Itโs said that in London, you are never more than six feet away from a rat. In Amsterdam, you are never more than six feet away from a bicycle. On Thursday evening, a smartly dressed woman, in full dress suit and colourful shawl, carefully parked her bicycle and crossed the road to enter the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. This would be an unusual sight in other European cities, but in Amsterdam, nobody appeared to notice.
I have always wanted to go to the Concertgebouw, ever since, as a young teenager, I heard Paul McCartney singing,
If thereโs a rock show at the Concertgebouw Youโve got long hair at the Madison Square Youโve got rockโnโroll at the Hollywood Bowlโฆ
โRock Showโ from Venus and Mars (1975) by Paul McCartney and Wings
On Thursday, rather than a rock show, we went to see more traditional orchestral fare: the Concertgebouw Orchestra, conducted by Nathalie Stutzmann, performing music by Brahms and Tchaikovsky, whose names are written on the walls and balconies of the hall. The name Wagenaar was also there. I assumed this was a Dutch spelling of Wagner, but it turns out this was the Dutch composer Johannes Wagenaar (1862-1941). In January 1917, the composer conducted the orchestra in a concert of his own works and Berliozโs ย Symphonie Fantastique, performed recently in Manchester by the BBC Philharmonic.The critic Matthijs Vermeulen, in a damning review, despite acknowledging that the composer was an โextraordinarily gifted man wrote
โWagenaar made the mistake of most ordinary conductors: he indicates too much. With a virtuoso ensemble like the Concertgebouw Orchestra, one may imagine that it knows most of the entrances of a frequently performed symphony, such as the Fantastique, by heart, or that they can at least be sufficiently imprinted on memory through a rehearsal.โ
On Thursday, the lady didnโt protest too much: Stutzmann conducted with great precision and restrained gestures, bringing out the best in this world-class orchestra. She did, however, make a grand entrance. The conductor and any soloists have to enter down a long staircase, rather than from the side of the stage which is more common.
Concertgebouw interior with staircase
We began with a short amuse-bouche, Glinkaโs โOvertureโ to his opera Ruslan and Lyudmila (1837 โ 1842). But the main event in the first half of the concert was Tchaikovskyโs Violin Concerto, with the soloist Augustin Hadelich, who we heard in Manchester playing Prokofievโs Second Violin Concerto. It was fascinating to compare his performance with that of the South Korean violinist Bomsori, who played the concerto in Manchester a week ago. Both violinists were superb: Bomsoriโs violin sounded like a lyric soprano, whereas Hadelichโs was more like a warm, robust mezzo, with a legato of which any opera singer would have been proud. He deservedly drew rapturous applause and a standing ovation from the capacity audience. His encore was a cheeky bluegrass number from his American Bluegrass album, which provoked indulgent smiles from the audience and some members of the orchestra.
The Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, seen from the Concertgebouw
Time for the interval, and a free drink, also a chance to gaze across a huge expanse of grass from the hallโs windows to the Rijksmuseum. These two monuments to civic pride were opened within three years of each other in the late 19th century. The Concertgebouw is known for its remarkable acoustics โ along with the Musikverein in Vienna, it is considered one of the best in the world, simply by virtue of its shoebox shape. This was probably more by accident than design โ the science of acoustics began in the 20th century with experts like the American Leo Beranek, who wrote one of the standard textbooks on concert hall acoustics, Music, Acoustics and Architecture, in 1962. Dr. Peter DโAntonio of RPG Diffusor Systems, Inc and Prof Trevor Cox of the University of Salford said in a paper delivered to the 156th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America in 2008 that another accident of design in older concert halls is that they have good sound diffusion compared to many modern halls,
An enduring characteristic of classic architecture is the beautiful statuary, relief ornamentation, columns and coffered ceilings. These beautiful features, coincidentally also provided useful sound scattering and excellent acoustics
The second half was an opportunity to hear the orchestra in the hallโs magnificent acoustics. I have spent many happy hours since my teenage years when I first subscribed to HiFi Answers, reading about Hi-Fi equipment, going to shows to listen to Hi-Fi equipment, and most importantly, listening to Hi-Fi equipment. Most recently, I treated myself to a pair of Sennheiser HD800S Open-back headphones and an Astell&Kern SR35 portable HD music player. I bought this system because it sounded musical, warm, detailed and spacious. The hall sounded exactly like this. In the Brahms symphony, I heard details I have never heard before, even in the finest recordings. Each instrument was surrounded by a lovely bloom, but there was great clarity as well. Plucked instruments were perfectly defined, and the double basses, physically towering above the cellos on the steps above, could be heard clearly rather than getting lost as they often are in other, lesser halls. Orchestral soloists all stood out; with lesser orchestras, this could have been a problem, but with an orchestra of this quality, the concert was an absolute joy.
Balcony at the Concertgebouw
Next stop, DR Koncerthuset in Copenhagen!
Sources:
Dr. Peter DโAntonio and Prof Trevor Cox Acoustical Optimization of Modern Architectural Spaces (156th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, 2008)
The orchestra continues its superb run of form with Julia Wolfe’s vision of the aftermath of 9/11, Bomsori’s virtuosic violin-playing in Tchaikovsky, and Berlioz’s opium-induced visions
Violinist Bomsori with members of the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra ยฉ Chris Payne
Like Manchester’s two Premier League football teams, its two symphony orchestras, the Hallรฉย and the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, are reaching their peak towards the end of the season. Recently, the Hallรฉย Orchestra and Choirs gave a superb performance of Vaughan Williams’ Sea Symphony. On Saturday evening, it was the turn of the BBC Philharmonic.
The concert began with Big Beautiful Dark and Scary by the orchestra’s Composer in Residence, Julia Wolfe. Nearly 25 years ago, on September 11 2001, she was two blocks away from the Twin Towers when the two planes hit them. She wrote the piece in response to the attack.
‘The piece captures the feverish post-apocalyptic feeling of living in the aftermath of 9/11 with an ominous, full-throttle wall of sound.’
From CD sleeve notes, Cantaloupe Records
Bang on a Can All-Stars premiered the chamber version of the work in April 2022. Wolfe wrote, ‘This is how life feels right now.’ On Saturday, the Philharmonic played the orchestral version, which premiered in May 2013. The piece began with shivering strings, surrounded by swirling woodwinds, playing a rising, ominous chromatic scale that felt like the Shepard tone used by Hans Zimmer in his score to Dunkirk (2017). A huge bass drum rumble and a disturbing syncopated piano added to the terror. A brief hiatus led to a contemplative section, still fizzing with fear and gently frenzied. A single repeated brass note was suspended above a dark bass melody that sank into the depths. There was a short release as a new woodwind melody challenged the chromatic melody. Clarinets and brass joined the battle against the main melody. The battle continued until the end of the piece, creating a spellbinding cacophony superbly crafted by the orchestra. Brass and violins reached a final truce, and this remarkably visceral piece ended with a gong that faded into nothingness.
MUSIC AND 9/11 Various composers responded to the 9/11 attacks. The German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen described 9/11 as ‘the greatest work of art imaginable’, which caused immediate condemnation and disgust around the world, although he later claimed he had been misunderstood: ‘I am as dismayed as everyone else about the attacks in America.’ More respectful responses came from John Adams, who wrote On the Transmigration of Souls (2002) with pre-recorded voices listing the names of some of the victims, and Steve Reich, who wrote WTC 9/11 (2009-10), which included recordings of air traffic controllers. The latter piece wasn’t without controversy; the original cover of the first recording featured an image of a plane flying towards one of the Twin Towers, which drew a lot of criticism before the album was released. Reich asked his record label, Nonesuch, to withdraw the image: ‘I want people to listen to my music without something distracting them.’
Steven Wilson – Collapse The Light Into Earth (The Future Bites Sessions) 6 November 2020
Other artists repurposed their work in response to the attacks. The American avant-garde composer William Basinski completed his ambient work The Disintegration Loops on the morning of the attacks and dedicated it to the victims: ‘When I woke up in the morning, the towers had been struck, and the whole world changed.’ Steven Wilson was working on a song in his studio when he heard about the attacks. He immediately abandoned that song and instead wrote ‘Collapse the Light Into Earth’ (from In Absentia, 2002): โItโs like William Basinskiโs Disintegration Loops. Itโs got nothing to do with 9/11, but thereโs a quality in that music which somehow connects with that time and that event.โ
The first half ended with Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto featuring the South Korean violinist Bomsori. Her debut with the BBC Philharmonic was at the Proms three years ago, playing Bruch’s Violin Concerto No. 1 under the baton of Saturday’s conductor, Anja Bihlmaier. She played with a lovely, bright, youthful tone, with less vibrato than some, creating a purity of tone. Throughout, she played this virtuosic piece with great ease and facility. The cadenza was stunning, with double-stopping, plucking and glissandi, all beautifully shaped. The intonation on her high notes was perfect. The audience sat quietly in rapt admiration of her astonishing virtuosity. Bihlmaier smiled as the orchestra rejoined, and after her pyrotechnics played a serene melody. Bomsori moved expressively as she played a spectacular duet with the orchestra.
The second movement began with a thoughtful chorale by the woodwinds and horns. Bomsori played a lyrical, delicately sorrowful melody with great emotion. The orchestra guided her gently into a new world with a livelier tune. There was a sense of Russian melancholy in her gentle dance with woodwind soloists, with gorgeously quiet playing. The opening chorale returned. Without a break, the orchestra roused itself into the final movement. Another mini-cadenza, a passionate Russian dance with mud on its boots, led to an incredibly fast dance. Stephen Johnson, in his programme note, described the Finale in these evocative phrases,
‘full of the flavour of Russian folk-dance music โ a heady aromatic cocktail of vodka fumes, fried onions and creaking, high-kicking leather boots.‘
The orchestra and violin rose to the challenge of creating these flavours, before a melancholy passage brought a moment of contemplation. Bomsori challenged the orchestra to match her virtuosity, which they did. Another heavy peasant dance led to a thoughtful section for violin and chamber ensemble. Violin and orchestra dashed to an exuberant end, drawing huge and well-deserved cheers and applause.
Violinist Bomsori with conductor Anja Bihlmaier and the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra ยฉ Chris Payne
Bomsori’s encore was Schรถn Rosmarin (Lovely Rosemary) from Alt-Wiener Tanzweisen (Old Viennese Dances) by Fritz Kreisler, arranged by the Italian violinist Gabriele Campagna, a playful and virtuosic showpiece, delivered with great panache, and warmly received by the audience.
Conductor Anja Bihlmaier and the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra ยฉ Chris Payne
The second half was devoted to Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique. He wrote the piece when he was 27, completely infatuated with the Irish actress Harriet Smithson, who he saw performing in Shakespeare’s Hamlet in Paris,
โThe supreme drama of my life โฆ In the role of Ophelia, I saw Harriet Smithson, who five years later became my wife. The impression made on my heart and mind by her extraordinary talent, nay her dramatic genius, was equalled only by the havoc wrought in me by the poet she so nobly interpreted.โ
The symphony, titled ‘Episode in the Life of an Artist: Fantastic Symphony in Five Parts’, describes the young ardent lover. Berlioz wrote a very detailed programme note, beginning with his dreams of his beloved seen from afar, then a countryside interlude when he begins to doubt her, followed by an opium-induced nightmare where he dreams that he has killed her, is led to the scaffold where he is executed, and a ‘ghastly crowd of ghosts, sorcerers, monsters of every kind’ gather for his funeral. The French composer Saint-Saรซns later wrote that the programme for the work had gone out of fashion, but ‘the musical work is still as youthful and astounding as on its first day.’ Berlioz revised the programme note, describing the entire work as being opium-induced.
The composer’s youthful passion for his beloved is depicted in the ‘idรฉe fixe‘, a rising ardent motif, reminiscent of the youthful puppy Idรฉfix (gloriously translated as Dogmatix) in the Asterix comics. The motif unifies the symphony, but becomes increasingly hidden and fragmented as the protagonist becomes more anguished.
Idรฉfix the Dog from the Asterix comic book series (Renรฉ Goscinny and Albert Uderzo/Hachette Livre) vs Berlioz’s idรฉe fixe motif
Although Berlioz distanced himself from his earlier programme note, he kept the titles to each movement, and they still provide a useful guide.
On Saturday, the opening movement, ‘Rรชveries โ Passions’ (Dreams โ Passions), began with morose violins playing in perfect ensemble before a magical, anguished climax, describing the ‘Rรชveries’ of the title. Lush strings and brass played joyfully, before falling back again. A dancing theme expressed supreme joy. The idรฉe fixe motif appeared as a huge Romantic melody above marching lower strings. An ambiguous passage suggested the protagonist had lost hope; the music struggled, like trying to climb a mountain and sliding back again. Eventually, there was a glittering statement of the idรฉe fixe, before a stunning climax which turned out to be a false ending, before sorrowful horns settled into a peaceful ending. Whatever your view is about the programmatic nature of the score, the orchestra superbly illustrated a series of restless moods, like those of a young lover.
The second movement, ‘Un bal’ (A ball), began with shimmering strings and lovely flourishes from the two harps, introducing an elegant waltz, joyfully played with the sense of inevitability that characterises many great performances. The waltz continued with an excitable section as the dancers swirled elegantly in a frenzy of joy, as a solo clarinet provided a fragmented statement of the idรฉe fixe.
The ‘Scรจne aux champs’ (Scene in the fields) was an interlude in the countryside, opening with a cor anglais solo answered by an offstage oboe, representing two hunting horns conversing across a valley. There were strong echoes of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6 ‘Pastoral‘, as the orchestra played with formidable precision, describing the lover’s loneliness. The idรฉe fixe appeared briefly in a passage for flute and oboe, before the cor anglais reappeared. This time, there was no reassuring answer from the oboe; no fewer than four timps represented an oncoming storm, like the storm in Beethoven’s symphony, but also reflecting the protagonist’s emotional state.
By the fourth movement, ‘Marche au supplice’ (March to the scaffold) – if not sooner – the opium had kicked in. Sinister horns and ominous timps introduced a march on lower strings, with brutally sarcastic bassoons, creating a terrifying sound, elegantly conducted by Bihlmaier. This movement was a supreme example of an orchestra at the top of its game, all working incredibly hard, as the conductor danced on her podium. A brief snatch of the idรฉe fixe on clarinet led to a coup de thรฉรขtre when two drummers marched solemnly down the steps of the choir seats, playing military drums, introducing the final movement, ‘Songe d’une nuit du sabbat’ (Dream of a night of the sabbath). The idรฉe fixe was now transformed into a terrifying jig, the combined demonical forces dancing in the face of death. Funeral bells sounded offstage, introducing the horrifying Dies Irae funeral theme, played so memorably in the opening scene of Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 psychological horror film The Shining. A deeply sarcastic mini-fugue led to a spooky, ghostly passage, then the diabolical dance combined with the Dies Irae to bring this tremendous performance to an end.
Conductor Anja Bihlmaier and the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra ยฉ Chris Payne
Repertoire
Julia Wolfe Big Beautiful Dark and Scary Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto Fritz Kreisler Schรถn Rosmarin (encore) Hector Berlioz Symphonie fantastique
Performers
BBC Philharmonic Orchestra Anja Bihlmaier conductor Bomsori Kim violin
Sources
Bang on a Can AllโStars: Big Beautiful Dark and Scary (Cantaloupe Music) Terry Castle, Stockhausen, Karlheinz (New York Magazine 27 August 2011) Steve Reich, Steve Reich Comments on the โWTC 9/11โ Album Cover (Nonesuch Records Journal, 11 August 2011) John Doran Time Becomes A Loop: William Basinski Interviewed (The Quietus 15 November 2012) Nick Holmes, Porcupine Tree on track (SonicBond 2021, revised and expanded 2025)
The concert was recorded for broadcast on Radio 3 in Concert on Tuesday 5 May at 7.30 pm. It will be available for 30 days after broadcast via BBC Sounds
Intimate Mahler and spectacular Vaughan Williams with the Hallรฉ Choir and Youth Choir on superb form
The Hallรฉ Orchestra, Hallรฉ Choir, Hallรฉ Youth Choir, Tarmo Peltokoski (conductor), Silja Aalto (soprano), Huw Montague Rendall (baritone). ยฉ Sharyn Bellemakers, The Hallรฉ
Last Thursday evening’s concert, with The Hallรฉ conducted by the young Finnish conductor Tarmo Peltokoski, began with Mahler’s Rรผckert-Lieder. The composer set five songs by the Austrian poet Friedrich Rรผckert for voice and piano in 1901 and 1902. He published them as separate songs and never intended them to be performed as a set. He didn’t even orchestrate them all – it was left to the critic and publisher Max Puttman to complete ‘Liebst du um Schoenheit’ (If you love for beauty) in 1911, after Mahler’s death that year. And there’s no fixed order when they are performed as a set – it’s left to the singer and orchestra or pianist to decide.
There are several different approaches to the songs, particularly in the way the singer performs them with orchestra: compare the wide operatic vibrato of Sonya Yoncheva, the gorgeous operatic mezzo of Christa Ludwig, the lighter approach of Anne Sofie von Otter, and the superb classic recording by Janet Baker, which Richard Wigmore in Gramophone described as ‘lovingly attuned to these most private of Mahlerโs songs.’
On Thursday, the baritone Huw Montague Rendall sang the songs, and it was clear from the opening song Blicke mir nicht in die Lieder! (Do not look into my songs), that his approach would be closer to that of a lieder singer in a solo recital than to that of a singer on the operatic stage. His voice was rich and warm, light on the higher notes and gently lyrical, perfectly matched by the playful orchestral accompaniment. He began Ich atmet’ einen linden Duft! (I breathed a gentle fragrance), with a gorgeous sotto voce, beautifully offset against running strings and solo oboe. Throughout the collection of songs, he addressed the audience with calm poise, thoughtfully immersing himself in the music.
Huw Montague Rendall ยฉ Sharyn Bellemakers, The Hallรฉ
Rendell sang Liebst du um Schรถnheit (If you love for beauty) with a lovely head voice in the top notes, gently ardent in this song about love. In the most dramatic song, Um Mitternacht (At midnight, he sang with richer vibrato and more powerful lower notes, bringing real passion to the climax in the last verse. The orchestra played superbly in the final song Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen (I am lost to the world), with excellent string ensemble, characterful woodwind and a pivoting harp, creating a dark sound world; Rendell’s voice rose from the depths. There was something of the great German baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau in the beauty of his tone and the expressiveness of his word-painting; there can be no higher praise than that.
Silja Aalto ยฉ Sharyn Bellemakers, The Hallรฉ
After the interval, Rendell was joined by the Finnish soprano Silja Aalto, who had stepped in at short notice (although she sang with such confidence, you wouldn’t have guessed it). The whole of the second half was devoted to Vaughan Williams’ Symphony No. 1, ‘A Sea Symphony’. The work is a choral symphony, but not in the sense of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, which ends with a setting of Friedrich Schiller’s Ode to Joy. Perhaps the nearest comparison is to Mahler’s Symphony No. 8, where the choir sings throughout, although as the symphonies were first performed within a month of each other in the autumn of 1910, it seems unlikely that Vaughan Williams was directly influenced by Mahler. A more obvious influence – acknowledged by Vaughan Williams himself – is Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius, whose musical influence can be heard very clearly at times. But Vaughan Williams was keen to stress that his work was a symphony rather than an oratorio,
โThe shape of the work is symphonic rather than maritime or dramatic, and this may be held to justify the frequent repetition of important words and phrases which occur in the poem. The words as well as the music are thus treated symphonically.โ
Vaughan Williams set four maritime poems by the American poet Walt Whitman, three from his 1855 collection Leaves of Grass and one from his 1871 collection Passage to India. Whitman’s poems provide a vivid depiction of life at sea, but they also describe the journey of the soul, another link to The Dream of Gerontius, although the text of John Henry Newman in the latter work is much more explicitly religious.
On Thursday, the vast choral forces were made up of the Hallรฉ Choir and the Hallรฉ Youth Choir; there were so many singers in the choir seats that some of those standing in the back row needed their own lights on their scores. The first movement, ‘A Song for All Seas, All Ships’, began with an astonishingly visceral opening statement from choir and brass, ‘Behold, the sea itself.’ It was immediately clear that the choirs were on superb form; the sheer energy and passion of their singing was infectious. Later in the movement, there was a delightful duet between the choirs and baritone Huw Montague Rendall, his noble solo voice contrasting with the massed voices. The choir’s soft singing was equally impressive, contrasting with the sheer volume of the opening. They sang ecstatically, echoing the baritone’s words, ‘A pennant universal’, and there was a much more subdued restatement of ‘Behold the sea itself’ at the end of the movement. The section that began ‘Flaunt out, O sea…’ had strong echoes of Gerontius, which gave the text a spiritual dimension where it describes a flag for ‘the soul of man, one flag above the rest/A spirutual woven signal for all nations…’ Silja Aalto’s voice, slightly more operatic than Rendell’s, carried beautifully over the choirs and orchestra.
The second movement, ‘On the Beach at Night, Alone,’ is overtly spiritual, with its evocation of ‘the clef of the universe’ and the ‘vast similitude [that] interlocks all.’ It called to mind another Victorian poem, Dover Beach, by the English poet Malcolm Arnold, set to music by the 20th-century American composer Samuel Barber.
The movement began with serene lower strings, punctuated by a falling brass theme, setting the scene beautifully. Yearning woodwind, shimmering strings, and evocative brass illustrated Rendell’s word-painting, his tone here reminiscent of the English baritone Thomas Allen. There was a huge sense of spiritual affirmation from the choirs as they sang ‘this vast similitude’. A stunning brass fanfare suggested that the optimistic outlook would continue, but we were suddenly plunged into darkness and doubt as Rendell returned with the opening words, ‘On the beach at night, alone’ before the orchestra finally brought a moment of peace.
The third movement, ‘Scherzo: The Waves’, is a vivid description of life at sea, without any spiritual or philosophical element. It’s set for choir and orchestra only. It’s difficult music for singers, and the words are sometimes set rather awkwardly, but the choirs on Thursday handled it with aplomb. They were superbly rhythmic in their overlapping phrases, creating a joyful evocation of the sea. A triumphant orchestral passage led to a huge, Elgarian melody with a lovely passage that passed through several keys. The movement ended with an exultant cry of ‘Following’ from the choirs.
The final movement, ‘The Explorers’, was much more contemplative at the start, with gentle men’s voices describing the beauty of the Earth (the ‘vast Rondure’) seen from space, as in Samantha Harvey’s Booker Prize Winner Orbital, ‘swimming in space’, or Steven Wilson’s top-five album The Overview. A majestic orchestral section led to an early highlight in this long movement, the creation of humankind and the Garden of Eden, with lovely sotto voce singing. Processional music from the orchestra was reminiscent of the Pilgrims’ Chorus from Wagner’s Tannhรคuser; the Hallรฉ recently performed the Overture. There was a magical moment when a cappella upper voices sang, of ‘that sad incessant refrain, wherefore unsatisfied soul?’ The orchestral playing, describing ‘captains and engineers’ was magnificent. The emotional, religious and intellectual climax of the movement, the description of ‘the poet worthy of that name/The true son of God’, became a huge affirmation of faith, with the organ ringing out. There was a gorgeously serene duet from the two soloists, and another stunning climax from the choirs in ‘Greater than stars or suns.’ A jolly sea shanty launched the soul on its journey; the choirs sang ecstatically, and the sopranos were particularly fine here. The ending was thoughtful and lush by equal measures, as the yearning soul sailed into the sunset.
Conductor Tarmo Peltokoski ยฉ Sharyn Bellemakers, The Hallรฉ
Repertoire
Mahler Rรผckert-Lieder Vaughan Williams Symphony No. 1 ‘A Sea Symphony’
Performers
The Hallรฉ Orchestra Hallรฉ Choir Hallรฉ Youth Choir Tarmo Peltokoski conductor Silja Aalto soprano Huw Montague Rendall baritone
Richard Wigmore Mahlerโs Rรผckert-Lieder: which recording is best? (Gramophone, 21 January 2014)
Jazz and classical music unite in a stunning celebration of the 250th anniversary of American Independence
Members of the BBC Philharmonic. Image ยฉ Chris Payne
Saturday evening’s concert by the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Joshua Weilerstein at the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester, was a celebration of America in the 250th anniversary year of Independence. It featured two composers who moved to New York, and a third who received part of his musical education from American radio. Duke Ellington was born in Washington, DC, and moved to New York, where he celebrated the city in Harlem. Dvoลรกk spent three years there as director of the National Conservatory, and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra commissioned him to write his New World Symphony. Nikolai Kapustin was born in Horlivka, Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union. He began to absorb American musical culture – particularly jazz – as a piano student in Moscow, listening to Voice of America, the US equivalent of the BBC World Service. His Piano Concerto No. 4 is surprisingly jazzy and sounds as if it could have been written in New York.
Harlem recorded live at Tivoli Concert Hall, Copenhagen, in 1964, with Duke Ellington’s spoken-word introduction
The concert began with Duke Ellington’s Harlem, the Duke’s evocation of the area in the Northern section of Manhattan. He often prefaced live performances (such as the one recorded in Copenhagen in 1964) with a spoken-word introduction, setting the scene. His introduction varied from one performance to the next, but broadly, the scenario is a Sunday morning with smartly dressed people going to church. We travel up 7th Avenue through the culturally diverse Spanish and West Indian communities. Everyone is in a friendly mood. As Ellington wrote, ‘
‘You may hear a parade go by, or a funeral, or you may recognise the passage of those who are making Civil Rights demands.’
Saxophones from the BBC Philharmonic. Image ยฉ Chris Payne
Ellington wrote the distinctive opening of the piece for the trumpeter Cootie Williams, using a plunger mute to create a dirty, slightly sleazy sound, a two-note theme to express the word ‘Harlem.’ Trumpeter Cameron Chin-See opened the concert on Saturday, and there was an immediate call-and-response with the orchestra. We soon heard from the saxophones, who played superbly with a combination of swing and precision: Carl Raven and Anthony Brown (alto), Andy Hunter and Ben Jackson (tenor) and Jim Fieldhouse (baritone). The piece was episodic as we passed through the different parts of Harlem; this was joyful, foot-tapping music, with rich textures and glowing brass. A syncopated section led to a dancing brass theme, then a serpentine theme on saxes. An early highlight was the jazzy clarinet solo from John Bradbury, with plucked lower strings and a warm four-note falling theme on brass. After a huge climax, there were more superb solos from Elliot Gresty on bass clarinet and Richard Brown on trombone. This led to a section for a small jazz ensemble, followed by a lovely big-band flourish from the full orchestra. The opening ‘Harlem’ trumpet theme returned, and the orchestra took up the melody with an incredibly fast section, perfectly executed. Duke Ellington matched his piece to his band’s performers, writing out solos to match their particular performance practices. So it was appropriate that the virtuosic drummer Obi Jenne (from whom we would hear more later) ended the piece with a stunning drum solo, accompanied by Latin American percussion and vigorous timpani from Paul Turner. How often do you hear a drum solo in a classical concert? This was very different from the last drum solo I heard, from Asaf Sirkis with Soft Machine at Band on the Wall a couple of weeks ago.
Drummer Obi Jenne (centre). Image ยฉ Chris Payne
While the stage was rearranged to accommodate the piano and move the drum kit, the orchestra’s director Adam Szabo and conductor Joshua Weilerstein discussed the music. Weilerstein said that Ellington came to symphonic music through jazz, and Nikolai Kapustin came to jazz through symphonic music. He described the next piece, Kapustin’s Piano Concerto No. 4, as ‘very wacky.’ He wasn’t wrong. In his review for Gramophone, Jeremy Nicholas described it as ‘a riot’:
‘A carefully notated extended improvisation by the great Peter Nero โฆ and Oscar Peterson (an important influence on Kapustin), fully orchestrated by Ravel and Henry Mancini with further input from Art Tatum, Count Basie and Bill Evans.’
Szabo pointed out that the drum kit is often part of the percussion section, but in this performance, it was moved to the front so that drummer Obi Jenne and piano soloist Frank Dupree could face each other. Weilerstein joked that the drummer was really the boss in the piano concerto, although Jenne wouldn’t admit this. After so many brass instruments featured in the Ellington piece, it was a surprise to see only strings, three woodwind players and timpani on stage; the concerto often felt like a duet between piano and drums with orchestral embellishment. This blog also covers progressive rock, so there was another (joyful) surprise for your reviewer to hear the opening section of the concerto, a mixture of jazz, rock and blues that was very reminiscent of the great Keith Emerson of prog rock titans Emerson, Lake and Palmer. John Peel called them a ‘waste of talent and electricity’, to which Emerson replied, ‘At least he accepted that we had talent!’
Frank Dupree certainly demonstrated his talent on Saturday. His playing was astonishing. Sometimes he was a virtuoso jazz player, his fingers flying across the keyboard; sometimes he played as if he were the soloist in a twentieth-century romantic piano concerto, with a lovely touch; sometimes he could have been in a jazz bar, playing stride piano or blues. It was difficult to predict where this eccentric but exhilarating music would go next. In his long, written-out, solo cadenza, Dupree shone as the orchestral players watched, mesmerised. It was fascinating to watch Jenne, sometimes brushing the drums lightly like a jazz drummer, sometimes playing more heavily like a rock drummer, the kick drum sounding out clearly from his position at the front of the stage. After the piano cadenza, the orchestra rejoined, and they scampered to a stunning end. Dupree and Jenne acknowledged each other with huge smiles.
Drummer Obi Jenne and pianist Frank Dupree. Image ยฉ Chris Payne
Dupree asked us if we wanted more; well, of course we did! Jenne joined him again for his encore, Kapustin’s Concert Etude No. 1. This was a great showpiece for both players, but, to coin a phrase, less ‘wacky’ than the previous piece…. until… we saw Dupree creeping round the back of the piano to the drum kit… He joined Jenne in a drum solo that turned into a duet on drums, thunderous but witty as the two of them explored the kit together. This was the first time I had ever seen a joint drum solo; the audience loved it!
Weilerstein introduced Dvoลรกk’s Symphony No. 9 ‘From the New World’, which filled the whole second half, as a piece that never gets old, music that’s ‘so inviting and simple… with something for everyone.’ He had conducted it at least 15-20 times, and it always felt different. There’s no doubt that his time in America had an effect on Dvoลรกk’s music; writing about the works he wrote there, including this symphony and the Cello Concerto, he said,
‘I should never have composed these works “just so” if I hadn’t seen America.’
There’s a school of thought that says that he was directly influenced by American music, particularly African American spirituals and work songs. He wrote that this music was
โdistinguished by unusual and subtle harmonies, the like of which I have found in no other songs but those of old Scotland and Irelandโ.
The counter-argument is that Dvoลรกk doesn’t directly quote any African American melodies, and that the melodies he wrote himself could just as easily have been inspired by European folk music.
Whatever the source of Dvoลรกk’s inspiration, the BBC Philharmonic gave an inspired account of the symphony on Saturday. Weilerstein brought out a real sense of the work’s overarching shape, but also lots of detail; this well-known work felt fresh in his hands. The orchestra was in sparkling form. In the first movement, the flutes (Alex Jakeman and Victoria Daniel) were outstanding. In response to the conductor’s grand gestures, the final climax of the movement was faster than it’s sometimes played, but the orchestra handled the tempo with supreme aplomb, reaching a stunning climax.
Boy on the Bike – Hovis advert’s 2019 restoration | BFI
The second movement does have an American influence – the composer said it was inspired by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem The Song of Hiawatha, although there’s some disagreement about which part of the poem it refers to. To British audiences of a certain age, the movement will forever be associated with The Bike Ride or Boy on Bike, better known as simply The Hovis Advert, directed by Ridley Scott (director of Alien, Blade Runner, Thelma and Louise and Gladiator). The advert used a brass arrangement played by Ashington Colliery Band, but on Saturday, the familiar melody was superbly played by Rachel Clegg on cor anglais, set against gorgeous, Wagnerian brass chords. The woodwinds provided a characterful response; they were excellent throughout the symphony, particularly when depicting birdsong. There was a spellbinding passage when the strings played incredibly quietly with perfect ensemble; the audience sat rapt.
Conductor Joshua Weilerstein and the BBC Philharmonic. Image ยฉ Chris Payne
Dvoลรกk said that the third movement was also inspired by The Song of Hiawatha, and this time, he was more specific: he wrote that it represented the dance of Pau-Puk-Keewis at his wedding feast. The orchestra played the opening section, which recalls Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, with phenomenal speed and precision. The horns shone as they played a chromatic theme, and the woodwind danced throughout the movement. The orchestra played with Baroque precision and limpid textures as Weilerstein danced on his podium, with a perfectly co-ordinated final chord. In the final movement, the brass section was in full flow, playing their early fanfare with military precision. After a joyful folk dance from the strings, the woodwind birdsong returned with a lovely clarinet solo. The orchestra played the ‘Three Blind Mice’ melody with playful simplicity. After a series of climaxes, interspersed with quieter sections as Weilerstein controlled the dynamics beautifully, the orchestra’s final statement was anguished yet thrilling. Weilerstein let his left hand fall slowly to give us time to consider what we had just heard, before there was rapturous applause in response to an emotional performance that was both exhausting to listen to – it was so good – and ultimately, cathartic.
Repertoire
Duke Ellington Harlem Nikolai Kapustin Piano Concerto No. 4 Nikolai Kapustin Concert Etude No. 1 (encore) Antonรญn Dvoลรกk Symphony No. 9 ‘From the New World’
Performers
BBC PhilharmonicOrchestra Joshua Weilerstein conductor Frank Dupree piano
Sources
Duke Ellington, Music is My Mistress (Doubleday, 1973) Jeremy Nicholas, KAPUSTIN Piano Concerto No 4. Concerto for Violin & Piano. Chamber Symphony (Frank Dupree) (Gramophone)
The concert will be broadcast on BBC Radio 3 at 7.30 pm on Wednesday 22 April 2026 at 7.30 on In Concert and will be available for 30 days after broadcast
This post was updated at 11.29 on 21 April 2026 to correct the name of the trumpeter in the Duke Ellington piece
Viktoria Mullova shines as the soloist in Brahms’ Violin Concerto, and the Hallรฉ soloists excel in Bartรณk’s Concerto for Orchestra
Viktoria Mullova with the Hallรฉ ยฉ Alex Burns/The Hallรฉ
Sunday’s concert, repeated from last Thursday, was billed as ‘Mullova Plays Brahms.’ It’s been over 40 years since she first came to prominence when she won first prize in the International Jean Sibelius Violin Competition in Helsinki (1980) and the gold medal at the International Tchaikovsky Competition (1982). Her 1986 debut album of the Tchaikovsky and Sibelius violin concertos with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Seiji Ozawa was awarded the Grand Prix International du Disque. Her 1995 album Bach: Partitas For Violin Solo was nominated for a Grammy.
Mullova’s performance of the Brahms concerto was bookended by two orchestral pieces, performed by the Hallรฉ Orchestra under their Principal Conductor, Kahchun Wong, beginning with Wagner’s Tannhรคuser: Overture.
โTannhรคuser symbolises the clash between two fundamental principles that have chosen the human heart as their main battlefield โ the struggle between flesh and spirit, between hell and heaven, between Satan and God. And this inner conflict is depicted, right from the overture, with unparalleled skill.โ
Charles Baudelaire, Richard Wagner et Tannhรคuser ร Paris (1861)
Wagner’s opera combines the sacred and profane, with appearances by Venus, goddess of love, the spirit of the Virgin Mary and the Pope. But we began with a chorus of pilgrims, a stately woodwind and brass opening. Rich violas and lower strings introduced a romantic string melody. A brass climax led to a section with a falling, repeated violin theme, played more staccato than in many performances. There was a lovely pianissimo as the woodwind and brass theme returned. The orchestra stirred, as, in Wagner’s words, ‘a rosy mist swirls upwards [and] sensuously exultant sounds reach our ears.’ There was some lovely, characterful wind playing and a gorgeous clarinet solo from Sergio Castellรณ Lรณpez. Wong beautifully shaped the music as it slowed, then accelerated to a rousing climax, with added percussion, pulsing strings and excitable brass. A falling brass theme, with circling strings, dropped away. The Pilgrims’ Chorus reappeared on woodwind, with swirling strings. Wong’s pacing of the music was lovely here. The music gained sudden energy and headed to a glowing climax with robust, majestic brass. The brass section received well-deserved applause at the end.
“Brahms casts his soloist not as the conventional virtuoso hero but as a thinker and a poet, who is busier than the orchestra but also more inspired.”
Rupert Avis, programme note ยฉ 2018
As Robert Avis writes in his insightful programme note, Brahms’Violin Concerto depicts the soloist as a ‘thinker and a poet.’ Mullova stood with her back to the audience, facing the orchestra, as if taking in what they had to offer in their introduction. She watched the violins closely, and they duly obliged her by playing superbly. She turned round, and her violin was part of the orchestra’s texture, playing looped arpeggios. The orchestra held back in deference with long chords.
Mullova played with beautiful control and intonation, even on the very highest notes. Her tone was sweet at the top and rich at the bottom. She played a mellower passage superbly, with lovely legato, then dug in more with double-stopping but still maintaining the legato line. The orchestra began to take a more active role, and she elegantly picked up their lilting waltz-like theme. The violin slowed almost to a halt, and there was a lovely contemplative moment with subtly discordant double-stopping. She took over again, her violin projecting over the orchestra as she executed an amazing run from top to bottom of the violin and back again. Even in the most complex parts, her violin tone remained mellow. There was a sorrowful section that Mulllova turned into a spellbinding cadenza, as the audience sat rapt.
At the start of the second movement, the orchestra regained control, as Mullova turned to watch them again. A gently nostalgic horn chorus led to a lovely solo by the oboist Stรฉphane Rancourt, who had a major role to play in the movement. Mullova turned round to pick up the melody and joined a chamber music section, joined by a small ensemble of horns, woodwind, and violin. She took over, with a wider vibrato and a lush, warm sound, creating a moment of serene beauty. The orchestra rose up to meet her as the violin played gorgeous, long, held notes. A melancholy, melodic section featured a duet with two horns. Mullova’s playing at the end of the movement was ardently, sumptuously romantic.
Brahms wrote the concerto for the Hungarian violinist, composer and conductor Joseph Joachim, and the final movement began with a fiercely rhythmic Hungarian dance. Mullova played joyfully, creating a continuous line with a sweet tone even when playing with the full orchestra. The orchestra shared her joy, playing superbly here. Mullova worked incredibly hard in this movement, reaching a mini-cadenza which the orchestra soon joined, her playing fiercer here. There was a lovely syncopated section with sparkling flutes. The music scampered to the end with a final flourish. An audience member near me uttered ‘Wow!’ Well, exactly!
Kahchun Wong and the Hallรฉ ยฉ Alex Burns/The Hallรฉ
โThe general mood of the work represents, apart from the jesting second movement, a gradual transition from the sternness of the first movement and the lugubrious death-song of the third, to the life-assertion of the last one.โ
Bรฉla Bartรณk, 1944
If the first half of the concert featured a virtuosic soloist, the second half featured a whole orchestra of soloists. Bartรณk wrote his Concerto for Orchestra in 1943. He had moved to America three years earlier and told his wife, ‘Under no circumstances will I ever write any new work.’ Then the conductor Serge Koussevitzky stepped in and commissioned a new score for the Boston Symphony Orchestra. The composer died in September 1945, but not before he had heard the premiere of his concerto in December of the previous year.
The first movement began with mysterious lower strings and tremolo violins, a magical, almost spiritual sound, the strings playing with superb ensemble. A stunning climax led to an oboe theme with tenative harps, unusually placed in the middle of the orchestra to bring out the detail. The woodwind sparkled, and a brass fanfare splintered into fractured melodies. A robust melody kept trying to start in the lower strings, the violins ran with it, and dashed to a stunning brass fanfare.
Launched by a side-drum, the second movement featured a series of superbly characterful, witty duets, which Bartรณk marked as ‘couples’: bassoons, oboes, clarinets, flutes and trumpets. A brass chorale, warmly played, and a lovely horn quartet brought brief respite before the duets returned as trios. Wong brought out the detail superbly here, keeping the movement superbly rhythmic.
The highlight of the piece was the ‘lugubrious death-song’ of the third movement, showcasing Bartรณk at his best. It began with the night music of the first movement, the solo oboe singing like a lonely bird. This passage was reminiscent of the ‘lake of tears’ behind the sixth door in the composer’s Bluebeard’s Castle, written 20 years earlier. The orchestra played with incredible intensity, bringing out the amazing variety of colour. A keening piccolo solo, set against a desolate landscape, brought the movement to a melancholy end.
The fourth movement began with more birdsong and a folky dance as the woodwind shone again. The violas played a huge, Elgarian tune that the violins picked up, echoed by an anxious cor anglais. There was a nod to another great 20th-century composer, Shostakovich, in the sarcastic parody of his Leningrad symphony, superbly played here. But the movement ended with a moment of stasis, with a gently questing flute solo.
The finale began with a stunning horn fanfare and a restless string dance. Wong was more animated here, bringing out the strings that were spinning like a whirligig. A folky dance accelerated, with virtuosic brass, and the strings were almost out of control in ecstasy as they reached a huge climax. After an earlier failed attempt by the woodwind at a fugue, the strings began a fiercely executed fugue of their own. The orchestra played with precise syncopation, before a thrillingly triumphant final statement brought this superb performance to an end. Wong acknowledged all the soloists, which took a while, as there were so many of them. Then, with a cheery wave, he was gone.
The Hallรฉ ยฉ Alex Burns/The Hallรฉ
Performers
The Hallรฉ Orchestra Kahchun Wong conductor Viktoria Mullova violin
Repertoire
Richard Wagner Tannhรคuser: Overture Johannes Brahms Violin Concerto Bรฉla Bartรณk Concerto for Orchestra
This was not just a concert; it was an immersive experience, taking us from dawn to dusk
Image ยฉ Adam Critchlow
Many contemporary artworks and installations describe themselves as ‘immersive’; the word is perhaps overused now. A concert in a former swimming pool (yes, actually in the pool) could have been immersive in another sense, but fortunately, the water had been removed first. For a choral concert to be truly immersive is very unusual, and it’s a tribute to Ellie Slorach, Kantos Chamber Choir’s Creative Director and Conductor, that the concert’s staging was so effective. The music ebbed and flowed, creating a continuous narrative and a musical argument, so that it was sometimes difficult to tell where one piece ended and the next began. The generous acoustics of the former swimming pool immersed us in sound, creating a lovely bloom around the voices, but it was still possible to hear individual voices perfectly. The huge golden sun, or ‘Helios’, created by the artist Luke Jerram, was suspended above us, immersing us in a sun-baked landscape.
Image ยฉ Adam CritchlowImage ยฉ Adam Critchlow
Slorach greeted us with a cheery ‘good morning’; it was 5.00 am, and the sun was about to rise. Magically, a Dawn Chorus of singers surrounded us, singing from changing cubicles that were transformed into birdboxes. Above the backdrop of offstage chords, individual singers sang birdcalls. Being neither a twitcher nor an ornithologist, I was only able to identify a cuckoo, but composer David Matthews says ‘they’re not exact replicas, but artistic approximations.’
Meredith Monk’s Early Morning Melody was passed among the singers as they moved around the old baths, processing like monks singing plainsong. Slorach conducted from the middle of the audience as the singers surrounded us, singing Eric Whitacre’s Lux Aurumque(Light and Gold). This piece described ‘Light, warm and heavy as pure gold’, like the sun above us. Whitacre’s falling chromatic harmonies sometimes felt like those of the Italian composer Carlo Gesualdo, born 460 years ago.
The men of the choir dashed to their positions at the front to create the Dawn and Dusk sounds in Ken Stevens’ piece, chanting like the All Blacks performing the Haka. There was clapping, finger-clicking, animal noises, amazing vocal swoops and joyfully syncopated polyrhythms. The Eternal Sun, as depicted by John Tavener, featured lovely key changes and dissonances, uneasily shifting yet ecstatic, while an offstage choir sang fiercely nostalgic chords.
Conductor Ellie Slorach. Image ยฉ Adam Critchlow
Two composers described the Morning Star. Nathan James Dean took Milton’s words, ‘Now the bright morning Star, Dayes harbinger/Comes dancing from the East’ to create a lively, dancing theme like some of John Rutter’s Christmas carols, with syncopated lower voices. At the end, voices fell over each other like birdsong. Arvo Pรคrt’s Morning Star was a highlight, with rich, warm vibrato from the basses.
George Harrison’s Here Comes the Sun is The Beatles’ most popular song, with 1,788,000,858 plays (and counting) on Spotify at the time of writing. As the sun rose, the song was uplifting in Kirby Shaw’s close-harmony arrangement. Ben Nobuto’s Solwas a more frantic yet playful view of the sun than Harrison’s gentle, welcoming one. It featured repeated words, snatched syllables, excerpts from romantic songs, and a human menagerie, with manic chatter. This was virtuosic music, virtuosically sung.
The hall darkened, and Eric Whitacre’s gorgeous dissonances returned in Nox Aurumque (Night and Gold), which sings of night and death. This was another highlight, with robust, passionate singing; the sopranos shone on their high notes, and the tenors sang with a bright, ardent tone. Hendrik Hofmeyr’s Desert Sun was a dense, complex song of the Kalamari Bushmen, saluting the setting sun with falling, chromatic melodies at the start and cacophonous chanting later, all beautifully executed by the choir.
Night and sleep came quickly now. Emeli Sandรฉ’s Where I Sleep, arranged by Alexander L’Estrange, felt like a spiritual, with superb tenor and alto solos. Nightfall was depicted by Meredith Monk, with a repeating bass line, as in Purcell’s An Evening Hymn, which begins,
‘Now that the sun hath veilโd his light, And bid the world goodnight; To the soft bed my body I dispose…’
Monk’s piece features wordless voices, but the sentiment is the same. After the complexity of some of the previous pieces, Monk’s simple, tonal world felt cathartic. The choir gradually left the stage, like musicians in Haydn’s FarewellSymphony. Slorach herself then left, leaving a single bass and a soprano decorating the bass line. They left, too, as the birds retreated into their bird boxes again. A stunning end to a concert that was not just a concert, but a life-affirming experience.
Image ยฉ Adam Critchlow
Creative Team
Kantos Chamber Choir: Soprano Emily Brown Gibson, Eleonore Cockerham, Felicity Hayward, Sarah Keirle-Dos Santos, Emily Varney Alto Louise Ashdown, Toluwani Idowu, Rachel Singer, Lucy Vallis Tenor Alistair Donaghue, Jonny Maxwell-Hyde, Louis de Satgรฉ, James Savage-Hanford Bass James Connolly, Jonny Hill, Joshua McCullough, David Valsamidis Ellie Slorach Creative Director & Conductor Luke Jerram Artwork
Repertoire
David Matthews Dawn Chorus Meredith Monk Early Morning Melody Eric Whitacre Lux Aurumque Ken Steven Dawn and Dusk John Tavener The Eternal Sun Nathan James Dearden The Bright Morning-Star Arvo Pรคrt Morning Star George Harrison arr. Kirby Shaw Here Comes the Sun Ben Nobuto Sol Eric Whitacre Nox Aurumque Hendrik Hofmeyr Desert sun Emeli Sandรฉ arr. Alexander LโEstrange Where I Sleep Meredith Monk Nightfall
Luke Jerram’s Helios installation is at Victoria Baths until the 6th April 2026
Jan Vogler travels the world as an internationally acclaimed cello soloist. He was in the UK in February to perform with various orchestras, including a superb performance of Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 1 with the Hallรฉ in Manchester under the baton of Kahchun Wong. He has been Artistic Director of Dresdner Musikfestspiele (Dresden Music Festival) since 2009. The annual Festival was established by government decree in 1978 when Dresden was still part of the German Democratic Republic (GDR).Nick Holmes Music spoke to Jan in New York via Zoom earlier this month.
The Dresden Music Festival
Nick Holmes Music: How did you become involved in the Dresden Music Festival?
Jan Vogler: I developed an interest in festivals in the 1990s. I was very lucky to be a guest artist at the Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont, directed by Rudolf Serkin, when I was a young man. And Serkin was very interested in Eastern European players. He really helped me to get out of East Germany, which was very difficult, to come to Marlboro. And when I came to Marlboro, I saw the combination of excellent musicians, good programming, and a summer atmosphere, and I understood what a festival was right away.
After four summers in Marlboro, I founded the Moritzburg Festival in 1993, together with my brother Kai and a friend who’s also a cellist, Peter Bruns. We learned about financing, ticketing, organisational skills, stage crews, and all the details one needs to know. And by about 2001, I had taken over the running of the festival.
“I like organising…”
I had installed an office in Dresden, had a couple of non-profits supporting the festival, and learned how to direct a festival. Even if you’re called โartistic directorโ, it means you are the one everybody will call when they don’t know what to do. I was fine with that. I like organising. I was always interested in the process: how does music get from the musician to the audience? Because it’s a process that in the 19th century involved musicians much more than today – think about Clara Schumann writing out her own tickets for concerts and inviting guests by handwritten letter.
At the end of the 20th century, we became a kind of protected species, soloists who travel around the world, everybody arranges everything for you, and you’re supposed to just think about your concert. I never really liked that. I wanted to get my hands dirty, wanted to understand how it works, and see if I could help bring the music to the audience in a more innovative way. And that was all expressed in the Moritzburg Festival.
Then in 2007, the mayor of Dresden invited me for lunch, and he said, “Would you be interested in taking over the Dresden Festival?” The festival was not doing too well, and my first thought was, should I really do this? Should I really cut out more time from my playing career to dedicate to the festival? But a lot of people around me, including family and friends, were excited that this would be a great thing for me to apply some of my ideas.
The Dresden Music Festival ยฉ Stephan Floss
I took the job and started in 2009, and we rebuilt the festival in a more modern way with more entrepreneurial involvement. I wanted to make sure that I applied everything I’d learned in America with the Marlboro Festival, that you can do a festival even if there’s no defined space from the government funding for it before. So I applied some of those experiences to my work with the Dresden Music Festival, and now we have a festival that is up to 80% financed by ticket income and sponsorship, which is very high for Germany and very unusual. So this way we could enlarge our budget, have more wonderful musicians come, and have a more glorious festival.
Artistic Changes
Nick Holmes Music: What’s changed artistically under your control?
Jan Vogler: A lot. My vision was always to both observe changes in classical music that are coming anyway, and at the same time bringing my own ideas to the table. I think every director who ignores the trends in classical music will sooner or later have a problem because the audience is our main supporter. But at the same time, adjusting to what the audience is asking you to do is not always right, because they also want to be led a little bit, and they want the music to be curated as well. So I think finding a good combination of those took about five years.
I started with very high-quality music; I invited all my friends. At this point, my career was going pretty well, so I could invite lots of partners, like Hรฉlรจne Grimaud, with whom I played duos. Or the New York Philharmonic. I had just played my debut in 2005 and toured with them. So I could ask Zarin Mehta [president and executive director of the New York Philharmonic]. It was a bit scary. He was a very, very strong leader. I wrote an e-mail: “Would you consider coming with the New York Philharmonic to Dresden?” He was like, “Sure, we could come. It will cost a lot of money, but we can raise it together.” And that brought the festival back on the map and also helped with sponsorships and ticket sales.
Other Genres Apart from Classical Music
But then I thought, what about other genres, such as crossover created for example by the Yo-Yo Ma and Bobby McFerrin album [Hush, 1992]. Crossover was already well-established, but it was blooming, and people were listening to playlists across different genres. So I really focused on having all these genres present and started with world music from people like Anushka Shankar. I went to jazz, and even did some rock because I liked British rock music from my childhood on. I’m a big fan of Queen and Eric Clapton.
Eric Clapton came to a concert in London. He didn’t come backstage, but I heard he was there. And then he came backstage at another concert in Edinburgh, and I recognised him, and I was like… starstruck. But then we talked about how strings feel under the fingers, and he asked me how cello strings differ from guitar strings, and he was very interested. I texted him: “Would you consider coming to Dresden to play a concert?” He said, “Yes, if you play along with me.” So we made a deal.
“Classical listeners still whistle pop songs in the shower”
Then I was in London for a Wigmore Hall concert. I had studied all his songs and had studied a little bit of rock and blues. I was super nervous, but everything went well in the rehearsal, and then we played together in the concert. And I really internalised that the same audience that would buy tickets to the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra or the LSO would buy tickets to the Eric Clapton show. It was not a different audience. It was, of course, some new people, but I realised that classical listeners still whistle pop songs in the shower. It was a great honour that Sting came, another hero of mine.
Nick Holmes Music:Was it important to you that Sting is a fellow bass player, playing at the low end of the music?
Jan Vogler: Exactly. I always thought of Sting as his own musical life insurance, the bass line. There was this fantastic bass guitarist in Eric Claptonโs band, and he was my life insurance. I looked at him all the time. If he played a certain note, I knew I was in the right key. But wonderful musicians.
I’m still curious how we can be inventive and progressive with our festival, and I think it helps me that I live in New York, because the two cities are very different. Dresden is a cultural icon and incredibly dense culturally. New York is more artificial because it’s not grown as naturally here, but it’s incredibly lively and incredibly high quality, just like the big British cities like London or Manchester. So it helps me to have this perspective because lots of things will fall through if I look through my New York glasses at the programmes.
“Some human values come into play, which, for me, is important to convey through music; values that are in danger of being lost in every generation“
I want to bring the idea of a globalised cultural world that is still extremely specific in specific places, like, for example, the sound of the Hallรฉ Orchestra compared to the LPO [London Philharmonic Orchestra]. This is wonderful, these differences, but we still have to see it in context, especially when you do a festival. What is so different about the orchestra and the sound, and which repertoire suits them? How can I host a special cultural event in Dresden that represents a certain culture with all its refinements, while still giving you an idea of how big and beautiful our whole world is? So it’s an idea of tolerance, too, and some human values come into play, which, for me, is important to convey through music; values that are in danger of being lost in every generation.
Elgar and the LPO at the Festival
Edward Elgar. Source: Wikimedia Commons
Nick Holmes Music: And talking of the LPO, they’ve got a residency at the festival, haven’t they?
Jan Vogler: That’s very exciting. At first, I think my team was a bit shocked when the idea of an all-Elgar residency came about. The LPO said Edward Gardner [Principal Conductor] would like to do two complete days of Elgar. And I was like, โThat is a great idea.โ And everybody was shocked. They were very silent. My two artistic administrators looked at me like, โWhat did he smoke?” I said, โLook, who has ever done this in Germany? When did you last hear an Elgar symphony?” And the LPO are masters of this music. They really know this music better than most performers in the whole world. So why don’t we do it?โ And it’s selling very well. So I’m very happy.
Edward Gardner. Photo by Mark Allan
Nick Holmes Music: I come from the land that was famously “without music” for a long time. And then Elgar came along, and we thought, thank goodness we’ve got a good composer, finally. How is Elgar viewed in continental Europe and in New York as well? Because obviously, I view him very much through English eyes.
Jan Vogler: Thatโs an interesting question. I do feel that Elgar is a little bit like a bathroom where the bathtub overflows. I think the BBC Music Magazine named Elgarโs Cello Concerto the most popular cello concerto. I read that while I was in Great Britain playing Elgar last week, because I did play two Elgars, one with the Hallรฉ in Middlesbrough, and one with the LPO in Eastbourne. It was enlightening to play Elgar with British orchestras because it seems so natural. Mostly, they are more modest than an American or German orchestra playing the Elgar, but sometimes it’s very pompous, but naturally pompous. It’s a little bit like British humour, extremely unique somehow, the way Elgar is played.
I feel in some parts of the world, there’s so much excitement about Elgar. I would say the whole of Great Britain, and then big cities outside of the UK. So if the Elgar Cello Concerto is played in Berlin, Paris or New York, it’s very enthusiastically received. I’m going to play it in Taiwan in a couple of weeks. where I think Elgar is played less. So they asked specifically, โWould you be willing to play the Elgar? We haven’t had that for a while.โ And I hear that quite often in some regions. But it’s so popular in so many places that I think it’s spreading very fast. That’s why I said it’s like a bathtub overflowing, because if there is enthusiasm in the world for something, somewhere, it always spreads, because we have such fast communications. We have such wonderful ways to communicate these days that this enthusiasm will be communicated, and therefore, I expect Elgar to still grow.
“That was a mistake I made for 25 years. I always played the [Cello Concerto] so seriously and with so much darkness..”
Now in Germany, The Dream of Gerontius is being played here and there, and there are more pieces being picked up by these orchestras. It used to be entirely the Cello Concerto or Enigma Variations, but now it’s really the full Elgar repertoire that is played by the great orchestras around the world. When I play the piece, I feel that the main thing Jacqueline du Prรฉ invented about Elgar, in a way, that made his Cello Concerto so popular, was that she understood it was a dark piece that was about empire falling and about things crumbling at the time when it was written. But she understood that the enthusiasm in it is probably just as strong.
That was a mistake I made for 25 years. I always played it so seriously and with so much darkness and everything. And the audience went, “Thank you” [he claps politely]. And then I thought, hmm, what is missing? Lately I discovered, it’s this enthusiasm that runs throughout the piece – Elgar always gets up again and he tries again, with this kind of counter-stream of positive energy. I feel that British orchestras know that there has to be positivity, even in darkness.
Nick Holmes Music: But in some ways it’s quite playful, isn’t it?
Jan Vogler: It is quite playful. And we cannot just see this very serious side. Outside of the UK, many, many countries see this as very serious music, and very, very late Romantic. But there is a lot of positive energy that counters that, and then you see the sun, and then you see the clouds closing, and then you see some melancholy, and then it all makes sense. But without this enthusiasm, of which Jacqueline du Prรฉ was the perfect example, the music is not as effective.
Wagner on Period Instruments
Nick Holmes Music: Talking of late 19th-century music takes us to your Wagner project – Gรถtterdรคmmerung – which is coming up for rehearsal very soon?Tell me about using period instruments in Wagner?
Jan Vogler: Yes, that’s another project thatโs a little bit crazy. The outcome was definitely completely unclear when we took it on. But I personally believe very much in period instruments, because my father in East Germany had the early [Nikolaus] Harnoncourt recordings of the Monteverdi operas. So I grew up with these very early Harnoncourt recordings, which were extremely fascinating.
My father was a cellist. Later, he also became a fan of the [Dutch] cellist Anner Bylsma. I found Anner Bylsma’s Bach interpretations, so when I was in school in East Berlin, I was the only one playing these fast tempos in the Bach Cello Suites. And all the teachers were like, “What the hell is he doing?โ Because they were still taught by the Russians with these very slow and very heavy tempos.
Dresdner Festspielorchester ยฉ Carsten Beier
I studied with Heinrich Schiff, who was close to Harnoncourt and very interested in performance practice. I had a strong interest in bringing the best period instrument groups from all over the world to Dresden, and we did. We founded our own Festival Orchestra playing on gut strings about 12 – 13 years ago, and we thought, what if we get the best players on period instruments to Dresden, and play pieces created in Dresden in the Romantic era, with a different sound from the other orchestras.
That worked well, but it didn’t really make a big wave, because we would have only one or two concerts a year. It would be expensive to get all the musicians, all freelancers, to Dresden: lots of people from the UK, from [John Eliot] Gardinerโs band, and lots of great players from London. That was the first step.
Working with the Conductor Kent Nagano
Kent Nagano and Jan Vogler ยฉ Carsten Beier
Then Kent Nagano came to me – we are friends, we have played a lot together – and said, โI have this idea about doing The Ring on period instruments.” I started a little bit with Concerto Kรถln, but there was no chance because we didn’t have the organisational structure, the funding, or enough players. And I said, โWell, I have the [Dresdner] Festspielorchester, and it’s a fabulous group, and you can bring some of your musicians from Concerto Kรถln, and then maybe we can combine them, and we can attempt to do the whole Ring. I can try, on the fundraising side, to work with the Federal Government in Berlin and integrate the project into the Festival.”
Finding Period Instruments
Nick Holmes Music: In this context, though, I’m really interested to know what you mean by period instruments? You mentioned gut strings, but the symphony orchestra was pretty much established by the end of the 19th century, wasn’t it? So what are you doing that’s different from a modern symphony orchestra?
Jan Vogler: We found some original Wagner Tubas, which were very different from the ones used today. And wind instruments changed a lot during Wagner’s time; they sound a lot thinner and clearer than the wind instruments used later. The wind players who travel around Europe and play period instruments have four different flutes. They have one for 18th-century repertoire, one for early 19th-century repertoire, one for mid-19th-century repertoire, and one for Wagner. They were very excited.
Some of them collect instruments like crazy. We have a trumpet player who collects anything from percussion instruments to trumpets from this time. And he buys them at auctions for very little money. Some of them are original instruments, but they are no longer playable. There are experts in Germany who rebuild these brass instruments for these period players.
“All these little details make a huge difference when added together.”
The discussion about instruments was very detailed, and we had musicologists. That was Kent’s idea. Kent is a very interesting guy. He’s very academically interested, and his idea was to let the musicologists lead. So we have a little army of musicologists who go into the score and sit in on rehearsals. We have one musicologist, Ursula Hirschfeld, just for language, just for the way the German words were pronounced in Wagner’s time. So she would correct the singers all the time.
And all these little details make a huge difference when added together. I would say not every detail is conceivable when you hear just that one detail. But in the end, it’s stunning that, for example, in Die Walkรผre, when the fire starts around the mountain where Brรผnnhilde is captured, I suddenly saw the fire: the sound was fascinating. I saw the fire in front of me.
One of Josef Hoffman’s 14 set designs for Wagner’s Rheingold in 1876. Source: Viktor Angerer, via Wikimedia Commons
At the beginning of Rheingold, there’s a lot about running water, and everybody always says, ” Why does [Wagner] stay in the same key for so long at the beginning, and can you please speed up the tempo?” And many conductors tried to do it just faster. Suddenly, it was incredible, with the three Rheintรถchter [Rhine Maidens], you could understand every word.
“[Wagner] said, the theatrical effect is most important. If you can sing it, speak it.”
So certain effects are almost like Debussy was later, very descriptive of nature and other subjects. The transparency of the sound allows the singers to have much more differentiation in dynamics. I’m quoting the musicologist because I haven’t read enough; apparently, Wagner liked pronouncing the words very much, sometimes even as spoken words. He said, the theatrical effect is most important. If you can sing it, speak it
And so musicologists pulled up some recordings from singers who worked with Wagner, for example, songs like Erlkรถnig. And it’s incredible. They change intonation. When it gets depressed, they go lower. They change the tempo all the time. That’s something Wagner encouraged, he said, “change the tempo as often as you want. If it’s dramatic, go faster. If it’s Romantic, take your time.” We learned almost the opposite: to be strict with the tempo and metronome, stay in this tempo, and be very static.
So all these little revelations would add up. For example, Matthias Naske, the director of the Konzerthaus [in Vienna], came to one of our performances in Amsterdam of Die Walkรผre, and he said it was maybe the most single, most impactful opera performance of his life. I don’t see it this way because I hear it too often. Kent Nagano is a very modest person. He always says, “Well, Jan, it’s different, right?” So it’s definitely different, I would say!
A Different Type of Singer
Nick Holmes Music: You were talking about singers. Does that mean that you can go for a different type of singer? I mean, we’re all familiar with Wagnerian sopranos and tenors, and the huge voices they have to have to rise above a massive orchestra?
Jan Vogler: Exactly, with our Siegfried, it was very much like that. But then, of course, our singers get picked up by the Wagner people because they hear that they’re singing with us. So sometimes it’s hard. We discover a lot of talent this way. We have a wonderful young Norwegian Brรผnnhilde, ร sa Jรคger, who is a huge talent. Now we can hardly book her for our complete Ring because she’s making a big career. People observe her, and they hear her, and say, “Oh, we want to have her – we are fine having some influences from [period] performance practices!” So we lose some of them: Derek Welton has become quite famous. He’s a wonderful Wotan, and of course, now the Deutsche Oper [Berlin] or Bayreuth even ask, “Can we have them as Wotan?” I understand.
Playing the Cello
Jan Vogler with members of The Hallรฉ. Credit: Alex Burns/The Hallรฉ
Nick Holmes Music: How did you find the cello? Were you following in your father’s footsteps, or was there something personal to you about the cello that attracted you?
Jan Vogler: It was put in my hands because my brother had the violin. And so, as the middle child, I got the cello, my sister got the piano. I felt a connection right away, a physical connection to the cello. And I really became very competitive to make it sound better. It was pretty clear when I was something like 10 years old that I wanted to be a cellist. And my luck was that I had two musician parents who were very strict and said, “We know you like to play soccer and meet your friends, but if you want to be a serious cellist and not end up in a very, very depressed situation, you have to practice hard.”
So they took my ambition and kind of weaponised it against me in a very good way. And they knew that teenagers can take a lot of work and a lot of pressure . I was very, very lucky when I was studying to feel that, somehow, with the cello, I’d found something special.
Nick Holmes Music: My wife came with me to watch you doing the Shostakovich at the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester. She said it felt as if the cello was an extension of your own body. Does it feel like that to you?
Jan Vogler: My ideal is to try to forget that it’s a piece of wood with four strings. I’d like to feel that I can make it come alive. And it helps if you have a good instrument. I am very, very fortunate to have a very, very fine instrument. Of course, it helps. And then the cello shows you the way. I don’t think I will ever reach 100%, but I’m trying to make it sound alive so you forget it’s coming from four strings. And that’s the ideal.
Nick Holmes Music: And again, looking back on that concert, I was struck by your playing style. Many players who perform the famous concertos seem to be battling with their instrument. Are you as calm as you look on stage?
Jan Vogler: No, no, no, I’m not! I’m constantly trying to improve things. But what I do feel is that the orchestra is a mass of energy, lots of individuals who unite to give energy. And the soloist has to be a dialogue partner with the orchestra. So I have to be extremely strong, because the orchestra is the energy of 60 people or something like that, with very, very strong players, and I’m alone.
“If something goes wrong, I let it go and do not worry about it”
So I team up with my cello, try to be at one with it, and then talk to the orchestra. So that’s my idea. I’m not at ease, of course. I always have my own struggles like everyone else, but I do feel that if I can somehow create a connection with the cello at home, that is not a discussion at the concert.
Even if something goes wrong, I let it go and do not worry about it, and still keep talking to the orchestra, because the orchestra is my main partner, and the audience is kind of an observer, but once in a while, you can also turn to the audience and preach a little bit. The German way of making music is a little bit like a pastor in church. Sometimes it can be too much, but when we play Bach’s Cello Suites, we tell stories to the audience.
So I feel that in the concerto, you have these few moments when you turn to the audience, but you also have a lot of moments when you try to converse with the orchestra and the conductor. And I felt with The Hallรฉ, it was wonderful, because they were very lively, excellent musicians. And I also had a good connection with Kahchun [Wong]. And he told me afterwards he liked somehow the way I played the Shostakovich, and he said, “Does it have to do with your childhood in East Berlin?” I said, “Who knows, but possibly, you know.” I try not to copy my colleagues, even if I like a colleague very much. I try to find my own way to play.
The Reopening of the Frauenkirche in Dresden
Dresdner Musikfestspiele and Jordi Savall in the Frauenkirche, Dresden. Photo: Oliver Killig
Nick Holmes Music: Yes, and talking about East Berlin, I think one of the highlights of your career to date has been performing at the reopening of the Frauenkirche in Dresden in 2005, after it had been destroyed in WWII. And as an East Berliner, as an East German, how did that feel?
Jan Vogler: I was in the green room preparing a few minutes before, and I couldn’t feel anything. I was like, “Just remember the piece. Is everything okay?” I was very prepared, I must say, and I had created a good connection with Lorin Maazel during the rehearsals, thank God, because he was supposed to be a difficult man. He was very kind to me, almost fatherly. I had worked with the New York Philharmonic before. I recorded Dvoลรกkโs Cello Concerto a year before with the New York Philharmonic and David Robertson. So I knew the orchestra a little bit, and Maazel had accepted me. That was a big compliment already.
So there I was in my green room, I thought, okay, this is one of those concerts. You just focus on this. My father was there. My father didn’t want to come initially. He didn’t come to many of my concerts. He was too scared. I had exceeded his expectations, I think. For him to sit in the audience, and I’d be on the stage, and anything could happen, I think it scared him very much.
But he did come to Dresden, and my mum was there. And then I came on stage and I focused and when the whole thing was done, I felt like, okay, I had I played my Schumann and the Colin Matthews, the way I could play it. And my father came, and he said, “Well done.” That was the biggest compliment he would ever give by far. But that he accepted my playing that night was already a lot.
“It was one of those moments when you can’t fold, you have to hold on”
And then I thought, the orchestra accepted [my playing], the conductor, my partners, the audience had lots of tears because the event itself, you know? But it was one of those moments when you can’t fold, you have to hold on, because your career will always have these moments, and often you play a piece that’s dear to you. If you’re lucky, you can play the Schumann or Shostakovich. Those are some of my favourite pieces. You can play something you can tell a story about, then people will trust you, maybe with more work.
It was almost like my audition in Dresden when I became principal cellist [at the Staatskapelle, at the age of 20]. Dresden. It was similar. I worked very hard. To my surprise, I got the job, and then I knew, okay, this is just the first step. Now you have to focus and learn all this music.
The Rebuilding of Dresden
The ruins of the Frauenkirche in Dresden in the early 1990s. Credit: Alison Howe
Nick Holmes Music: How do you feel about the rebuilding of Dresden? Is that something that moves you?
Jan Vogler: Yes, it does. I guess every generation feels that, but do we keep all the memories of history, have we learned the right lessons from history? I still remember my grandmother telling me how she took my father and his brother to the basement when there were fire alarms in Leipzig, and how she wrapped them in wet towels so they wouldn’t catch fire, if there was a fire. I grew up with the Cold War, and there was a constant fear that the whole situation would explode. And then 1989 came, and we were all like, “Oh my God, we have new hippies or something!”
The rebuilt Frauenkirche in Dresden, showing how existing stonework was incorporated in the new church
And then the Frauenkirche was rebuilt, and it became a symbol of the healing of the wounds of war and the whole of Dresden is a testimony to this incredible story of how humans can overcome great tragedies. So it does move me very much, and I get shivers when I talk about it, because I feel, aren’t those the great stories of humanity that we can overcome something? Those things, I think, are wonderful.
“We are all humans, and don’t we all want peace, harmony, and fun?“
If humans could sometimes forget the past and move on, and say, “let’s just do something positive,” remember the past as a learning experience, and go into the future with a fresh, open heart.And that’s what we all felt in the Frauenkirche, because we felt like we were enemies in the war, but aren’t we all humans, and don’t we all want peace, harmony, and fun? It was really, really very basic in a way.
And I just played last week, excuse me for the digression, but it was really wonderful. I just played the Schumann Concerto in Seattle with Xian Zhang, who was Assistant Conductor to Maazel during the concert. She said, “Oh, you don’t have to play the Schumann for me because I remember it. I was sitting in every single rehearsal.” She also remembered that trip as one of the highlights of her life.
Nick Holmes Music: Thank you very much. It was a real pleasure speaking to you today.
Jan Vogler: Same here, same here!
This interview has been edited for length and clarity
The Dresden Music Festival, ‘Lightness of Being’, runs from 14 May to 14 June 2026. For more information, click here
Stunning singing from soprano Sarah Wegener in Wagner and Strauss, and the UK premiere of a potential classic by Edmund Finnis
Soprano Sarah Wegener with conductor Nicholas Carter and the BBC Philharmonic. Image ยฉ Chris Payne
Saturday’s concert by the BBC Philharmonic under the baton of Nicholas Carter was billed as ‘Rhapsodies on love, death, and lust.’ Richard Wagner wrote the Prelude and Liebestod (Love-death) for his opera Tristan and Isolde while he was living in a cottage on the estate of Otto and Mathilde Wesendonck, who was 18 years his junior. Despite being married to his first wife, Minna, Wagner had a passionate relationship with Mathilde, who became his muse for the opera. Arnold Bax wrote his tone poem Tintagel after being inspired by his muse, the young British pianist Harriet Cohen, who was 12 years his junior. In 1917, the couple had spent six weeks at Tintagel, a village in Cornwall, where they had a passionate affair, even though he was still living with his wife, Elsita Luisa Sobrino. The couple later separated. In contrast, Richard Strauss’s muse was his wife Pauline de Ahna, to whom he was married for over fifty years until his death in 1949. He was inspired to write his Four Last Songs by his long relationship with her.
The concert began with Wagner’s Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan and Isolde. The German-British soprano Sarah Wegener sang the Liebestod. There was a gentle lead in to the Tristan Chord, which marked a gradual move away from the conventional tonality in Western classical music. Conductor Nicholas Carter took the opening slowly, lingering almost reverentially over the music with a sense of mystery. His conducting was very calm, bringing out a lovely legato in the orchestra. The music gradually speeded up, then fell away again. It kept searching for a climax, gathering momentum; when it finally found the climax, with a vivid horn theme and dramatic timpani, it was ecstatic.
Wegener slowly, almost reverentially, processed onto the platform, calmly engaging the audience with confident eye contact. After a spellbindingly quiet theme on the lower strings, Wegener began, holding her hands out her hands as if in prayer. She sang with a rich, creamy soprano, with a lovely bloom at the top and a deeper, mezzo tone lower down. Her voice soared over the orchestra with a gorgeous legato. Her voice was ecstatic but beautifully controlled, sailing over the huge orchestral chords at the end; a superb performance.
The first half ended with the UK premiere of The Landscape Wakesby Edmund Finnis, which celebrates a completely different kind of love, a love of the natural world. Unlike Bax’s Tintagel, it doesn’t refer to a particular landscape. As the composer writes in his Note,
“The โlandscapeโ of the title is no specific place. It is every landscape. And the waking โ the dawning, the renewal โ is perpetual.“
The piece is immediately attractive and has the makings of an instant classic. At times, it’s reminiscent of Vaughan Williams’s pastoral music, with the occasional added edge of Britten, but Finnis has his own unique voice.
It began with fluttering, woodwind melodies twisting back on themselves, hopeful and sunny. An optimistic, faster section was a little folky, perhaps evoking the English countryside. The music rolled in endless motion: Finnis says, ‘while composing, I held in mind the mental image of the world spinning on its axis.’ Syncopated rising and falling themes led to a moment of darkness, with the textures becoming denser, until the music roused itself with a brass theme.
A contemplative violin theme gradually rose up, reaching a sunnier climax, then fell away again. This was the first time that the momentum dropped back, with a thoughtful section for lower strings. The music appeared again as if out of the mist, gradually coming into focus, gently discordant. There was a lovely series of key changes as a richly romantic theme appeared. The sense of momentum was restored, rising to an ecstatic high note in the violins. Clarity of texture was restored, and the orchestra was now quietly teeming with life. The swirling opening theme returned, and the Earth began to turn again. A stately brass chorale led to a slightly anguished string theme. The piece built to a climax, with a plainsong melody, scampering strings and a noble brass theme. There was golden sunlight at the end. The composer came on to acknowledge his applause. Hopefully, we will hear this radiant work again soon.
The ruins of Tintagel Castle in Cornwall. Source Wikimedia CommonsThe view from Tintagel Castle in Cornwall. Source Wikimedia Commons
In his programme note forTintagel, Bax wrote,
“This work is only in the broadest sense programme music. The composerโs intention issimply to offer a tonal impression of the castle-crowned cliff of (now sadly degenerate)Tintagel, and more especially of the long distances of the Atlantic as seen from the cliffsof Cornwall on a sunny but not windless summer day.”
The piece began with fluttering woodwind, casting back, in the context of this concert, to the opening of the Finnis, but also forward to the birds in the final song in Strauss’s Four Last Songs with which the concert ended. A majestic brass theme depicted the ruined castle. After a climax as the music built with a sense of inevitability, a long string melody described the view from the castle, the vast rolling ocean. Gently romantic violins, held back, opened up a new vista, with a folky theme on cello. Chromatic music led to a section which harked back to the Wagner in the first half, referencing Tristan’s ‘sickness’ music from the opera. This could have described the sea, or the human passions of Bax and his muse, Harriet Cohen, his ‘darling’ to whom he dedicated the score, ‘with love from Arnold.’ There was a huge climax as the waves crashed on the beach, with echoes of Debussy’s tone poems. The opening castle theme returned in a blaze of brass, with echoes of Holst’s The Planets in a two-note theme, superbly played. The glittering ending featured some excellent horn-playing, with the visceral thrill of a full orchestra.
Sarah Wegener, conductor Nicholas Carter and the BBC Philharmonic. Image ยฉ Chris Payne
Soprano Sarah Wegener returned to the stage for Richard Strauss’s Four Last Songs, now wearing a sky-blue frock. Strauss wrote this suite of songs very late in life, but it was only after his death that his publisher, Ernst Roth at Boosey & Hawkes, provided the title and the order in which they are now performed. The same thing happened with Schubert’s collection Schwanengesang(Swansong), named after the composer’s death by his publisher, Tobias Haslinger.
Wegener showed her versatility in her approach to Strauss’s songs. In ‘Frรผhling’ (Spring), she was gently passionate, with lovely legato and beautiful control. She sang llike a leider singer rather than a Wagnerian soprano; she is more than capable of both styles. She sang ‘September’ with a warm tone and a wider, more operatic vibrato, embracing the words, with excellent control of dynamics. There was an evocative horn solo with subtle vibrato, reminding us that Strauss’s father was a horn player. In ‘Beim Schlafengehen’ (Going to Sleep), Wegener held back; her singing was relaxed and captivating, and she sang the final section with passionate energy. She began ‘Im Abendrot’ (At Sunset) singing in an intensely moving sotto voce. Her final utterance (and Strauss’s, too): ‘Ist dies etwa der Tod? (Is this, perhaps, Death?) sent a shiver down the spine; a gentle acceptance of the finality of death. The piece ended with a long orchestral postlude, quoting from Strauss’s Tod und Verklรคrung (Death and Transfiguration), reminding us perhaps that Wagner himself called his Liebestod from Tristan and Isolde ‘Verklรคrung’ (Transfiguration). At the end, Wegener dropped her hands and smiled beatifically as if she had reached a moment of transfiguration herself.
Steven Callow receives flowers from conductor Nicholas Carter. Image ยฉ Chris Payne
Coda
Richard Strauss’s father was the principal horn player at the Bavarian State Opera for over 40 years. At the end of the concert, there was a celebration of the career of cellist Steven Callow, who has served the Philharmonic for nearly 40 years since 1988. Nicholas Carter gave him a bunch of flowers, and Wegener came over to give him a hug. We wish him well in the future.
Performers BBC Philharmonic Orchestra Nicholas Carter conductor Sarah Wegener soprano
Richard Wagner Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde Edmund Finnis The Landscape Wakes (UK premiere) Arnold Bax Tintagel Richard Strauss Four Last Songs
The concert was recorded for broadcast in Radio 3 In Concert on Monday 13 April at 7.30pm, and will be available via BBC Sounds for 30 days after that.
A viscerally powerful production of Britten’s masterpiece
John Findon as Peter Grimes and Philippa Boyle as Ellen Orford. Credit James Glossop
In his programme note for Opera North’s performance of Peter Grimesat Lowry in Salford on Friday, Andrew Mellor compares the central character in the opera with the Peter Grimes of George Crabbe’s poem The Borough (1810) that provided Benjamin Britten’s inspiration,
[Grimes] appears in just one poem out ofย Crabbe’s 24. He does so as a scoundrel: aย villain unequivocallyย guilty of murder. As they sketched out their scenario, [Peter] Pears (destined for the title role) and Britten reimagined the character.
Britten, his partner Peter Pears and the librettist Montagu Slater turned Grimes into a morally ambiguous anti-hero, a dreamer and a visionary with a darker, more violent side – like Shakespeare’s Hamlet. In doing so, they raised profound questions about the nature of society and its relationship with outsiders. Phyllida Lloyd’s stunning production takes Britten’s subtle characterisation and adds a further layer of complexity, providing empathy without denying the violent volatility of Grimes’ character: a tragic hero for our troubled times.
John Findon (Grimes) and Toby Dray (John, Grimes’ Apprentice) in Grimes’ hut. Credit James Glossop
In Lloyd’s production, the opera opens in silence with the half-naked figure of Grimes dead on the stage; in the libretto, we learn that Grimes’ boat is ‘sinking at sea’, but we don’t see his body. In the scene in the pub, where Grimes sings his aria ‘Now the Great Bear and Pleiades’, the townspeople gradually rise from the floor and seem briefly to share his vision of the stars beyond our world, before dismissing him as ‘mad. or drunk.’
Later, we see the second Apprentice walking above the stage, before his death, in a ghostly vision, like the ghost of Hamlet’s father on the battlements at Elsinore. Grimes reacts in horror at this premonition of the boy’s death. In a dumb show, we see Grimes and Ellen Orford married (‘I’ll marry Ellen’) and celebrating with the townspeople, illustrating his vision of marital bliss, ‘in dreams I’ve built myself some kindlier home.’ His vision is brutally shattered.
Like many contemporary directors, Lloyd uses the orchestral interludes (four of which Britten later arranged as the orchestral suite Four Sea Interludes) to add further layers to the story. (Britten wrote them to cover scene changes while the curtain was down.) Lloyd uses the fifth interlude at the start of Act III as a threnody for Grimes’ second Apprentice, as Grimes carries the dead boy and holds him aloft in agony. The contrast with the dance music’s frivolity as the townspeople come onstage is heartbreaking.
Friday evening’s performance was a revival by director Karolina Sofulak of Lloyd’s production. The tenor John Findon played the central character in an intensely moving and powerful portrayal. We shared his dreams and recoiled at his violence. He projected his voice superbly, and coped with the high tessitura of the part wth ease. His lower register had a lovely, rich baritonal quality. He was a brooding physical presence, in Britten’s words, a ‘visionary and highly skilled fisherman, [who] is very unpopular with the community, just because he is different.’
Philippa Boyle was a hugely sympathetic Ellen Orford, with a gorgeous, lightly florid soprano voice. The domestic calm of her scene with the Apprentice while the villagers were at church was heartwarming. Her true concern when she discovered that Grimes had bruised the boy was a demonstration of her practical morality, in contrast to the townspeople’s false piety as they sang hymns and intoned prayers in church. Like Grimes, she was an outsider. She was incredibly moving in the scene in which the townspeople confronted her, and she described the shared dream she briefly shared with Grimes of their life together, ‘We planned this time to share…’ Much later, when she found the pullover she had embroidered for the Apprentice, which signified that he was dead, she sang of her ‘dreams of a silk and satin life’ of luxury, contrasting brutally with the reality of the life that Grimes had forced on her.
The Chorus of Opera North. Credit James Glossop
In 1945, Britten wrote of ‘the perpetual struggle of men and women whose livelihoods are dependent on the sea.’ In the early part of the opera, the townspeople’s struggle to make a living and their genuine fear of the oncoming storm were drawn sympathetically. But they soon displayed the terrifying hypocrisy and brutality of humans united in a group against an outsider. When they formed a lynch mob to flush out Grimes from his hut, one of them carried a cross, giving false religious legitimacy to their mission. There was a terrifying scene when they ripped the head off a life-size effigy of Grimes and waved it triumphantly aloft. They left the stage, revealing the real Grimes as a tragic figure, a sweet violin duet adding to the poignancy. The chorus singing was superb throughout; their spine-chilling cries of ‘Grimes’ will live long in the memory.
Claire Pascoe (Mrs Sedley), Nazan Fikret (First Niece), Ava Dodd (Second Niece), holding the effigy’s head, Blaise Malaba (Hobson), and the Chorus of Opera North. Credit James Glossop
The staging was highly imaginative; there were no fixed sets, which allowed the orchestral interludes to be used for dramatic purposes as mentioned above. A huge net represented, at different times, an actual fishing net, the walls of the pub and a physical barrier between the townspeople and Ellen Orford. At the end, the nets swayed gently in silence as normal life returned to the town, a moment of catharsis after the drama and tragedy we had experienced. Simple wooden platforms were used as furniture in Swallow’s court, as a wooden barrier, and as the walls of a dance hall. Grimes’ hut sprang up before our eyes, with a vertiginous drop.
The supporting cast was very strong. Simon Bailey made a robust and sympathetic Captain Balstrode, with superb diction. Claire Pascoe was excellent as the scheming busybody Mrs Sedley. Blaise Malaba, as Hobson, had a lovely, rich voice, similar to Willard White’s. James Creswell was suitably pompous as the lawyer, Swallow. The two Nieces, Nazan Fikret and Ava Dodd, were flirty but steely when rejecting unwanted advances. Hilary Summers was a characterful, down-to-earth Auntie. There was a gorgeous moment when the Nieces, Auntie and Ellen Orford joined in a Mozartian quartet. As conductor Garry Walker wrote in his programme note, the characters are ‘suddenly furnished with great depth by the quality of the music.’ The Orchestra of Opera North was absolutely superb. They played with passion and precision, inexorably ratcheting up the tension in the most dramatic sections, bringing out all the power and relentless rhythmic energy of Britten’s remarkable score.
Performers
John Findon Peter Grimes, a fisherman Philippa Boyle Ellen Orford, schoolmistress, a widow Simon Bailey Captain Balstrode, retired merchant skipper Hilary Summers Auntie, landlady of The Boar Nazan Fikret First niece, Ava Dodd Second niece: main attractions of The Boar Stuart Jackson Bob Boles,a fisherman and Methodist James Creswell Swallow, a lawyer Claire Pascoe Mrs Sedley, a widow Daniel Norman Reverend Horace Adams, the rector Johannes Moore Ned Keene, apothecary and quack Blaise Malaba Hobson, a carrier Dean Robinson Dr Crabbe Toby Dray John, Peter Grimes’s Apprentice Chorus of Opera North Townspeople and Fishermen Children of the Borough Maneli Bahmanesh, Ethel Brand, Olivia Dunning, Isaac Falkingham Charlotte Gould, Charlotte Handforth, Finlay Lothian Holm, Joni McElhatton, Leon Sumi-Cathcar
Garry Walker conductor Phyllida Lloyd director Karolina Sofulak revival director Tim Claydon revival director/movement director Anthony Ward set and costume designer Paule Constable original lighting designer Ben Jacobs lighting designer
Sources
Garry Walker, To Hear and Sea: A Personal Reflection on Peter Grimes (Opera North Programme Notes) Gavin Plumley The Outsider (Opera North Programme Notes) Andrew Mellor Peter Grimes An Opera for the English (Opera North Programme Notes)
Peter Grimes will be performed at Newcastle Theatre Royal on Friday 20 March at 19.00
A dramatic and deeply devotional performance, part concert, part religious ritual
The Bach Choir, London Youth Choir, Florilegium and conductor David Hill ยฉ Michael Whitefoot
The Bach Choir’s 150th Anniversary season, which opened last October with a superb performance of Mahler’s Eighth Symphony, was marked on Sunday with Bach’s St Matthew Passion, part of the Choir’s repertoire since 1894. For nearly a century, the Choir has performed the work at least once a year, starting with the conductor Adrian Boult in 1930 at the Queen’s Hall, then moving to the Royal Albert Hall. For nearly 70 years, the Choir has performed the Passion annually at the Royal Festival Hall, with a short break during the Pandemic. Sunday’s performance was the 177th by the Choir.
According to Katharine Richman’sย very helpfulย programmeย note, the Choir has usually performed the work on the day of a significant Christian festival associated with the Passion of Christ, such as Passion Sunday, Palmย Sundayย or Good Friday. For the first time onย Sundayย it was performed on the Third Sunday of Lent, which is a less important day in the Christian calendar. But this still felt like a deeply religious occasion, partly due to the request that the audience reserve their applause until the very end of the work, and the fact that the soloists all woreย sombreย clothes. The concert had a devotional, ritualistic feel, enforced by the fact that it started at 11.00 on a Sunday, as Christian services often do;ย this in itself, togetherย with the long lunch break, has become a ritual for these concerts, dating back to at least 1935. The audience played its part, too, sitting in respectful and sometimes spellbound silence as this most moving of narratives gradually unfolded; there was a real sense of this being a special occasion.ย
Bach wrote the Passion in German, his native language (see Bach and Luther below for the importance of this), and it wasn’t until 1930 that the Choir began singing it in English. The composer was keen for his work to communicate in the language of his audience, even though, as Richman writes, it has been a challenge to find an English singing version that matches Bach’s rhythms.
On Sunday, Toby Spence told the story in English as the Evangelist, a superb and tireless communicator, with very clear diction. He sang with a light, lyrical tenor with a touch of vibrato, from within the orchestra, joining the continuo players.
David Hill ยฉ Michael Whitefoot
The Choir opened the concert after a short and stately instrumental introduction. Early Music performances of the Passion use much smaller forces, but the Choir’s decision to use its traditional large forces was completely vindicated by the precision with which they sang, and maintained a long and worthy tradition. The opening chorus, ‘Come, ye daughters, share my weeping’, illustrated the Choir’s excellent diction and conductor David Hill’s superb shaping of the vocal lines. Spread across the choir seats above the stage, the stereo effect created by the two choirs was an important part of the drama (again, see Bach and the acoustics of St Thomas Church below for the significance of this.) The London Youth Choir stood in the middle and often sang together with the adult singers. But the opening chorus was a chance to hear their soaring legato part, sung with great purity, brightness and precision, contrasting with the more staccato-sounding voices. It would be difficult to find choirs, including professional choirs, that could perform the work better than these.
BACH AND LUTHER
Bachโs St Matthew Passion was first performed in St Thomas’s Church nearly 300 years ago, on Good Friday, 11 April 1727, at the Lutheran Vespers. Around 200 years earlier, it’s thought that Martin Luther posted his Ninety-five Theses on the door of All Saints’ Church, Wittenberg, Germany, widely considered the catalyst for the Reformation. Luther’s translation of The Bible into German is thought to have played a crucial role in making it more accessible to the laity. It’s important, therefore, that the text of Bach’s Matthew Passion used a German translation: St Matthew’s Gospel (Chapter 26 and 27) for the narrative, and the work of the German poet Christian Friedrich Henrici (known as Picander) for the reflective arias and choruses.
The bass-baritone Neal Davies played the role of Jesus. A seasoned veteran, Davies won the Lieder Prize at the 1991 Cardiff Singer of the World Competition – 35 years ago – and is still in superb voice. His interpretation was devotional, inward-looking, and thoughtful for much of the first half, reminding us that Christ is often a passive character in this story: the words passion and passive come from the same Latin root (pati to suffer; passivus suffered). His voice was often surrounded by a halo of strings, adding to the profundity of his utterances. As Richman points out, a notable exception to this is in Part Two, where he cried out ‘My God, my God, why has Thou forsaken me’, in an anguished, passionately lyrical voice. After Jesus ‘yielded up the ghost’, there was a profoundly moving silence.
Mezzo soprano Carolyn Dobbin shared Davies’ thoughtful approach: for instance, in her first aria,‘Grief for sin rends the guilty heart within’, with a lovely running accompaniment from woodwind and chamber organ. Her tone was gently conversational with expressive body movements.
We soon heard from soprano Lucy Crowe, who had excelled as Fiordiligi in Mozart’s Cosรฌ fan tuttein Manchester a week earlier. In her aria ‘Break Open, Thou Loving Heart’, she sang with subtle passion, her creamy voice lovingly caressing the words as she immersed herself completely in the music.
There was more, luxury casting in the baritone Christopher Purves, who stunningly sang the title role in Bรฉla Bartรณk’s Bluebeardโs Castleso memorably in Manchester recently. As well as singing the bass arias (of which more later), he sang the smaller roles of Judas, a robust Peter, and an operatic High Priest, and Pilate, communicating urgently with the audience in these character roles.
A highlight of Part One was when the tenor Benjamin Hulett and the Choir sang ‘O grief! how throbs his heavy-laden breast’/’O saviour, why must all this ill befall me?’, the soft-grained warmth of the Choir contrasting with Hulett’s gently operatic voice.
And there was a moment of high drama when the two female soloists sang the lilting duet, ‘Behold, my Saviour now is taken’ while the Choir sang of ‘lightnings and thunders’, superbly articulated and powerful.
One of the balconies at St Thomas Church Leipzig ยฉ Dirk Brzoska and visitsaxony.com
BACH AND THE ACOUSTICS OF ST THOMAS CHURCH
According to Professor Trevor Cox of the University of Salford, in his book Sonic Wonderland: A Scientific Odyssey of Sound, the acoustics of St Thomas Church had a profound effect on the composition of Bach’s Passion, ‘Before the Reformation, the priest’s voice took 8 seconds to die away in the church… In the mid-16th century, galleries and drapes were added that muffled the reverberation, dropping the decay time to 1.6 seconds.’ According to Cox, Bach ‘exploited the reverberance to write more intricate music with a brisker tempo. Cox quotes the acoustician Hope Bagenal, the senior acoustician at the Royal Festival Hall, as stating that the insertion of galleries into Lutheran churches such as St Thomas Leipzig was ‘the most important single fact in the history of music because it leads directly to the St Matthew Passion and [Bach’s] B Minor Mass.’ The balconies that faced each other at St Thomas Church also allowed Bach to write for double choir and orchestra, exploiting the stereo effect to heighten the drama of his music.
In the second half, Hulett returned with the recitative ‘He holds his peace’, demonstrating the quality of his lower range, with lovely legato in contrast with the broken-up chords of the orchestra. Reiko Ichise on Viola da Gamba was stunningly virtuosic here.
Toby Spence, Evangelist and Reiko Ichise, Viola da Gamba ยฉ Michael Whitefoot
The orchestral leaders Huw Daniel and Gabriella Jones provided superb solos in the arias ‘Have Mercy, Lord, in me’ (the renowned aria, Erbarme Dich, mein Gott) for mezzo soprano and the bass aria ‘Give, O give me back my saviour.’
It felt as if the Earth had stopped turning and time was suspended as Lucy Crowe sang her intensely moving aria, ‘For love my Saviour now is dying’, accompanied by high woodwind solos. And there was a remarkable moment as Purves briefly broke down during his recitative describing the ‘evening hour of calm and rest’ after Jesus’ death. Conductor David Hill gently put a hand on Purves’ shoulder in a subtle gesture of humanity.
Lucy Crowe, soprano ยฉ Michael Whitefoot
But Part Two belonged to the Choir, often singing now without scores, adding to the drama as they faced the audience. Their interjections in the scene with Pilate were perfectly controlled. They sang their immensely complex running lines in the chorus ‘He saved others’ with accurate aplomb. Elsewhere, they were suitably mournful and tender, with excellent blend and dynamics. It was appropriate, therefore, that they brought the concert to an end with the final chorus, ‘We bow our heads in tears and sorrow.’ Hill let his hands drop slowly, and after the silence was broken, this spellbinding performance was honoured with a standing ovation.
Lucy Crowe, Carolyn Dobbin, Neal Davies, David Hill, Toby Spence, Christopher Purves, Benjamin Hulett, The Bach Choir, London Youth Choir, Florilegium ยฉ Michael Whitefoot
Repertoire
JS Bach St Matthew Passion
Performers
Toby Spence Evangelist Neal Davies Christ Lucy Crowe Soprano Carolyn Dobbin Mezzo soprano Benjamin Hulett Tenor Christopher Purves Baritone
The Bach Choir London Youth Choir Florilegium director Ashley Solomon Huw Daniel. Gabriella Jones leaders Philip Scriven Organ Continuo David Hill conductor
Sources
Cox, T., Sonic Wonderland: A Scientific Odyssey of Sound (The Bodley Head Ltd, 2014) Richman, K., The Bach Choir and the St Matthew Passion (Programme Note, 2026)
