has written, ‘Mendelssohn’s model was surely Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony (that ‘apotheosis of the dance.’ The music burst into a lively fugue, which was enthusiastically shared across the orchestra. There was a moment of relative calm with an oboe solo, followed by an expansive restatement of the opening theme. The woodwind played with gorgeous precision in the staccato section, and there were lovely legato lines in the next section.
“The orchestra’s playing under Wong’s calm, subtle leadership was beautifully poised, as he drew every detail out of the music.“
The second movement is marked ‘Andante con moto’, Italian for ‘at a moderate walking pace’. This musical marking couldn’t be more apt, as the movement describes a slow, solemn procession, inspired by a religious procession the composer had seen in Italy. Robert Philip also suggests that it was inspired by the sublime slow movement of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony. The orchestra’s playing under Wong’s calm, subtle leadership was beautifully poised, as he drew every detail out of the music.
Wong wove the unfolding narrative of the third movement beautifully. According to Bateman, Mendelssohn was inspired by Goethe’s poem Lili’s Park, in which the fairy Lili, ‘magically entices a huge bear.’ A horn fanfare, characterfully played by two horns and two bassoons, was reminiscent of the hunting horns in Mahler symphonies, several of which have been played at the Bridgewater Hall recently; the difference being that a single movement of a Mahler symphony can last up to half an hour (this can be a good thing), whereas Mendelssohn squeezed his whole Italian Grand Tour into 30 minutes.
The final movement was a Saltarello, a rustic Italian dance. Under Wong’s baton it was fiercely rhythmic, the orchestra almost falling over itself in carefully controlled anarchy. The orchestra fizzed with dynamic energy even in the quiet sections. At the end, Wong singled out the woodwind for special applause, and then other sections too. Wong gave a cheery wave as he left the stage.
After such a stunning performance, we look forward to seeing much more of the Hallé’s new cultural ambassadors soon, all over the world but also back home in Manchester.
Repertoire
Verdi The Force of Destiny: Overture
Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto
Mendelssohn Symphony No.4, ‘Italian’
Performers
The Hallé
Kahchun Wong conductor
Akiko Suwanai violin
Sources
Programme notes by Anthony Bateman
Robert Philip, The Classical Music Lover’s Companion to Orchestral Music (Yale University Press 2020)
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