Tag: BBC Philharmonic Orchestra

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BBC Philharmonic Orchestra – New World Symphony – Live review

Saturday 18 April 2026

The Bridgewater Hall, Manchester

★★★★★

Jazz and classical music unite in a stunning celebration of the 250th anniversary of American Independence

Members of the BBC Philharmonic. Image © 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. Dvořák 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 © 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 © 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 … 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 © 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 Dvořák’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 Dvořák’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

‘distinguished by unusual and subtle harmonies, the like of which I have found in no other songs but those of old Scotland and Ireland’. 

The counter-argument is that Dvořák 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 Dvořák’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 © Chris Payne

Dvořák 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)
Antonín Dvořák Symphony No. 9 ‘From the New World’

Performers

BBC Philharmonic Orchestra
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

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BBC Philharmonic Orchestra – Romeo and Juliet – Live Review

Saturday 21 February 2026

Bridgewater Hall, Manchester

*****

Love is a fragile thing: superb performances of Albarn Berg, Sergey Prokofiev and Cassandra Miller by Lawrence Power and the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra

Composer Cassandra Miller, Viola Player Lawrence Power and Members of the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra. Credit: Chris Payne

On The Cure’s comeback album Songs of a Lost World (2024), Robert Smith sang, ‘This love is a fragile thing.’ This line could have been the title of Saturday’s concert by the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of French conductor Ludovic Morlot. The concert featured: Alban Berg’s character Lulu from his opera of the same name, whose relationship with her lovers is ephemeral; the fragility of love, and of human existence, addressed in Cassandra Miller’s I cannot love without trembling; and Sergey Prokofiev’s setting of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet depicting the tragic fate of the ‘star-crossed lovers.’

There was a secondary theme in Saturday’s concert: composers persecuted by the regimes in which they lived, and their attempts to subvert those regimes. Alban Berg had become a successful composer in Germany after the premiere of his opera Wozzeck in Berlin in 1925. But with the rise of the Nazis in the 1930s, it became clear that his next opera, Lulu, was unlikely to be performed in Austria or Germany. The Nazis banned his works in 1935, declaring them to be ‘Entartete Musik’ (Degenerate Music). Berg wrote his Lulu Suite to promote the opera away from the Nazi regime.

At around the same time, Prokofiev returned to the Soviet Union after a period of exile. He was in discussions with the State Academic Theatre (later The Kirov) to develop Romeo and Juliet as a ballet, but the project soon fell foul of the authorities. The Theatre cancelled the project, and the Bolshoi agreed to take it on. The Bolshoi’s director was then arrested and executed, and the production was delayed indefinitely. In 1936, Prokofiev extracted two suites from the ballet to generate interest in the complete work.

The concert on Saturday began with the Rondo, the first movement of Berg’s Lulu Suite. Berg extracted a love scene from Act II of the opera, between Lulu and Alwa, the son of Dr Ludwig Schön, one of Lulu’s various husbands. The opening of the movement was delicate and fragile, with solo flute and strings. Conductor Ludovic Morlot calmly brought out the long-limbed, endless melody and the fragility of the melodic lines. But there was an underlying sense of decadence, the solo alto saxophone (Carl Raven) an instrument of louche debauchery rather than frenetic jazz. There was a moment of stasis, then a rich romantic flow, with denser orchestral textures and added piano. The texture thinned out, with excellent solos from Raven, Clive Williamson (piano), Peter Dixon (cello) and Steven Burnard (viola). The music was constantly reaching for something (love?). In this performance, it felt angular yet romantic, dissonant yet tonal, decadent but beautiful, unsettling yet calm.

Cassandra Miller’s viola concerto, I cannot love without trembling is already an enormous success. Since its premiere three years ago, it has been performed a further 14 times, with two more performances scheduled for May 2026. The concerto takes its title from a quotation from the French philosopher, Simone Weil (1909-1943), in a letter she wrote to another French philosopher, Gustave Thibon,

“Human existence is so fragile a thing and exposed to such dangers that I cannot love without trembling”

Quotation from Weil’s Gravity and Grace, published posthumously by Gustave Thibon

The concerto has four movements or verses with a closing cadenza, each part taking its name from a Weil quotation, and it runs without a break. Weil’s Gravity and Grace describes what separates us and what brings us together, based on the Platonic concept of μεταξύ (‘metaxu’ or ‘metaxy’ meaning ‘between’). Miller heard recordings of the violinist Alexis Zoumbas who left the northern mountains of Greece in the early nineteenth century to go to New York. According to the Mississippi records website,

“Zoumbas had the rare gift of expressing emotion clearly and urgently through his instrument, and his violin feels like an extension of his heart, soul, and the deep musical history of his faraway home in Epirus”

Alexis Zoumbas • Epirotiko Moiroloi from American Museum of Paramusicology

Zoumbas’ improvisations evoke a feeling of Ξενατία (Xenatia), Greek for a ‘catastrophic longing for home’, based on Mοιρολόϊ (moiroloi), Greek mourning songs. Miller internalised Zoumbas’ moiroloi recording by singing along over and over again, creating a sacred ritual based on deep meditation. Miller describes this as ‘automatic singing’, which seems akin to automatic writing.

The result is a spellbinding piece of music in which the audience shares the composer’s dreams and rituals and joins her in the intense sense of mourning and lamentation it conveys. Even the soloist is invited to share this meditative state – at one point the score instructs the violist to play ‘with eyes closed.’ The orchestra is invited to join the collective dreaming, often playing sotto voce, surrounding the soloist with shimmering, muted soundscapes. As Miller says,

“Within Zoumbas’ plaintive song, I sought a metaphysical space in which to dream – a space of separation-connection-absence-presence – in the hope to lament and to dream together in this hall tonight.“

On Saturday, the piece began with murmuring percussion and very high harmonics from Lawrence Power’s viola. He played a rising melody which fractured before establishing itself. We immediately entered a remarkable and unique sound world, as Power played music that trembled, inward-looking, contemplative and keening. The sound was lonely, nostalgic, a voice crying out in the wilderness, lamenting in the depths of sorrow. The cellos joined him from the depths, echoing his sorrow.

A single flute note rang out like a call in the darkest night. The viola joined an octave above, with shimmering accompaniment. The viola sounded like a voice wailing and lamenting, and the orchestra shared the viola’s grief. In the third movement, the viola part was more strenuous, with glowing brass and fluttering woodwind. Trumpets suddenly appeared, playing a robust, anguished theme. The viola was riven with emotion, then dropped out completely. There was a stunning section where the viola obsessively plucked a single note and played a melancholy melody, the bass drum rumbling ominously below. The strings crept in with an evocative sweep, and the harp picked up the viola’s repeated note, which then passed to tubular bells, like a beating heart.

As Power moved towards his final cadenza, a florid piccolo (Jennifer Hutchinson) made a lively announcement. Bowed percussion and bells, with gently-strummed strings, took us to a world beyond the stars. The viola finally took flight with superb virtuosity, playing very fast, and lower down the fingerboard. Power raised his bow above his head as the orchestra gradually died away. A stunning ending to a stunning piece.

For the second time this week, the composer came on to take her applause at the Bridgewater Hall (the first time being when Unsuk Chin came on to acknowledge applause for Le Chant des Enfants des Étoiles performed by the Hallé orchestra and choirs).

Viola Player Lawrence Power, Conductor Ludovic Morlot and Members of the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra. Credit: Chris Payne

The second half of the concert was devoted to Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet, performed on Saturday, not in any of the composer’s orchestral suites, but in a sequence of extracts that broadly told the whole story of the ballet, in four sections.

The music began with a romantic sweep, played with gorgeous ensemble, the lilting strings unaware of the tragedy to come. The orchestra, particularly the bassoons, played the lively, characterful dance of the servants with great joy.

The Young Juliet perfectly captured Juliet’s changing moods, with whimsical, scurrying violins, perfectly controlled, and more expansive playing to represent her contemplative moods. The Dance of the Knights (now known as the theme tune for The Apprentice and also used to introduce Sunderland AFC at the Stadium of Light) raised a smile and a scattering of applause at the end. The players revelled in the descriptive orchestration. The romantic, yearning theme of Juliet on the balcony was magical, with a moment of piety from the organ solo. Ardent strings announced Romeo’s entrance, and the whole orchestra reached for the stars as the lovers danced together.

Fizzing, frenzied themes introduced the fight scenes in the marketplace, distorting the Knights’ theme. A brass chorale sounded a note of threat. The orchestra played with incredible precision as they reached a huge, disturbing climax. Surging, muted horns announced Mercutio’s death, who retained his sense of irony to the end, like a character from Shostakovich’s music. There was an incredibly descriptive moment in the cellos as he fought for his breath, combining precision and emotion. The fierce pitched battle between Romeo and Mercutio was played at heart-racing speed, with savagely loud timpani marking Mercutio’s death.

Stunning pizzicato strings and vengeful brass announced the Capulets intent to avenge Mercutio’s death, with a breathtakingly discordant final chord. An anguished string lament, right at the top of the violins’ range, like some of the viola solos in the Miller piece, as Juliet’s funeral took place. This was genuinely moving, even though we knew she was still alive. Romeo entered, and we shared his regret as the poison took hold and the music sank into darkness. Juliet awoke with a brass chorale as she saw her young lover lying dead. She briefly recalled her joy in sorrow. In a gentle, moving climax, with stunning woodwind harmonies, she stabbed herself. As with any superb performance of a Shakespearean tragedy, we were left emotionally wrung out, with a purging feeling of catharsis.

Conductor Ludovic Morlot and Members of the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra. Credit Chris Payne

Repertoire

Alban Berg Lulu Suite – Rondo
Cassandra Miller I cannot love without trembling (Viola Concerto)
Sergey Prokofiev Romeo and Juliet – The market place – introduction and morning dance (Nos. 1 & 4); At the Capulets’ house – Juliet’s bedroom , the ballroom and the balcony (Nos. 10, 13, 19-21); The market place – Tybalt kills Mercutio and Romeo kills Tybalt (Nos. 32-36); Juliet’s bedroom, the tomb – her funeral and death (Nos. 37, 51 -52)

Performers

Lawrence Power viola
BBC Philharmonic Orchestra
Ludovic Morlot conductor

The concert was recorded for broadcast on BBC Radio 3’s Classical Live on Wednesday 25 March. It will be available for 30 days after broadcast via BBC Sounds.

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BBC Philharmonic Orchestra – Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances – Live Review

Saturday 7 February 2026

The Bridgewater Hall, Manchester

****

French-tinged minimalism, sparkling Ravel and Rachmaninoff’s final orchestral statement

Elisabeth Brauß and members of the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra. Image © Chris Payne

Saturday evening’s concert by the BBC Philharmonic was their first under the baton of Adam Hickox. He’s the son of Richard Hickox, who died nearly 20 years ago at the untimely age of 60. The younger Hickox is now making a name for himself. In 2023, he was appointed Principal Conductor of The Glyndebourne Sinfonia. He’s the new Chief Conductor of the Trondheim Symphony Orchestra in Norway. Later this month, he conducts that orchestra in a programme of Beethoven, Lutosławski and Unsuk Chin, with pianist Paul Lewis, in a concert billed as ‘From Hickox’s treasure chest.’

Camille Pépin © Capucine de Chocqueuse. Source: camillepepin.com

On Saturday, we began with Les Eaux célestes (The Celestial Waters) by Camille Pépin, who was born in France in 1990. Pépin describes her style as ‘at the crossroads of French impression and American contemporary music’, and this is an apt description of the piece. There are echoes of Steve Reich and John Adams in his earlier, more minimalist guise, in its pulsating rhythms and unexpected key changes. In the final section, there’s a conscious nod to Debussy’s Nuages (Clouds) from his Nocturnes.

Pépin’s piece retells an ancient Chinese legend in four movements. Princess Orihime weaves clothes for the gods from the clouds. She falls passionately for Hikoboshi, who tends his cows in the heavens. They forget their duties, and Hikoboshi’s father, the sky god, separates them by placing ‘celestial waters’ in the form of the Milky Way between them. He relents slightly, allowing the lovers to meet once a year. A flock of birds forms a bridge across the Milky Way, allowing the lovers’ joyful reconciliation.

On Saturday, the first two movements, Tisser les nuages (Weaving the clouds) and La Séparation (The Separation) ran without a break. The piece began with spectral sounds, like the fluttering of birds’ wings. Waves of string sound and perpetuum mobile rhythms suggested the weaving of the clouds, with jazzy percussion. Shimmering strings, with the gentle rumble of timpani, suggested the lovers’ mournful separation. A climax with a brass theme and busy percussion depicted the depth of the lovers’ heartbreak.

The third and fourth movements, Les Larmes perlées (The Pearly Tears) and Le Pont des ailes (The Bridge of Wings), ran together, the tempo now slowed to depict Princess Orihime’s tears. Celesta and harp played the tear drops while string harmonics described the tearful clouds. The birds’ wings were delicately drawn as in an impressionist painting, by out-of-phase vibraphone, marimba and celesta. A sudden change led to the resolutely rhythmic climax, and the lovers were finally reunited. This is attractive, evocative music, a satisfying blend of influences, well played here by the BBC Philharmonic.

Elizabeth Brauß, Adam Hickox and the BBC Philharmonic. Image © Chris Payne

There was more French music from Maurice Ravel, his Piano Concerto in G. This is another piece that wears its influences on its sleeve. In 1928, the composer toured the United States and Canada for four months, meeting George Gershwin. He was inspired by the jazz he heard in America, telling an interviewer,

‘Jazz is a very rich and vital source of inspiration for a modern composer, and I am astonished that so few Americans are influenced by it.’

Both his piano concertos are jazz-influenced and were completed between 1929 and 1931. The following year, the composer toured Europe with the Piano Concerto in G, Ravel conducting and Marguerite Long playing the piano. He had originally been billed to appear as the soloist in his own concerto, but a concert advertised in Manchester didn’t appear to go ahead (see below.)

The concert that didn’t happen?

An advert for Ravel’s concert in on 27 February 1932, part of Brand Lane’s series at the Free Trade Hall in Manchester. It appears the concert didn’t go ahead, due to Ravel’s increasing illness and his technical inability to play the piano part of the Concerto in G. The first performance in Britain was recorded as taking place in London on 25 February that year, with Ravel conducting and Marguerite Long playing the piano. Source: author’s collection.

The German pianist Elisabeth Brauß (Brauss) appeared in a sparkling top that matched the concerto’s sparkle. It began with the crack of a whip, like a circus ringmaster announcing the delights that were to come. Gershwin’s influence was clear from the start – his Rhapsody in Blue was written half a decade before the concerto. Brauß’s playing was superb throughout the first movement, beautifully even, gently evocative, stunningly rhythmic and virtuosic, perfectly controlled. She shone in her brief cadenza, and her playing was richly warm when accompanied by the orchestra. The movement ended with a fierce passage rising from the depths of the piano and a robust downward orchestral flourish.

The second movement began in complete contrast, with a gentle piano solo. This was the highlight of the concerto. The opening section has been compared to the simplicity of the works of another French composer, Erik Satie, who died in 1925. Brauß played it supremely evenly, with great compassion and a touch of rubato. This created an anthemic, almost religious feel. The audience listened spellbound. A gentle waltz ensued, with a heartbreaking top note in the melody. When the orchestra crept back in, the mood was perfectly retained. Brauß played the blues notes with perfect composure and conviction. At the end of the movement, the hall was absolutely quiet.

The final movement began with a bang, the orchestral soloists having fun with the Stravinsky-like jollity of their lines. We were back in the world of Gershwin again, almost sarcastically so. Brauß was again in complete control, her playing inventive and jolly. At one point, she set off at great speed, as if playing music for the most frenetic of Warner Bros. cartoons, incredibly virtuosic. The movement ended very suddenly, and there was enthusiastic applause as Brauß smilingly took her bows.

Unusually, we were treated to an orchestral encore, music from Jonny Greenwood’s score for Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2017 film Phantom Thread. Some parts of the score sound like a piano concerto, so this lushly romantic music this was an appropriate choice for an encore. To the amusement of the audience, the piece ended with an unscored phone ringing at the back of the hall.

The Booker prize-winning author has just announced that his latest novel, Departure(s), will be his last: ‘I’ve played all my tunes.’ Whether Rachmaninoff felt the same about his Symphonic Dances, his final completed work, is unclear, as he made no formal announcement to that effect. But the music itself suggests that he was looking back and summarising his career. He summoned up all his considerable power as orchestrator and a tunesmith to write the piece. And he quoted from his earlier works, including his First Symphony and his Vespers. Scattered throughout the work are quotations of the 13th-century plainchant tune Dies Irae (The Day of Wrath) from the Requiem Mass, which he used in several of his works.

Whatever the status of the work, as David Kettle said in his programme note for the concert, the Symphonic Dances is

‘a symphony in all but name – or perhaps, with its showcasing of individual instrumental colours, more of a concerto for orchestra.’

Conductor Adam Hickox. Image © Chris Payne

The piece began with a lively three-note dance theme scattered across the orchestra, and the visceral thrill of the whole orchestra playing pizzicato. Adam Hickox conducted with calm precision and firm control. An orchestral piano was used as a percussion instrument in the style of Stravinsky. Carl Raven played a Russian melody on warm alto sax – an unusual instrument for the composer – surrounded by beautiful orchestral colours. There was superb ensemble from the woodwind, then a sweeping romantic, nostalgic theme for piano and strings that reminded us of the Jonny Greenwood encore. The movement ended with a lovely flute solo from Alex Jakeman.

The brass excelled themselves in the second movement, beginning with anxious, muted chords, leading to a diabolical, swirling waltz. Leader Zoë Beyers superbly played her violin solo with rustic vigour and a touch of sorrow. Hickox had excellent command of rubato, calmly shaping the vast orchestra with an expressive left hand. The music felt uneasy, constantly trying to move into a new key until it finally did. The anxious brass returned, and there was a passage reminiscent of Ravel’s La Valse (1920), although less apocalyptic, evoking a ghostly waltz in a haunted ballroom. There was a moment of ghostly triumph, before an eloquent ending.

In the final movement, the Dies Irae theme began to creep out, becoming more insistent as the movement progressed. Tubular bells struck twelve – the movement was originally called ‘midnight.’ Another diabolical dance began, and there was an incredible climax before the orchestra fell away again, revealing a duet between upper and lower strings. At times, there was a valedictory feel: did Rachmaninoff know that this was his last work after all? Near the end of the movement, the composer wrote ‘Alleluia’ in the score, referring to the Resurrection of Christ in his Vespers and at the end of the score he wrote ‘I thank thee, Lord.’ Did he feel reconciled to death, represented by the ‘Dies Irae’ theme?

After the final gong rang out, there was a silence in the hall, then enthusiastic applause. At one point, Hickox tried to get the orchestra to stand, but they remained seated to acknowledge him instead. Hopefully, this will be the start of a long and fruitful relationship between Hickox and the orchestra.

The BBC Philharmonic and Adam Hickox. Image © Chris Payne

Repertoire

Camille Pépin Les Eaux célestes
Maurice Ravel Piano Concerto in G
Jonny Greenwood House of Woodcock from Phantom Thread (encore)
Sergey Rachmaninoff Symphonic Dances

Performers

Adam Hickox conductor
Elisabeth Brauß piano
BBC Philharmonic Orchestra

The concert was recorded for future broadcast on BBC Radio 3’s Classical Live. It will be available for 30 days after broadcast via BBC Sounds.

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Saturday 24 January 2026

Bridgewater Hall, Manchester

*****

An unforgettable exploration of Bartók’s psychodrama

Jennifer Johnston as Judith, Christopher Purves as Duke Bluebeard and conductor Anja Bihlmaier. Image © Chris Payne

It’s unusual for one concert in an orchestra’s season to follow on from the next, unless they are part of a programmed series, such as a festival devoted to the works of one composer. But Saturday night’s concert by the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, under conductor Anja Bihlmaier, picked up where last week’s concert left off. That concert ended with John Adams’ City Noir, a depiction of Los Angeles at night. Saturday’s concert began with another description of night, Lili Boulanger’s D’un Soir Triste (On a Sad Evening).

The two works share not just a nocturnal theme but, at times, a cinematic landscape, music that could have come from a film noir. This is made explicit by Adams, but Boulanger died in 1918, before film music, apart from music for silent films, even existed, so the link can only be made in retrospect. The concert ended with another cinematic work with darkness at its heart: Béla Bartók’s one-act opera Bluebeard’s Castle.

Boulanger died at the tender age of 24, and the only surviving manuscript for D’un Soir Triste in the composer’s hand is the original version for violin, cello and piano. The orchestral manuscript is in the hand of Lili’s older sister Nadia, who survived Lili by over 60 years.

The piece began with stark, questioning strings, then a sudden moment of calm with a characterful clarinet solo from John Bradbury, of whom we were to hear much more later. The music was dark and sorrowful, with dense textures, casting us back to John Adams’ shadowy streets and culminating in a dramatic climax that could have come from a film noir. An urgently rhythmic theme on the timpani felt like the hammer-blow of fate from Mahler’s Sixth Symphony. There was a moment of magic with a limpid celesta part and an intense cello solo, with romantic harmonies that melted into an ethereal violin theme, before the fateful theme returned with rasping brass. A hymn-like section led to a lovely harmonic development, and another orchestral climax, the sound bright but somehow underpinned by darkness as the piece reached an uneasy end.

 ‘If I were to name the composer whose works are the most perfect embodiment of the Hungarian spirit, I would answer, Kodály.’

Béla Bartók on his friend and colleague Zoltán Kodály

The second piece, Dances of Galánta by Zoltán Kodály, introduced the concert’s other main theme: Hungarian music. Born only a year apart in the early 1880s, Kodály and his friend Béla Bartók were two of the most important 20th-century Hungarian composers. They both collected folk songs for use in their own music. Kodály spent part of his childhood in Galánta, which was then part of Hungary (now in Slovakia). He grew up listening to dances played by ‘a famous Gypsy band which has since disappeared…their music was the first “orchestral sonority” which came to the ear of a child.’

The Dances celebrate a particular kind of dance, the verbunkos (Werbung, German,  recruiting). Hussars would come on recruiting missions and impress the locals with their dancing, alternating slow and fast dances, to persuade them that being in the army was fun. The music was provided by the Gypsy bands that Kodály referred to in the note that he made in the score. He orchestrated Gypsy dances published in Vienna around 1800, in addition writing a slow introduction, a clarinet cadenza, an andante maestoso and linking material.

Conductor Anja Bihlmaier and members of the BBC Philharmonic © Chris Payne

The piece began with cellos playing in perfect ensemble under Bihlmaier’s precise baton, with swirling upper strings. A solo horn sounded like a military horn, perhaps welcoming us into the Hungarian army. A gorgeous romantic statement of the opening theme led to a clarinet cadenza, played by John Bradbury with his usual flair and panache, with elegant orchestral accompaniment. Waves of joy passed through the orchestra as they played the intricate dances, Bihlmaier now dancing on the podium. The woodwinds excelled themselves, sometimes playing with a subtle lilt, at other times with sparkling jollity. A slower dance was reminiscent of the scenes at the fair in Stravinsky’s ballet Petrushka. There was a sudden pause, a brief moment of stasis, then more superb woodwind solos. The orchestra then scampered to a thrillingly visceral climax, bringing the piece to an end. It was such an exciting performance that we might have been persuaded to join the Hungarian hussars…

The second half featured more music with a Hungarian theme, with a text by Herbert Béla Bauer, who wrote under the pseudonym Béla Balázs. He was born a couple of years after Kodály and Bartók. In 1910, Balázs published a version of Bluebeard’s Castle, pragmatically dedicating it to both composers. Kodály wasn’t interested in adapting the drama, but Bartók happily took the bait and finished his one-act opera in 1911. He entered it in two competitions, but it was rejected each time.

The Bluebeard story dates back centuries. It’s thought that the model for the character may have been the 15th-century French lord, Gilles de Rais. In 1697 the French writer Charles Perrault published a collection of folk tale adaptations, Histoires ou Contes du Temps Passé (Stories or Tales of Times Past), including La Barbe Bleu (Bluebeard). The Belgian playwright Maurice Maeterlinck wrote another version, his 1901 play Ariane et Barbe-bleue (Ariana and Bluebeard). The French composer Paul Dukas turned it into an opera in 1907.

Béla Balázs drew on the work of both Perrault and Maeterlinck in creating his 1910 version. He stressed that his version wasn’t a myth, a fantasy or a horror story, but a psychological drama,

‘My ballad is the is the ‘ballad of inner life.’ Bluebeard’s castle is not a real castle of stone. The castle is his soul. It is lonely, dark and secretive; the castle of closed doors.’

He later added a spoken-word Prologue to Bartók’s opera, which hints that the drama is internal,

‘The curtain of our eyelids is raised
Where is the stage: outside or within?’

On Saturday evening, the Philharmonic Orchestra didn’t perform the Prologue, but they brought out the opera’s psychological nature by placing the two protagonists, Christopher Purves as Bluebeard and Jennifer Johnston as his (fourth) wife, Judith, on either side of the conductor, facing the audience, rather than semi-staging the opera. The text, sung in an English translation by Péter Bartók and Peter Hennings (see below), was projected above the stage, so that we could concentrate on the words. And there was evocative use of lighting to represent the different doors – or aspects of Bluebeard’s personality – which Judith was so keen to open and inspect. The use of lights on each orchestral music stand, coupled with BBC Radio 3’s microphones, created the impression of a recording studio, which suggested that the inner life of the music and text was more important than external gestures.

Purves came on wearing a kilt, presumably in honour of Burns Night the following day. Johnston wore a splendid, glittery black top. Purves sang with immaculate diction and a deep, rich, agile voice. Johnston sang with great expression, illustrating the words with her hands and her voice, which was in turn mellow, animated, forceful and Wagnerian, negotiating Bartók’s angular vocal lines with ease. The orchestra played superbly throughout.

Jennifer Johnston © R T Dunphy
Christopher Purves © Chris Gloag


Péter Bartók and Peter Hennings
I was lucky enough to meet Peter Hennings at the concert, who had worked with Béla Bartók’s son Péter (pictured left) on the English translation of the opera, finessing it to fit the metre. Hennings had flown over from Florida specially for the concert. He told me that the original English translation had been based on the German version of the text, whereas Péter Bartók’s version had used the original Hungarian version. Hennings worked with Péter Bartók for 20 years on editions of his father’s music, which went back to the original manuscripts.

In Balázs’ libretto, translated here into poetic and idiomatic English, Judith has left her family ‘weeping’, to marry Bluebeard, despite rumours about what may have happened to his previous wives. Her relationship with Bluebeard is complex. She constantly asks Bluebeard to allow her to see what is behind each of the seven doors of his castle – or to reveal deeper aspects of his personality – despite his warnings that she won’t like what is revealed. Their relationship is close, perhaps unnaturally so, as if they have become co-dependents.

© Chris Payne
© Chris Payne

The first of seven doors revealed Bluebeard’s torture chamber, with superb orchestration, as the stage was bathed in red light. There was deep irony in Judith’s words, ‘Hideous is your chamber, dearest Bluebeard.’ He constantly asked her if she was frightened, and she replied that she wasn’t; perhaps fascination with his psychological state was what she really felt.

The second door revealed Bluebeard’s armoury, the stage bathed in orange to suggest weapons, illustrated by military brass. The third door was illustrated with yellow light, revealing his treasure, but with a disturbing undertone from a violin duet and, later, shrieking woodwind and ominous brass to depict the blood on the treasure. Lilac-coloured lighting illustrated Bluebeard’s garden behind the fourth door, a mellow horn solo and filigree flutes describing the flowers and blossoms, which were tainted with blood. Bluebeard again begged his bride to love him, but not to ask him any questions.

Organist Ben Collyer. Image © Chris Payne

There was an incredible climax, as the orchestra was joined by organ and offstage brass, when door five was opened to reveal Bluebeard’s vast kingdom. A dazzling white light flooded the stage and the hall, so bright that Judith had to cover her eyes. There was a moment of supreme beauty as Johnston twice sang the single quiet phrase, ‘vast and mighty is your kingdom’, contrasting with Purves’ more impassioned singing. The uncertain orchestral themes illustrated the bloody shadows of the clouds.

Judith recovered from her shock and demanded to see behind the sixth door. Johnston’s voice was incredibly powerful, over the full orchestra. A lake was revealed; was Judith as innocent as she appeared when she asked where the water was from? A sweeping, shimmering orchestral theme accompanied the revelation that the lake was made up of tears; were they from Bluebeard’s previous wives?

The Duke’s previous three wives were revealed behind the seventh door, the orchestra in darkness as Judith was bathed in red (blood?) and Bluebeard in white. Johnston was incredibly moving as she bowed her head self-effacingly when comparing herself to Bluebeard’s previous wives, then cried ‘no more’ as she gripped her top in terror.

Bluebeard declared that his fourth wife was the wife of midnight, as he had found her at that time. Henceforth, all would be darkness. In a stunning coup de théâtre, all the orchestral lights went off, one by one, leaving the stage completely dark. It was a relief after the psychological tension we had experienced when the stage was bathed in warm light, as the performers received their huge and well-deserved applause. It was a privilege to be present at such a special event.

The concert was recorded for broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on Thursday 5 March. It will be available for 30 days after broadcast via BBC Sounds.

Performers

Anja Bihlmaier conductor
Jennifer Johnston mezzo-soprano, Judith
Christopher Purves bass-baritone, Duke Bluebeard

Repertoire

Lili Boulanger D’un Soir Triste
Zoltán Kodály Dances of Galánta
Béla Bartók Bluebeard’s Castle

Sources

Mike Ashman, ‘The Castle is his Soul’ (Sleeve note to Chandos recording, 2006)

Read on…

Anja Bihlmaier at Manchester Classical 2025…

Manchester Classical 2025 Day One – Live Review

City Noir by John Adams…

BBC Philharmonic – John Adams, Beethoven and Ives – Live Review

Bartók’s Divertimento….

BBC Philharmonic Orchestra – Serenade for Strings – Live Review
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BBC Philharmonic – John Adams, Beethoven and Ives – Live Review

Saturday 17 January 2026

Bridgewater Hall, Manchester

****

A serene Beethoven piano and two unresolved American orchestral classics from Ives and Adams

Alim Beisembayev (at the piano), John Storgårds and the BBC Philharmonic. Image credit Chris Payne.

Saturday evening’s concert by the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, under their Chief Conductor, John Storgårds, featured two pieces by American composers Charles Ives and John Adams, written a century apart in the early 20th and 21st centuries. They book-ended a piece by Beethoven written in the early part of the 19th century, with the gap between the three works almost exactly 100 years (1805-6; 1908; 2009), providing neat symmetry.

The concert began with The Unanswered Question (1908) by Charles Ives, which he described as a ‘cosmic landscape.’ The piece consists of three layers, beautifully controlled by Storgårds: the opening strings, spellbindingly quiet, representing ‘the Druids Who Know See and Hear Nothing’; a solo trumpet (played here by Tom Fountain) that poses the ‘Perennial Question of Existence’; and a flute quartet that attempts to provide ‘The Invisible Answer.’ The piece ends with the ‘Undisturbed Solitude’ of the Druids, as the Question remains unanswered.

The Unanswered Question by Charles Ives, adapted by Japanese synth pioneer Isao Tomita, from his 1977 album Kosmos

Storgårds barely moved as the bows of the strings seemed suspended in slow motion. The solo trumpeter, Tom Fountain, was almost hidden near the Bridgewater Hall’s organ. The plaintive sound of the trumpet was answered by increasingly discordant flutes, playing a distorted version of the trumpet theme. On a signal from Storgårds, one of the flute quartet conducted her colleagues; one of the remarkable aspects of this piece is that the three groups play in independent tempi. This might have been a spellbinding performance, but unfortunately, our concentration was disrupted by a fourth (unwanted) layer, noisy coughing from the audience.

Alim Beisembayev. Source: alimbeisembayev.co.uk

Like the Ives piece, Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 in G Major (1805-6) also poses a question. It begins with a gentle question from the piano, which the orchestra answers quietly, repeating the piano’s opening theme. But as in the Ives, the answer isn’t quite what we expect: the piano opens in the home key of G major, and the orchestra’s response is in the unrelated key of B major. Nevertheless, the relationship between soloist and orchestra is harmonious. There’s no pitched battle here, as there often is between orchestra and soloist in a concerto. The work is frequently characterised by Mozartian calm rather than Beethovenian muscularity and ferocity. It has a valedictory quality, as if marking the fact that this was the last piano concerto the composer could perform in concert due to his increasing deafness.

The soloist on Saturday was Alim Beisembayev, born in Kazakhstan, who won First Prize at The Leeds International Piano Competition in 2021. He joined the BBC New Generation Artists in 2023, and this was his first concert with them as a graduate of the scheme.

Early in the first movement, a placid, running theme on the upper strings was paired with precisely plucked lower strings, which were very clear in the Bridgewater Hall’s superb acoustic. Glorious, sunny orchestral flowering was similar to the calmer Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony written a couple of years later. There was a brief moment of doubt in the lower strings, but this soon resolved as the orchestra repeated the opening theme. Beisembayev replied with filigree decoration, beautifully even, playing with a lovely touch. He entered a mellow dialogue with the orchestra as they passed through a chromatic palette of keys. In the cadenza, he was mesmerising to watch, playing with more passion and emotion than earlier, then with gorgeous, limpid simplicity.

The second movement of the concerto is unusual in that it is more robust than many. Beisembayev began with a perfectly measured performance of the nostalgic opening theme, but there followed a fretful passage, still beautifully controlled. A forlorn, almost apologetic orchestral theme suggested Beethoven’s sorrow at being forced to abandon performing live. In the final movement, which began without a break, the orchestra and soloist entered into a more relaxed, joyful dialogue. Beisembayev held up the orchestra in a moment of stasis while he performed piano pyrotechnics. They joyfully chased each other through the keys. Beisembayev hurried towards a cadenza-like section, then suddenly stopped and restarted – there was light at the end of the metaphorical tunnel. We had reached the sunlit uplands; the ending was ecstatic.


Scarlatti’s Sonata in G Major, Kk. 13, L. 486, from Beisembayev’s 2021 album The Leeds International Piano Competition 2021 – Gold Medal Winner (Parlophone)

Beisembayev’s encore was Scarlatti’s Sonata in G Major, Kk. 13. He played this complex music with great speed and accuracy, bringing out the individual melodic lines superbly, drawing warm applause from the audience

John Adams’ City Noir was named by the late Andrew Clements of The Guardian in 2019 as one of the best classical music works of the 21st Century. Adams was inspired to write the piece by reading the multi-volume Americans and the California Dream by the American historian Kevin Starr. In particular, he was inspired by the volume Embattled Dreams: California in War and Peace, 1940-1950, which describes the case of the gruesome murder of Elizabeth Short, who became known after her death as Black Dahlia. The story goes that she moved to Los Angeles to become an actress, and she may have been called Black Dahlia after the 1946 film noir The Blue Dahlia. Adams was inspired by the ‘sensational journalism’ of 1940s and 50s California, and the ‘dark, eerie chiaroscuro of the Hollywood films’ of that era to write music for an imaginary film noir. He was also inspired to write ‘jazz-inflected symphonic music’, drawing on models such as Darius Milhaud’s La Création du monde written in 1922 – 23 and Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue written a year later.

John Storgårds and the BBC Philharmonic. Image credit Chris Payne.

The first movement, ‘The City and its Double’, threw us immediately into the cinematic landscape with full orchestra, uncompromisingly dark, with serpentine themes snaking back on themselves. The work’s jazz credentials were immediately obvious, with drummer Ben Gray providing insistent rhythms. The alto sax soloist Carl Raven was superb throughout the whole piece. The movement depicts a boulevard at night, deserted but with an ominous atmosphere, punctuated by moments of terror. The movement had a late-night feel, with a shimmer suggesting the silver screen. There was bright, cinematic music, troubling and virtuosic, creating a glorious cacophony of joy. Adams is a master of orchestral colours and layers, and Storgårds brought out all the detail of this dense score from the vast orchestra.

From out of the chaos arose the alto sax melody of the second movement, ‘The Song is for You’, fluidly played by Carl Raven. In the middle of the intricate orchestral texture, it was a visceral shock to hear a single held note in the violins, before the texture thickened again. There were further solos: Richard Brown played the trombone idiomatically in the style of the ‘talking solo’ performed by Duke Ellington’s band members Lawrence Brown and Britt Woodman, as the orchestra growled beneath; Carl Raven returned with a short riff, entering into frenzied dialogue with the orchestra, contrasting with the tranquil discussions of orchestra and soloist in the Beethoven piano concerto; Steven Burnard brought a lovely warm tone to a brief viola solo.

John Storgårds and the BBC Philharmonic. Image credit Chris Payne.

The third movement began with sultry woodwind, perfectly depicting a ‘Boulevard Night’, ; in the words of the composer, ‘peopled with strange characters.’ We could feel the heat described in harmonic changes. Trumpeter Tom Fountain, the soloist in the Ives, returned with an increasingly virtuosic solo. Furiously rhythmic chords used the whole orchestra as a percussion instrument, recalling Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, as far away from the elegant control of the Beethoven piece as possible. Raven returned with a sensuous solo, described by Adams as ‘brash and uncouth, perfectly characterised. Febrile jazz drumming from Ben Gray, duetting with percussionist Tim Williams, created joyful syncopations which were amazing to watch, bringing the stunning performance of a difficult piece to an end.

Programme

Charles Ives The Unanswered Question
Ludwig van Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 4
John Adams City Noir

Performers

BBC Philharmonic Orchestra
Alim Beisembayev piano
John Storgårds conductor

Source

Programme Note on City Noir by John Adams at earbox.com

The concert was recorded for broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on 27 January. It will be available for 30 days after broadcast via BBC Sounds.

More by the BBC Philharmonic…

BBC Philharmonic Orchestra – Serenade for Strings – Live Review
BBC Philharmonic Orchestra – Mahler’s ‘Titan’ – Symphony No. 1 – Live Review

More music by John Adams in Manchester…

The Hallé – John Adams Conducts the Chairman Dances – Live Review

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2025 – The Year in Classical Music in Manchester (and London, Leipzig and Southwell) – Live Review

Manchester was the place to be for superb performances in 2025

The Year in Classical Music

Sometimes going abroad reminds you how good things are at home. In the spring of 2025, I went to the Shostakovich Festival in Leipzig, featuring world-class performers such as the Gewandhausorchester and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. So it was lovely to return home to Manchester to find performers who are just as good.

This post doesn’t pretend to be a ‘best of’ list. There are plenty of those elsewhere. It’s a look back over some of my personal highlights of the year. I have chosen only one concert or opera from each of the performing groups I reviewed in 2025, to celebrate the music of Manchester… and a few other places too.

Manchester Classical

The biennial Manchester Classical Festival is rapidly becoming a fixture in Manchester.

A highlight on Day One was the concert by Riot Ensemble, who have now chosen Manchester as their home base. As they say on their website,

“Why Manchester? Because the classical music scene here is simply electric: welcoming, ambitious, and fiercely creative.“

Manchester Classical 2025 Day One – Live Review
Manchester Classical 2025 Day Two – Live Review

BBC Philharmonic Orchestra

Under their Chief Conductor, John Storgårds, the BBC Philharmonic has had another excellent year, but I have chosen one of many highlights, the strings of the orchestra in a stunning concert directed from the violin by Leader Zoë Beyers.

BBC Philharmonic Orchestra – Serenade for Strings – Live Review

Manchester Collective

Manchester Collective continued to surprise and delight us with their varied and unusual programmes, always performed with passion and deep humanity. The new piece Wintering by Samantha Fernando gave its name to a concert with The Marian Consort at Stoller Hall in November.

Manchester Collective x The Marian Consort: Wintering – Live Review

The Hallé Orchestra

Kahchun Wong is quickly becoming established as a fine conductor of the Hallé. At their performance of Tchaikovsky’s violin concerto in November, following a successful tour of China, he made a bold statement of intent,

“After China, we have a new mission: to represent Manchester and this region as cultural ambassadors, with your support”

Opera North

Opera North continue to delight us with their productions at the Lowry. Their production of Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman was another triumph, reviewed here in Leeds.

Wagner The Flying Dutchman – Opera North – Live Review

English National Opera

In October, we welcomed English National Opera to the Lowry in Britten’s Albert Herring, their first fully-staged production here. We look forward to many more productions in the future.

Britten – Albert Herring – English National Opera – Live Review

Kantos Chamber Choir

Kantos Chamber Choir provides immersive experiences through its thoughtful programming and staging. One of the highlights of the year was their spellbinding, emotional journey through the Pendle Witch Trials of 1612.

Kantos Chamber Choir – The Witch Trials – Live Review

The Apex Singers

The year ended with a joyful celebration of Christmas in the delightful company of The Apex Singer, a mix of favourites and pieces from their new album Kvällen.

The Apex Singers – Christmas with the Apex Singers – Live Review

Southwell Music Festival

Elsewhere, the Southwell Festival in Nottinghamshire, now in its eleventh year, included another personal highlight, a concert by the Portuguese singer-songwriter Inês Loubet.

Southwell Festival 2025 Day Three – Festival Jazz – Live Review

Bach in Leipzig

Leipzig is one of the most musical cities in the world, home of the Gewandhausorchester and with links to Felix Mendelssohn, Richard Wagner, Robert and Clara Schumann. JS Bach is buried in Thomas Kirche, where he was director of music, so it was profoundly moving to hear his music performed there.

A Visit to Thomas Kirche (St Thomas’s Church) in Leipzig, Home of the Music of JS Bach – Music Across the Generations and Across the Centuries

Mahler’s Symphony of a Thousand in St Paul’s Cathedral

When I sang in the Hallé Choir, I was privileged to perform at the opening concert at Bridgewater Hall in 1996. Before we went on stage, conductor Kent Nagano told us that this was a one-off experience – we would probably never get the chance to sing at the opening of a major international concert hall again. So I can imagine how much it meant for members of London’s Bach Choir to sing in the choir’s 150th anniversary concert at St Paul’s Cathedral in October, a concert that will live long in the memory, for performers and audience alike.

The Bach Choir and the Philharmonia Orchestra – Mahler Symphony No. 8 – Live Review

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BBC Philharmonic Orchestra – Mahler’s ‘Titan’ – Symphony No. 1 – Live Review

Saturday 8 November 2025

Bridgewater Hall, Manchester

****

Elena Schwarz conducts nature-themed Debussy and Mahler, with the Manchester premiere of Dani Howard’s trombone concerto

The BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, conductor Elena Schwarz and trombonist Peter Moore. Photo © Chris Payne

Saturday’s concert at the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester was an exploration of the power of nature, in two great ‘symphonic’ works by Debussy and Mahler, bookending a rare beast, a trombone concerto.

Nature bared its teeth in the opening piece, which was La Mer (The Sea) by Claude Debussy, premiered in Paris in 1905. He began working on it in 1903 in Bichain in Burgundy, central France, well away from the sea. He wrote to the composer André Messager, telling him he was working on the new piece,

‘You’re unaware, maybe, that I was intended for the noble career of a sailor and have only deviated from that path thanks to the quirks of fate. Even so, I’ve retained a sincere devotion to the sea.’

He finished the work in 1905 while staying at the Grand Hotel in Eastbourne. But he didn’t draw inspiration from the sea views there. The composer wrote to his publisher, Jacques Durand, ‘It’s a charming, peaceful spot. The sea unfurls itself with an utterly British correctness.’ He was inspired instead by the sea as depicted by JMW Turner in his seascapes. Turner was sometimes in dispute with what he saw as ‘British correctness’, as portrayed in his sometimes uneasy relationship with the Royal Academy of Arts in Mike Leigh’s 2014 film Mr Turner.

Debussy was also inspired by The Great Wave off Kanagawa by the Japanese Artist Hokusai. He used a reproduction of that print on the cover of the original score. This famous image is stylised but not Impressionistic. In her programme note, Caroline Rae points out that Debussy ‘compared his vibrant orchestration with the paintings of Les Fauves (‘The Wild Beasts’), ‘famed in Paris at the time for their dramatic use of colour.’

The Great Wave off Kanagawa by the Japanese Artist Hokusai. Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art via Wikimedia Commons

On Saturday, the wild beast of the sea was unleashed by the BBC Philharmonic under conductor Elena Schwarz. Her conducting revealed the central paradox of this piece, which Robert Philip describes in his excellent book The Classical Music Lover’s Companion to Orchestral Music,

‘It’s easy to forget that such a well-known orchestral masterpiece, on first hearing, may seem formless, a succession of washes of sound, or a sort of ‘stream of consciousness.’’

This is the effect that Debussy presumably wanted to achieve – the rawness of nature exhibited in the terrible beauty of the sea. As Philps points out,

‘There is nothing vague or haphazard about [Debussy’s] compositional methods. The whole work is carefully structured using a small number of motifs that recur and are transformed.’

Schwarz’s conducting was very precise and measured, superbly controlling the apparent turbulence of the orchestral writing. The opening movement, De L’aube à Midi Sur la Mer (From Dawn to Midday on the Sea) began in a mood of intense quiet, with glittering, shimmering sounds describing the breaking of dawn. There was a beautiful patchwork of orchestral colour, as the sea ceaselessly ebbed and flowed. There were lovely solos from Victoria Daniel (flute), leader Zoë Beyers (violin) and Henrietta Cooke (cor anglais).

In the second movement, Jeux de Vagues (Games of Waves), Schwarz brought out great detail in Debussy’s orchestral colours, such as the glockenspiel played by Paul Patrick at the beginning and end of the movement. She captured the playful joy of the waves, and there was a lovely moment when the precision of the brass was offset against sweeping strings.

The final movement, Dialogue du Vent et de la Mer (Dialogue of the Wind and the Sea, illustrated the sea in all its moods. It began with the ominous rumble of lower strings and percussion, anxious upper strings and roaring brass. A lovely woodwind melody reached for light and hope. Lurching waves in the upper strings were offset against the lower strings, leading to a climax that brought to mind a similar climax in Paul Dukas’ The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, written only a few years earlier, so memorably brought to life in Disney’s Fantasia in 1940. There was a moment of calm with a lovely violin melody, disrupted by sudden danger from the cellos. A yearning, simple melody led to a joyful climax. The sea felt powerful but no longer dangerous. Playful pizzicato on cellos was offset against shimmering brass, before the piece reached a final, stunning climax.

Dani Howard. Source: danihoward.com

Dani Howard wrote her Trombone Concerto in 2021 for Peter Moore (Saturday’s soloist) and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. The COVID pandemic hadn’t struck when the orchestra commissioned the work. By the time Howard began writing, the world was in lockdown, and only key workers were allowed out. The concerto is partly Howard’s tribute to those workers. As Timmy Fisher says in his programme note

‘The everyday heroics of bus drivers and refuse workers were suddenly getting the recognition they deserved. Howard’s concerto is a celebration of these people, and their resolve during the pandemic provides its emotional arc.’

The concerto began with bustling violas in the early Minimalist style of the American composer John Adams, evoking the everyday lives of those workers. The trombone entered with an insouciant four-note theme, which appeared again at the start of the second movement. Howard’s initial instruction to the trombonist is to ‘play as if you are totally oblivious to your surroundings.’ The first movement is titled ‘Realisation’, and it was fascinating to hear the moment when the trombone came into synch with the orchestra, as if suddenly realising the role the key workers had in the pandemic and wondering how to contribute. Moore played with a warm tone and evocative slides. Sometimes his playing was virtuosic, but at other times his instrument was part of the orchestral texture rather than showy. At the end of the movement, there was the first concerto-like moment when the trombone played a lyrical tune accompanied by slow orchestral chords suspended beneath.

The highlight of the concerto was the second movement, ‘Rumination’, in which the solo trombone ruminated on ‘the seed of an idea’ introduced in the first movement. Moore, using that rich tone that we associate with the North’s finest brass bands, was echoed by two muted trombones in the orchestra. A brass band chorale gradually joined, and in this moment of contemplation, it felt as if we were suspended outside time. An eternal melody wound its way gradually from one part of the orchestra to another, with slow-moving blocks of colour. Flourishes from the flutes could have come from La Mer, making this a good companion piece to the earlier piece. Finally, there was a minor explosion from the orchestra, as if a moment of resolution had finally been reached.

The final movement, ‘Illumination’, was written to be ‘as explosively positive as possible.’ It began with more Minimalism from the strings and an angular trombone part. Moore played a stunningly virtuosic passage – his playing had been superb throughout the concerto. After an ecstatic orchestral passage, the piece reached a climactic end. The orchestra smiled and clapped in acknowledgement of Moore’s magnificent playing, and Schwarz picked out the trombonists and brass section for separate applause. There were more smiles from composer Dani Howard as she came on stage to receive her applause.

The BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, conductor Elena Schwarz and trombonist Peter Moore. Photo © Chris Payne

The second half marked a return to the nature theme, in the form of Mahler’s Symphony No. 1, the ‘Titan’. It began with string harmonics and woodwind, creating a sense of stasis followed by expectation as nature came to life, marked by Mahler in the score ‘Wie ein Naturlaut’ (Like a sound of nature). Birdsong was created by a solo clarinet (John Bradbury) as a cuckoo and an oboe (Jennifer Galloway) as a chaffinch. Four offstage trumpets created the sound of hunting horns. Mahler cleverly used the cuckoo’s call to form the opening notes of his song Ging heut’ Morgen über’s Feld from his earlier song cycle Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (Songs of a Wayfarer). As Jo Kirkbride astutely pointed out in her programme note, this was ‘ Mahler’s first gesture towards incorporating song within the symphony.’ The song is the happiest in the cycle, describing the protagonist walking across the fields, singing about how lovely the world is. There were two joyful climaxes, then we returned to the shimmering strings of the opening, with more birdcalls: a moment of quiet joy beautifully shaped by the orchestra under Schwarz. A melody in the cellos, joyful at first, turned darker, but the birds continued singing valiantly. The danger passed, and with a sudden key change, we moved to a rustic, pastoral passage, then a serenely lilting melody. The orchestra reached a glowing climax, excellently played. The movement’s witty false ending elicited a few wry smiles from the audience.

The second movement was a robust country dance of the type that Mahler often brought into his later symphonies. Schwarz became more animated as she conducted the symphony, dancing lightly on her podium, enjoying the repeated melody. There was a slight note of sarcasm from the brass, and the writing became more sophisticated as we passed through the keys. A highlight was the perfectly controlled lower strings. A tentative horn theme led to an elegant trio, beautifully poised.

The Huntsman’s Funeral by Moritz von Schwind, 1850 (Public domain)

The third movement began with a minor-key version of Frère Jacques (Brother John), known to Mahler as Bruder Martin (Brother Martin). This reminded me of the great comedian Bill Bailey’s witty, sarcastic turning of the theme for Match of the Day and the American National Anthem into minor-key laments.  Mahler said the inspiration for the movement came from an illustration in the children’s book ‘The Huntsman’s Funeral.’ We were back in nature again, this time with a sardonic twist. Various forest animals carried the coffin in Moritz von Schwind’s 1850 woodcut. This time, the cuckoo turned his song into Die zwei blauen Augen (my love’s two blue eyes) from Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen. The song has a bitter-sweet quality, with its constant switching between major and minor in the melody, recalling the minor-key transposition of Frère Jacques. Schwarz controlled this section beautifully. The funeral procession returned, darker and more sardonic than before, burying the Frère Jacques tune.

The fourth movement burst in with an anguished climax. The brass was stunning here, providing a visceral thrill. This movement was a showpiece for the orchestra, who played with passion, precision and conviction throughout. It was also a tribute to Mahler’s skills as a composer: despite various revisions and the fact that this was his first symphony, this movement utterly convinces. A confident march with swirling strings was punctured by a little, sarcastic descending theme that kept recurring. A never-ending string melody was decorated by the lovely solo horn played by Mihajlo Bulajic. The anguish of the start returned, with sarcastic trumpets; there was a touch of Wagner in the brass here. An ecstatic climax faded away, giving way to another long-limbed melody on the strings, beautifully played with a sense of inevitability. The cellos took over the melody. In a later symphony, Mahler could have used this to provide a glimpse of heaven, but here it represented a return to the calm of nature. The orchestra reached a sunny climax, all anguish finally gone, then fell away again. A niggling, slightly angry theme on the violas prompted a return to the opening march, now more optimistic. The hunting horns returned, and the orchestra’s struggle felt vindicated. Schwarz leapt on her podium, sharing the pure joy of the end. As directed by Mahler, several brass players stood to deliver a golden theme. We suddenly reached the sunlit uplands, with a huge final flourish. There was massive, and well-deserved applause. Schwarz highlighted individual soloists, all of whom were excellent. Ronan Dunne, the double-bass soloist, gave a lovely little twirl on his bass. Schwarz brought the whole orchestra to its feet, ending a fine performance.

BBC Philharmonic Orchestra
Peter Moore trombone
Elena Schwarz conductor

Repertoire

Debussy La Mer
Dani Howard Trombone Concerto
Mahler Symphony No. 1

Sources

Robert Philip, The Classical Music Lover’s Companion to Orchestral Music (Yale University Press, 2018)
Dani Howard and Timmy Fisher: Sleeve Notes to Dani Howard Orchestral Works (Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra)
Programme notes by Caroline Rae, Timmy Fisher and Jo Kirkbride

Broadcast

The concert concert will be broadcast on In Concert on BBC Radio 3 on 18 November and will be available for 30 days after broadcast via BBC Sounds

Read on…

BBC Philharmonic Orchestra – Mahler Symphony No. 3 ‘The Voice of Nature’ – Live Review
BBC Philharmonic Orchestra – Mahler Symphony No. 9 – Live Review
BBC Philharmonic Orchestra – Fountain of Youth – Live Review
Mahler Symphony No. 8 – Live Review
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BBC Philharmonic Orchestra – Fountain of Youth – Live Review

Saturday 20 September 2025

Bridgewater Hall, Manchester

****

A triumphant opening to the BBC Philharmonic’s new season

Violinist Augustin Hadelich with members of the BBC Philharmonic. Image © Chris Payne

On Saturday evening, Manchester was plagued by heavy rain of almost biblical proportions, causing roads to flood; we saw a stranded car on the drive in. So it was a pleasure to escape the weather and take sanctuary in the Bridgewater Hall, which from the front resembles an ark. A fanfare greeted us, a prelude to the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra’s new season. In the Gallery foyer, no fewer than nine bagpipers were assembled to perform LAD by the orchestra’s new Composer in Residence, Julia Wolfe. The last time the piece was heard in the Bridgewater Hall was when it was performed by Rakhi Singh of Manchester Collective at the Manchester Classical festival in June. The version for bagpipes began with drones, joined by wailing upwards glissandos, marked in the score as ‘slow glisses’. They called to mind the auditory illusion known as the Shepard Tone, an effect Hans Zimmer used in his Dunkirk score, where the music seems to be constantly rising when it’s actually coming back on itself. The pipers played resolutely against the backdrop of a dystopian sky visible thorugh the hall’s huge windows. There were two folky tunes, one marked ‘Slow’, which was slow, and the second marked ‘Fast’, which was fast. It was an invigorating and spectacular opening to the new season.

One of the pipers playing Julia Wolfe’s LAD. Image © Chris Payne

The main concert began with another piece by Wolfe, Fountain of Youth. Composed in 2019 for the New World Symphony youth orchestra, it was heard for the first time in the UK on Saturday. Adam Szabo, the Director of the BBC Philharmonic, announced that Wolfe is ‘our very shiny new composer in residence’, and based on her two pieces, there’s a lot to look forward to in the collaboration.

Juilia Wolfe, the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra’s new Composer in Residence. Image © Peter Serling

Fountain of Youth began with the terrifying scraping of strings and rattling washboards, which sounded like marching soldiers or a huge robot clanking as it walked. Wolfe directed that they should be ‘played like a work ritual.’ A fractured theme rose from the chaos, and a rising string theme reached for the light. The washboards reached a frenzy as a pounding theme emerged with growling brass. A heavy metal drum kit accompanied the orchestra as it wailed and cried like a wounded animal. The music reached a painful climax, then fell away to a single held note – a ray of light amidst the chaos? The piece ended with a frenzied, bacchanalian dance. A viscerally thrilling performance

My fountain of youth is music, and in this case I offer the orchestra a sassy, rhythmic, high energy swim.

Julia Wolfe

This was followed by Prokofiev’s Second Violin Concerto, which he wrote in 1935. It was the last piece he was commissioned to write in Western Europe before returning to Russia the following year. The violin soloist was Augustin Hadelich, another in a long line of world-class soloists booked by the orchestra. The piece began with an unaccompanied theme for solo violin, which Hadelich played with beautiful legato and a gorgeous, rich tone before the theme was passed around the orchestra. A breathtakingly beautiful melody reminded us that Prokofiev was writing his ballet score Romeo and Juliet at the same time. Hadelich provided sweet-toned, virtuosic decoration above the orchestra, before his violin scampered away with majestic ease. There was a spellbinding moment when the orchestra sang the violin’s theme back to him, and he joined in with a luminous descant. The second movement began with the orchestra playing measured pizzicato in a stately dance. Hadelich played a stunning, long-limbed melody, revealing its romantic, fragile beauty. The orchestra danced balletically while the violin pirouetted like a principal ballerina. There was a moment of whimsy and subtlety as Hadelich played a sweet melody above a gentle waltz. The third movement featured passionate precision from Hadelich, the themes rustic yet sophisticated, like a peasant dance performed by a ballet troupe. Castanets provided a Spanish flavour, perhaps added by Prokofiev to celebrate the fact that the work was premiered in Spain. There was a final reprise of the opening rondo theme as the piece dashed to the end. The audience didn’t want Hadelich to leave without an encore, so he obliged with Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson’s Louisiana Blues Strut, ‘A Cakewalk.’ This was a bluesy piece for fiddle, evoking a hoedown as Hadelich donned a metaphorical cowboy hat. He played it superbly, and the audience applauded warmly.

The concert’s second half was devoted to Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony, written in 1888 when the composer was plagued by self-doubt about his creative powers and his poor health. He was heartened by the success of the work’s premiere in September, writing to his brother Anatoly that ‘some even say that it is my best work.’ But by December, he wrote to his patron Nadezhda von Meck saying, ‘I am convinced that this symphony is not a success.’ By March, he told his brother Modest, ‘I love it again.’ The symphony began with a motto that haunts the work, like Banquo’s ghost appearing to Lady Macbeth at the banquet. The orchestra played it with slow, lugubrious deliberation, bringing out the emotion of the theme under John Storgårds’ superb direction. He shaped lovely dynamics and orchestral balance in the movement’s romantic theme, with twinkling woodwind. The orchestra played stylishly as Storgårds brought out colour and detail in the score. The movement ended with a sweeping, romantic theme that led to an epic climax as the players gave it their all, before a descent into the depths. The darkness continued at the start of the second movement as the strings rose from the deep. There was a lovely solo from guest principal horn Olivia Gandee, who played with a warmly nostalgic tone, intertwined with clarinet then oboe. The string playing was ravishing, as Storgårds brought out the richly romantic themes. The movement ended with a series of romantic climaxes played with yearning and longing. The third movement was a delicate waltz, played with charm and quiet joy but with perhaps a touch of sarcasm from the horns. This led immediately to the final movement, with the main motto returning in a major key. If Tchaikovsky had doubts about this movement – and some critics have criticised it as being unconvincing – the orchestra thoroughly assuaged those doubts. They played with great confidence and emotion, and the audience burst into enthusiastic applause at the end. We eagerly anticipate more delights from the orchestra this season, and from Composer in Residence Julia Wolfe.

Augustin Hadelich, John Storgårds and the BBC Philharmonic. Image © Chris Payne

Performers

Bede Patterson, John Mulhearn, Finn MacPherson, Dougal McKiggan, Ailis Sutherland, Lorne MacDougall, Ruairidh Ian Buxon, Rory Campbell, Fionnlagh Mac A’Phiocar bagpipes
BBC Philharmonic
John Storgårds Conductor
Augustin Hadelich violin

Repertoire

Julia Wolfe LAD (Pre-concert performance)
Julia Wolfe Fountain of Youth (first UK performance)
Sergey Prokofiev Violin Concerto No. 2 in G minor
Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson Louisiana Blues Strut ‘A Cakewalk’ (Encore for solo violin)

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 5 in E minor

The concert will be broadcast on Radio 3 in Concert on Tuesday 28 October at 7.30 pm, and will be available for 30 days after broadcast on BBC Sounds

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Manchester Classical 2025 Day Two – Live Review

Musicians from the Hallé, the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, RNCM, The Chorus of ENO and Hallé Choir

Sunday 29 June 2025

Bridgewater Hall, Manchester

For a review of day one of the festival click here and for the opening night click here

Musicians from the Hallé, the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, RNCM, The Chorus of ENO and Hallé Choir
Musicians from the Hallé, the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, RNCM, The Chorus of ENO and Hallé Choir. Image © Alex Burns

Manchester Collective: The Body Electric

The title of Sunday afternoon’s concert, The Body Electric, has been used in many cultural contexts, including music by Weather Report, Rush, The Sisters of Mercy and Lana Del Ray. The phrase comes from an 1855 poem by the American poet Walt Whitman, I Sing the Body Electric. The poem is divided into several sections, each celebrating a different aspect of human physicality. Rahki Singh, Co-Founder and Co-Artistic Director of the Collective, explained that the analogy of the body electric referred to the imaginative structure of the programme – the body as a big house with lots of different rooms, with ‘something new behind each door.’

One of the joys of following the Collective’s work is that the forces always vary from one concert to another – from a fairly large ensemble with choir in Rothko Chapel to a smaller ensemble with African drums, bass guitar, and the fantastic African cellist and singer Abel Selaocoe in Sirocco. On Sunday, the Collective consisted of two musicians, Singh on violin and the cellist and composer Zoë Martlew.

Zoë Martlew
Rakhi Singh and Zoë Martlew
Zoë Martlew
Rakhi Singh
Rakhi Singh and Zoë Martlew. Images © Alex Burns

The concert began with Singh ‘in outer space among the stars’, playing ‘Joy’, the first movement from David Lang’s Mystery Sonatas. Bathed in white light, with the rest of the hall in complete darkness, Singh played on the upper strings and with harmonics to create images of glacial beauty, an icy landscape in the depths of space. The piece had an almost spiritual feel, and Martlew retained the mood of a piece she described as ‘iconic… encoding geometry in sound’, the ‘Prelude’ to Bach’s Cello Suite No.1. Martlew played with a lovely tone, relatively slowly, and with expressive rubato.

Martlew’s response to Bach’s piece was her own composition, G-Lude, commissioned by Spitalfields Festival, and premiered in July 2021. She explained to the audience that she had become weary of live performance and spent lockdown in a ‘state of profound silence, looking out to sea, communing with nature.’ This marked a move from being a cellist to composing. She said her tribute to Bach’s piece was ‘based on the architecture of the original.’ G-Lude is a remarkable, unsettling work. At times, Martlew appeared to be fighting her cello, with exaggerated breathing that was written into the score. She felt like the Jimi Hendrix of the cello, playing like a rock star, with heavy metal riffs, scraped strings and gorgeous harmonics. She put the bow down and ended with a gentle, stately pizzicato.

This segued into Missy Mazzoli’s Vespers for solo violin, which Singh had performed in the Rothko Chapel concert. Embellished by electronics, the amplified violin part features echoed flourishes and long, held chords in the accompaniment. Singh created a vision of light, with a recorded female voice gradually becoming more prominent, creating a cathedral of sound. It was a profoundly moving, spiritual experience, which was enhanced by Martlew’s calm performance of the ‘Allemande and Sarabande’ from Bach’s Cello Suite No.1.

It would have been easy to end the concert with something equally contemplative, but Singh had other ideas. She finished with her arrangement of LAD by Julia Wolfe, written for nine bagpipes and premiered by the Bagpipe Orchestra in New York City in June 2007. Her arrangement was for solo violin and eight pre-recorded violins. Perhaps inspired by Martlew’s rock star stylings, she announced that she would put her violin through an octave pedal, normally used by rock guitarists. She told us the piece would take us to ‘the depth of the earth’ and that the ‘gnarly’ opening always made it feel ‘like her insides had been rearranged.’ Tunes were also promised.

LAD began with a fiercely disquieting, visceral two-note theme and then a terrifying rising phrase. The combination of a drone and this rising phrase created an effect like the Shepard Tone, where an auditory illusion is created of an endless, constantly rising phrase. It’s used very effectively to ratchet up anxiety and tension in Hans Zimmer’s score for Christopher Nolan’s 2017 film Dunkirk, and also by Pink Floyd at the end of their track Echoes. Singh eventually played the folky tune she had promised, an ecstatic smile on her face. A second, folky tune featured an evocative swoop, which brought to mind the stunning score that Jóhann Jóhannsson wrote for Denis Villeneuve’s 2016 film Arrival. A truly cinematic ending to an excellent concert.

Finale

The festival ended with a joyous celebration of classical music in Manchester, with combined forces from the Hallé, the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, the RNCM, the Chorus of ENO and the Hallé Choir, superbly conducted by Alpesh Chauhan.

Alpesh Chauhan.
Aloesh Chauhan. Image © Alex Burns

The concert opened with the pulsating joy of John Adams’ Short Ride in a Fast Machine, with all the musicians playing as one with infectious exuberance under Chauhan’s passionate baton. The audience reaction at the end was highly enthusiastic. The buzz that had been palpable throughout the festival, in the outdoor events as well as those on the main stage, continued right to the end of the festival.

Perhaps the highlight of the Finale was Iain Farrington’s Street Party, which had its world premiere on Sunday. In a fascinating pre-concert talk with Elizabeth Alker, he explained that he had written the new work in a jazzy style, partly inspired by composers like Gershwin and Bernstein, continuing a musical line from Saturday evening’s concert. He said that British orchestras are now used to playing jazz; when Alker asked him whether they might improvise during his piece, he replied, ‘I hope not!’

Farrington’s brief was to write a piece for the final concert in ‘this amazing festival.’ His aimed to create something ‘joyous, celebratory, open and inclusive… with a carnival atmosphere.’ He grew up in the market town of Hitchin in Hertfordshire. Some of his earliest memories are of outdoor festivals and street parties, including one that was closed down by the police because it was too popular (an experience which fed directly into the piece, as we found out later). He wanted to bring ‘outdoor music to an indoor situation.’ Along the way, he gave a huge compliment to Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall, ‘The most amazing concert hall… We’d kill for a hall like this in London.’

Street Party began with rollicking percussion and jazzy brass. There was a series of solo sections for wind, strings, brass and tuba. Farrington explained that this was to showcase the parts of the orchestra, a bit like Benjamin Britten’s Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra. It also sounded at times like the theme tune from an American TV series, of the kind that the late, great Quincy Jones used to write. The chorus joined, with a wordless chant of ‘Na, na, na’, which Farrington said was meant to sound like a crowd singing along at a pop festival. The piece was immediately attractive and moved the feet as well as the soul. At the end, there was an amusing coup de théâtre. Two ‘officers’, from the entertainment division of the police, walked to the front of the hall and ‘arrested’ the composer, presumably for creating excessive joy in a built up area. It was a fair cop.

The Chorus of ENO and Hallé Choir
The Chorus of ENO and Hallé Choir. Image © Alex Burns

Borodin’s Polovtsian Dances provided us with an early opportunity to hear the chorus of English National Orchestra prior to them coming to Manchester later in the year. They didn’t disappoint; the sound was huge but well-balanced. The final piece was Respighi’s Pines of Rome, a chance for the combined orchestra to shine. There was a glittering opening, perfectly describing children playing amongst the pines. In the second movement, luxurious lower strings were joined by evocative, muted horns to create the subdued atmosphere of the Roman catacombs. An offstage trumpet, played in the gallery, had a lovely limpid tone. The plainsong chant of the priests was beautifully evoked as the movement reached its climax. The third movement was a nocturne, which began with a piano motif and a mellow clarinet solo. There was a lovely moment when there was a sudden change of harmony in the strings and heart-meltingly gorgeous orchestral playing in a huge romantic sweep. The recording of a nightingale that the score demands was perfectly blended with the orchestra. To end, we went back in history to the marching of Roman soldiers along the Appian Way, gradually building to a climax with majestic inevitability. Coruscating offstage brass joined, and finally the organ, as the music reached its apotheosis. What a way to end a wonderful festival!

Artists and repertoire

Manchester Collective: The Body Electric

David Lang Mystery Sonatas, mvt 1. Joy
J.S. Bach Prelude from Cello Suite No.1 in G Major
Zoe Martlew G-Lude
Missy Mazzoli Vespers
J.S. Bach Allemande and Sarabande from Cello Suite No.1 in G major
Julia Wolfe arr. Rakhi Singh LAD

Rakhi Singh violin (Co-Founder and Co-Artistic Director of Manchester Collective)
Zoë Martlew cello

Pre-concert talk – Iain Farrington and Elizabeth Alker

Iain Farrington composer
Elizabeth Alker presenter

Finale

John Adams Short Ride in a Fast Machine
Iain Farrington Street Party (world premiere)
Borodin Polovtsian Dances
Respighi Pines of Rome

Alpesh Chauhan conductor
Musicians from the Hallé, the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, RNCM, The Chorus of ENO and Hallé Choir

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Manchester Classical 2025 Day One – Live Review

Riot Ensemble

Saturday 28 June 2025

Bridgewater Hall, Manchester

For a review of the opening night of Manchester Classical, click here and for day two click here

Riot Ensemble
Riot Ensemble. Image © Alex Burns

RNCM Symphony Orchestra and Chorus – Gustav Mahler Symphony No. 2 ‘Resurrection’

Manchester has a long association with Mahler’s music. His Symphony No. 1 was performed in Manchester as long ago as 1913, conducted by Michael Balling, only two years after the composer’s death. Later, Sir John Barbirolli became a great advocate of Mahler with the Hallé, apparently spending nearly 50 hours rehearsing the Ninth Symphony. In 2010, there was an epic cycle of all his symphonies in the Mahler in Manchester series, celebrating the 150th anniversary of the composer’s birth. And one of the early concerts in the newly refurbished RNCM concert hall about a decade ago was a performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, with RNCM forces so big that the chorus had to perform from the balcony above the audience.

Manchester continues to showcase Mahler. The most recent concerts of his symphonies I have heard in the last year are Symphony No. 5 (Sir Mark Elder’s last concert with the Hallé) and the BBC Philharmonic performing Symphony No. 3 and Symphony No. 9 . Mahler famously said, ‘a symphony must be like the world. It must contain everything’, so his Second Symphony, with a vast orchestra, choir and two female soloists, was an excellent way of ensuring that as many members of the RNCM as possible could pack the stage and the Choir seats. The Dutch conductor Antony Hermus gave an insightful analysis of the five movements of the symphony and ended by quoting a Dutch saying, ‘who has the youth has the future’, which certainly applied here.

Members of the RNCM Symphony Orchestra
Members of the RNCM Symphony Orchestra. Image © Alex Burns

Hermus was an undemonstrative conductor but very clear. He brought out the pacing in the first movement with a lovely, slow unfolding of its Wagnerian lines. The audience respected the short silence he requested at the end of the movement (Mahler asked for five minutes). The second movement began with a beautifully controlled Ländler, before a second, more anxious theme, teeming with intense life. It was lovely to see the smiles on the faces of the musicians as they gently plucked the returning Ländler theme. The Scherzo captured the movement’s uplifting joy, lightness, and sarcastic, almost outlandish spirit. After this, we headed without a break to the triumphant final movement. The mezzo-soprano Yvonne Howard, who studied at the RNCM and now teaches there, brought smooth legato lines, with clear diction and a calm stage presence. Scottish soprano Ellie Forrester, who is studying at the RNCM under Mary Plazas, sang with incredible, Wagnerian power, soaring majestically above the huge forces. The two singers were well-matched in their duet. The excellent RNCM Symphony Chorus began singing while seated, with a gorgeous sotto voce. Later, when they stood up, they showed that their voices could match those of the ENO Chorus (who we heard later in the festival) in operatic power and precision. The offstage brass parts brought an evocative depth to the sound. After a series of sensational climaxes from the orchestra, we reached the moment of resurrection. At the end, Hermus thanked the performers for their passion. There was a well-deserved standing ovation from the audience, and a cheer for each section as Hermus asked them to take a bow.

Riot Ensemble: Coral Formations

Riot Ensemble is an international collective of virtuoso musicians, with members and projects across the UK, Germany, Iceland, and beyond. It specialises in contemporary classical music and has given over 350 World and UK premieres by composers from more than 35 countries since 2012. The good news for Mancunian music lovers is that the Ensemble has chosen Manchester as their home base. This was the first concert to mark their new home. As they say on their website,

‘Why Manchester? Because the classical music scene here is simply electric: welcoming, ambitious, and fiercely creative.‘

Violinist and Co-Artistic Director Marie Schreer introduced the two works, both UK premieres. The first was Shrimp BIT Babyface by Alex Paxton, born and bred in Manchester. Schreer said it was a mix of ‘bonkers disco’ and folk music. It started with an eerie violin solo, then an explosion of free jazz cacophony, followed by a gentle electronic section, feeling its way towards a tune. A collection of alarming noises led to more free jazz, and a sound of a tape machine speeding up. There was sometimes a 1960s avant-garde vibe, like John Lennon’s Revolution 9 from The Beatles’ White Album (1968). There was a sudden pause, and the music tried to come together as if the score for a string quartet had been smudged while still wet, accompanied by bleeping electronics. Then there was a jolly folk tune. Followed by frenzied, contrapuntal gaming music. An unhinged disco section with heavy electronic percussion collapsed into utter chaos. All the while, Aaron Holloway-Nahum conducted with admirable resolution and precision. An invigorating performance of a fantastically unnerving and colourful piece, which brought joy and confusion in equal measure – a riotous explosion of euphoria.

Riot Ensemble
Riot Ensemble. Image © Alex Burns

The second, much shorter piece was Seafloor Dawn Chorus by the Norwegian composer Kristine Tjøgerse, who has worked with biologists researching at the Barrier Reef.  Schreer explained that the fish have dawn and dusk choruses, although sadly, they are quieter now. The piece began with slow, contemplative electronics and evocative sound effects. Scraped cello strings, string harmonics and Whirly Tubes created the noises of undersea creatures. Analogue noises replaced the electronics of Paxton’s piece. It gradually gained momentum, then suddenly stopped. If this programme is typical of Riot Ensemble, we have much to look forward to.

BBC Philharmonic Orchestra: Gershwin, Bernstein and Strauss

The BBC Philharmonic has had a superb season. On Saturday evening, German conductor Anja Bihlmaier conducted them in a programme of Strauss, Gershwin and Bernstein, titled ‘Music from Beginnings and Endings’. The concert began with Richard Strauss’s tone poem, Death and Transfiguration, which Bihlmaier described as a natural successor to Mahler 2, with its themes of ‘passion, life, death, and life after death.’ Her conducting was calm at first, as warm strings played at a measured pace with the smooth, luxurious sound we have associated with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra this season, with perfect ensemble. As the piece reached its first climax, Bihlmaier became more animated, expressive and communicative, dancing on the platform. She combined passion with precision, drawing out stunning detail in the orchestral parts. The orchestra responded superbly to her direction, and this was a compelling performance.

Piamist Hayato Sumino with members of the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra
Piamist Hayato Sumino with members of the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra. Image © Alex Burns

The concert continued in a jazzier style with George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue for piano and orchestra. The soloist was the Japanese pianist and composer Hayato Sumino, whose playing was a revelation. He had a lovely touch, with an even tone and impressive weight in the lower register, but also brought out the jazzy elements of the score. At one point, he brought out a small keyboard and perched it on top of the piano, playing solos with his right hand with a clarinet-like sound that matched the famous opening clarinet solo. The orchestra was an able partner, with characterful solos and syncopation so joyful it was difficult to sit still. At the end, Sumino showed the more romantic side of his playing – it would be fascinating to hear him play a romantic piano concerto. He played delicately at the top of the piano, with fantastic speed and precision. Bihlmaier pulled the orchestra tempo back at the end for one final, ecstatic statement of the main theme, and Sumino received a well-deserved standing ovation and roars of ‘bravo.’

The concert ended with more jazz, this time a description of, in the conductor’s words, the very different style of Leonard Bernstein – the grooving vibes of ‘flashy New York’. She reminded us also that Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances from West Side Story are not just ‘nice’ to listen to, but also describe the fight between two gangs from different worlds; universal themes are brought to life by the kaleidoscopic colours of Latin American percussion and rhythms. Like a close-knit jazz band, the orchestra played the syncopated rhythms with style and grace. Bihlmaier swayed to the rhythms, and it was difficult for the audience not to sway with her. They did join in with an ecstatic chant of ‘Mambo’, which she turned round to conduct. The orchestra showed its versatility by playing the romantic melody at the end of the piece like a symphony orchestra performing a romantic symphony. There was another standing ovation, ending a joyful evening.

Anja Bihlmaier told Elizabeth Alker that she had performed at the first Manchester Classical festival in 2023, and that one of her hobbies was collecting t-shirts (worn by staff and volunteers) from the festival. She expressed the popular view that ‘Manchester is second only to London now’ for classical music. Many proud Mancunians – and others from outside the city – would agree.

Artists and repertoire

RNCM Symphony Orchestra: Mahler 2 ‘Resurrection’

Gustav Mahler Symphony No. 2 ‘Resurrection’

Antony Hermus conductor
Ellie Forrester soprano
Yvonne Howard mezzo-soprano
RNCM Symphony Chorus
RNCM Symphony Orchestra

Riot Ensemble: Coral Formations

Alex Paxton Shrimp BIT Babyface (UK premiere)
Kristine Tjøgersen Seafloor Dawn Chorus (UK premiere)

Riot Ensemble
Aaron Holloway-Nahum conductor

BBC Philharmonic Orchestra: Gershwin, Bernstein and Strauss

Strauss Death and Transfiguration
Gershwin Rhapsody in Blue
Bernstein Symphonic Dances from West Side Story

Anja Bihlmaier conductor
Hayato Sumino piano