Category: BBC Philharmonic

Saturday 25 January 2025

Bridgewater Hall, Manchester

****
Senja Rummukainen shines in Elgar’s Cello Concerto; fiery Stravinsky – and Shostakovich in a Modernist Mood

In the first half of Saturday evening’s concert, we were in ‘England’s green and pleasant land’, a phrase coined by poet William Blake and made famous by Hubert Parry in Jerusalem, which he wrote in 1916 during WWI. The two featured English works had strong links to WWI, although neither was directly inspired by the war.

George Butterworth wrote his orchestral rhapsody A Shropshire Lad in 1911 as an epilogue to his song cycle for voice and piano, A Shropshire Lad. His aim was ‘to express the home thoughts of the exiled Lad’, the protagonist of the poems written by AE Housman in 1896. Housman’s poems are preoccupied with early death in war and so became particularly poignant and relevant during WWI. Tragically, Butterworth was killed in action on the Somme in 1916.

Edward Elgar wrote his Cello Concerto, his last major work, just after WWI. In his own catalogue of his works, he wrote ‘Finis. RIP.’ to mark the end of his composing career. A few months after the premiere, his wife Alice sadly died and with her his inspiration to write music, even though he survived her for 14 years.

Although not explicitly written in response to WWI, the concerto is perfused with melancholy and nostalgia. As the cellist Steven Isserlis wrote:

Butterworth’s orchestral lament for loss is primarily based on a theme from Housman’s poem Loveliest of Trees, which was voted one of the nation’s 100 favourite poems in a BBC poll. It has been set to music over 60 times. The poem isn’t about war – the protagonist is 20 years old and anticipates living another 50 years to make up his ‘threescore years and ten’ (the Biblical lifespan of 70 years). The message is that the cherry blossom should be enjoyed while you can, in case life is cut short: carpe diem. The piece ends with a brief instrumental quotation from another of Housman’s Shropshire Lad poems – from the Bredon Hill and Other Songs cycle – With Rue my Heart is Laden, This laments the loss of ‘golden friends I had’. The poem makes it clear later that the friends have died, although again not in war,

By brooks too broad for leaping
The lightfoot boys are laid;
The rose-lipt girls are sleeping
 In fields where roses fade.

On Saturday evening, Butterworth’s piece began with a moment of stasis, long held notes in the lower strings, and a conversation between the woodwind and violas. John Bradbury on clarinet provided the opening statement of the ‘cherry’ theme, which was then passed around the orchestra. One of the joys of this arrangement is hearing the theme of the original theme repeated with varied harmonies and orchestration, sometimes sounding like Debussy, and elsewhere like Vaughan Williams. When the strings took up the theme it repeated itself with romantic sweeps, glowing like a film score.

The moving final section spread the theme across various solo instruments, with solo instruments – violin, viola and clarinet, spellbinding violas, and a glistening orchestral swell. The final, brief flute solo was on the words ‘With rue my heart is laden’. Conductor John Storgårds left a long silence at the end while we contemplated the loss of Housman’s golden friends.

The soloist in Elgar’s Cello Concerto was the young cellist Senja Rummukainen. She first came to public attention in her home country of Finland when she won the Turku Cello Competition ten years ago. She was then a finalist in the International Tchaikovsky Competition.

Many audience members would have been familiar with the Cello Concerto through the famous recording made sixty years ago by Jacqueline Du Pré with the London Symphony Orchestra under Sir John Barbirolli. Sarah Kirkup wrote in Gramophone,

Everyone who saw du Pré play was caught up in the passion she conveyed, even though her wild physical movements were not to everyone’s taste. Perhaps English critics at the time weren’t used to such overt displays of emotion.

From the opening bars, it was evident that Rummukainen’s approach would differ from Du Pré’s. This was an inward, contemplative, quietly intense but equally passionate reading, slower than some other performances, darkly melancholic – expressing the piece, in the words of cellist Steven Isserlis as a ‘poem of regret.’ Isserlis’ description of the poem of the opening as a ‘bold flourish’ and ‘heroic’ didn’t apply here. The introspective cello line was soon joined by meditative woodwind and pensive strings.

Throughout the concerto, Rummukainen quietly dominated the orchestra with a golden thread that cut through orchestral textures. She gave the concerto a valedictory, nostalgic feel, sometimes sounding like a lone voice crying out. Even when the orchestra was let off the leash, it felt stately rather than bombastic. She played with a lovely legato, a continuous line like the best singers. Her pianissimos were spellbinding , profoundly moving, inviting the audience to hold their breath with her.

That’s not to say that her performance was all dark. Her pizzicato playing was whimsical and subtle. At one point, her quicksilver playing, beautifully articulated, was playful, almost jolly. Later, she joined a dance with the orchestra, finally allowing herself to let go a little. Towards the end, she played faster than it’s often performed usual, and conductor John Storgårds brought out the richness of Elgar’s orchestration, with majestic lower strings and rasping brass. This was a stunning interpretation.

Rummukainen, who seemed genuinely pleased to be taking part, returned to the stage to play an encore, a Theme and Variations for solo cello by her compatriot Jean Sibelius. The combination of melancholy and lively music perfectly matched the tone of the Elgar. Rummukainen was virtuosic but not showy, exhibiting the full range of techniques with double-stopping, pizzicato and harmonics, drawing the listener in with a gorgeous tone. She is an exceptional talent.

The second half took us to the dying embers of the Russian Empire and the establishment of the Soviet Union. At the same time as Butterworth was writing his celebration of Englishness, Stravinsky drew on music by Rimsky-Korsakov and Russian folktales to create The Firebird for the 1910-11 season of Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. Ironically, considering that the work has become standard repertoire, Stravinsky was the fourth choice of composer after Alexander Tcherepnin, Anatoly Lyadov and Alexander Glazunov had all been approached.

Stravinsky was praised at the time for the nationalist flavour of his music. One critic said he was the only composer ‘who has achieved more than mere attempts to promote Russia’s true musical spirit and style.’ The composer Sergey Rachmaninov is reported to have said, ‘Great God! What a work of genius this is! This is true Russia!’ Stravinsky left Russia at the start of WWI, and the October Revolution in 1917 left him unable to return to his homeland.

The effect of the October Revolution on Shostakovich was very different. He was only 11 years old in 1917. In 1927, he was commissioned by the Propaganda Department of the State Music Publishing House in the Soviet Union to write a piece celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Revolution, including a choral finale called Dedication to October with words by the ‘proletarian’ poet Alexander Bezymensky, an enthusiastic member of the Bolshevik party.

Although Shostakovich embraced this opportunity to write a work which would become his Second Symphony, in private he agonised over the words, which were a hymn of praise for Lenin, ‘Oh, Lenin! You forged freedom through suffering/You forged freedom from our toil-hardened hands.’ He wrote that the text was ‘repulsive’ and reportedly told the musicologist Boleslav Yavorsky, ‘I’m composing with great difficulty. The Words!!!’ The musicologist Solomon Volkov wrote of the choral section in his 2004 book on the composer, ‘One is tempted simply to cut it off with a pair of scissors.’

The conductor Vasily Petrenko, in his sleeve notes for his complete recording of the Shostakovich symphonies on Naxos with the RLPO wrote,

The second symphony, while not a great work, is for me a genuine, brave response to a commission. He’s showing that he’s learned to write for a larger orchestra and for chorus.

With all the above in mind, it was a relief that the BBC Philharmonic played the symphony so well, convincing sceptics that this is indeed a symphony worth hearing. Petrenko described the first, instrumental, section of the work as, ‘a crazy laboratory of the grotesque in music’, and the orchestra perfectly brought out the avant-garde, modernist nature of the score, which in parts sounded as if it was written yesterday.

The piece began with what sounded like a representation of chaos, mysterious and intense like the Elgar but in a very different way; the Biblical phrase ‘darkness on the face of the deep’ came to mind. After an evocative brass theme, the piece sank into chaos again before a stunning climax and a sudden, unexpected major chord. A robustly romantic violin solo, and woodwind solos, over a low drone, presaged the composer’s later style. The orchestra played with vigorous passion and precision, reaching a phantasmagoric climax, driven by a wild side drum. There was a brief threat of Mahlerian glory (the Phil performed Shostakovich’s Mahler-influenced Fourth Symphony at the Proms last July). But then the music unravelled itself with a jazzy clarinet solo and a spiky tune like the later Shostakovich.

The Second Symphony was written nearly ten years before Stalin’s famous denunciation of Shostakovich’s opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District. After this, the composer spent the rest of his life worrying about persecution. In his 2016 novel, The Noise of Time, Julian Barnes memorably describes the composer standing by the lift in his apartment block, bag packed, waiting to be taken away. But the young Shostakovich obviously thought he could get away with writing avant-garde music (Muddle Instead of Music) as long as he satisfied the Party faithful. Conveniently, he included a noisy siren to announce the choral section and wake Party officials in time for the best bit.

The CBSO Chorus, who had travelled all the way from Birmingham for six minutes of glory, made the most of it. Their superb delivery of the choral section was passionate, fervent, committed and utterly convincing. Lenin and his officials would have been very pleased. The choir sang ecstatically, clearly enjoying themselves, so excited that (as the score demands) they were shouting joyfully at the end. It was a stunning performance, which drew well-deserved enthusiastic applause.

Shostakovich’s Second Symphony has only been performed once in the BBC Proms. In contrast, The Firebird has been performed nearly 70 times at the Proms. Stravinsky wrote three different suites of music from his original ballet The Firebird, published in 1910, 1919 and 1945. The BBC Philharmonic played the 1945 version on Saturday. In 1945 Stravinsky substantially reorchestrated the suite and re-ordered it to allow him to renew the copyright in the US. He sold the rights to the Leeds Music Corporation. He ended up suing them for allegedly producing a jukebox arrangement of one of the dance pieces from the work and stating that the arrangement was Stravinsky’s. A former law student, the composer lost his case for $250,000 in damages.

The 1945 version is less often performed than the 1910 and 1919 suites, so it was fascinating to hear it on Saturday. It’s less lush than the original ballet, and conductor John Storgårds superbly brought out all the details in the 1945 score. It felt more like a tone poem than a ballet, with at times a chamber orchestra clarity. It began with low basses, like the Shostakovich, mysterious but clear, the distinctive theme played with great assurance, beautifully paced.

The ensemble in the strings was stunning, lively, and playful when needed. The orchestra played romantically, casting back to the style of Rimsky-Korsakov when required, but also at times with a spikiness that looked forward to Petrushka, performed by the BBC Philharmonic earlier this season. The woodwind section was superb throughout.

After a very short break, there was an explosion of percussion and brass, like a section from The Rite of Spring, delivered with stunning precision. Passionate swirling strings and virtuosic playing from Paul Patrick on glockenspiel (one of the soloists in Des canyons aux étoiles… in December) brought a visceral thrill. Suddenly, a mysterious vista opened, a moment of revelation, leading to a sense of inevitability in the music, with a gorgeous bassoon theme and shimmering strings. The horn solo, by the excellent Rebecca Levis, led to a tremendous climax as the music built inexorably with an incredible crescendo. The performance ended with a series of precise, almost clipped chords, followed by huge applause.

One of the joys of hearing the BBC Philharmonic live at present is the quality of the individual musicianship within the sections, particularly the woodwind, and the audience reacted with delight as John Storgårds brought them to their feet. There was a lovely moment when percussionist Geraint Daniel, retiring after a career lasting over 40 years, was given a large bunch of flowers to celebrate his final Bridgewater Hall concert with the orchestra.

Programme

George Butterworth Rhapsody: A Shropshire Lad
Edward Elgar Cello Concerto in E minor
Dmitry Shostakovich Symphony No 2 in B major ‘To October’
Igor Stravinsky The Firebird – suite (1945 version)

Performers

BBC Philharmonic
John Storgårds conductor
Senja Rummukainen cello
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra Chorus

Sources

Isserlis, Steven Cello Notes to his recording of Elgar’s Concerto in E minor, Op 85 (Hyperion Records 2016)
Kirkup, Sarah, Jacqueline du Pré and Elgar’s Cello Concerto (Gramophone 25 May 2021) Nguyen, Clara, The Copyright of Spring: Igor Stravinsky and U.S. Law Harvard Undergraduate Law Review (Spring 2020)
Petrenko, Vasily Notes to SHOSTAKOVICH, D.: Symphonies (Complete) (Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Choir and Orchestra, Petrenko) (Naxos)
BBC Proms performance archive

The concert with be broadcast on BBC Radio 3 at 19.30 on Monday 3 February, and will available on BBC Sounds for 30 days