Sunday’s concert, repeated from last Thursday, was billed as ‘Mullova Plays Brahms.’ It’s been over 40 years since she first came to prominence when she won first prize in the International Jean Sibelius Violin Competition in Helsinki (1980) and the gold medal at the International Tchaikovsky Competition (1982). Her 1986 debut album of the Tchaikovsky and Sibelius violin concertos with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Seiji Ozawa was awarded the Grand Prix International du Disque. Her 1995 album Bach: Partitas For Violin Solo was nominated for a Grammy.
Mullova’s performance of the Brahms concerto was bookended by two orchestral pieces, performed by the Hallé Orchestra under their Principal Conductor, Kahchun Wong, beginning with Wagner’s Tannhäuser: Overture.
“Tannhäuser symbolises the clash between two fundamental principles that have chosen the human heart as their main battlefield – the struggle between flesh and spirit, between hell and heaven, between Satan and God. And this inner conflict is depicted, right from the overture, with unparalleled skill.”
Charles Baudelaire, Richard Wagner et Tannhäuser à Paris (1861)
Wagner’s opera combines the sacred and profane, with appearances by Venus, goddess of love, the spirit of the Virgin Mary and the Pope. But we began with a chorus of pilgrims, a stately woodwind and brass opening. Rich violas and lower strings introduced a romantic string melody. A brass climax led to a section with a falling, repeated violin theme, played more staccato than in many performances. There was a lovely pianissimo as the woodwind and brass theme returned. The orchestra stirred, as, in Wagner’s words, ‘a rosy mist swirls upwards [and] sensuously exultant sounds reach our ears.’ There was some lovely, characterful wind playing and a gorgeous clarinet solo from Sergio Castelló López. Wong beautifully shaped the music as it slowed, then accelerated to a rousing climax, with added percussion, pulsing strings and excitable brass. A falling brass theme, with circling strings, dropped away. The Pilgrims’ Chorus reappeared on woodwind, with swirling strings. Wong’s pacing of the music was lovely here. The music gained sudden energy and headed to a glowing climax with robust, majestic brass. The brass section received well-deserved applause at the end.
“Brahms casts his soloist not as the conventional virtuoso hero but as a thinker and a poet, who is busier than the orchestra but also more inspired.”
As Robert Avis writes in his insightful programme note, Brahms’Violin Concerto depicts the soloist as a ‘thinker and a poet.’ Mullova stood with her back to the audience, facing the orchestra, as if taking in what they had to offer in their introduction. She watched the violins closely, and they duly obliged her by playing superbly. She turned round, and her violin was part of the orchestra’s texture, playing looped arpeggios. The orchestra held back in deference with long chords.
Mullova played with beautiful control and intonation, even on the very highest notes. Her tone was sweet at the top and rich at the bottom. She played a mellower passage superbly, with lovely legato, then dug in more with double-stopping but still maintaining the legato line. The orchestra began to take a more active role, and she elegantly picked up their lilting waltz-like theme. The violin slowed almost to a halt, and there was a lovely contemplative moment with subtly discordant double-stopping. She took over again, her violin projecting over the orchestra as she executed an amazing run from top to bottom of the violin and back again. Even in the most complex parts, her violin tone remained mellow. There was a sorrowful section that Mulllova turned into a spellbinding cadenza, as the audience sat rapt.
At the start of the second movement, the orchestra regained control, as Mullova turned to watch them again. A gently nostalgic horn chorus led to a lovely solo by the oboist Stéphane Rancourt, who had a major role to play in the movement. Mullova turned round to pick up the melody and joined a chamber music section, joined by a small ensemble of horns, woodwind, and violin. She took over, with a wider vibrato and a lush, warm sound, creating a moment of serene beauty. The orchestra rose up to meet her as the violin played gorgeous, long, held notes. A melancholy, melodic section featured a duet with two horns. Mullova’s playing at the end of the movement was ardently, sumptuously romantic.
Brahms wrote the concerto for the Hungarian violinist, composer and conductor Joseph Joachim, and the final movement began with a fiercely rhythmic Hungarian dance. Mullova played joyfully, creating a continuous line with a sweet tone even when playing with the full orchestra. The orchestra shared her joy, playing superbly here. Mullova worked incredibly hard in this movement, reaching a mini-cadenza which the orchestra soon joined, her playing fiercer here. There was a lovely syncopated section with sparkling flutes. The music scampered to the end with a final flourish. An audience member near me uttered ‘Wow!’ Well, exactly!
“The general mood of the work represents, apart from the jesting second movement, a gradual transition from the sternness of the first movement and the lugubrious death-song of the third, to the life-assertion of the last one.”
Béla Bartók, 1944
If the first half of the concert featured a virtuosic soloist, the second half featured a whole orchestra of soloists. Bartók wrote his Concerto for Orchestra in 1943. He had moved to America three years earlier and told his wife, ‘Under no circumstances will I ever write any new work.’ Then the conductor Serge Koussevitzky stepped in and commissioned a new score for the Boston Symphony Orchestra. The composer died in September 1945, but not before he had heard the premiere of his concerto in December of the previous year.
The first movement began with mysterious lower strings and tremolo violins, a magical, almost spiritual sound, the strings playing with superb ensemble. A stunning climax led to an oboe theme with tenative harps, unusually placed in the middle of the orchestra to bring out the detail. The woodwind sparkled, and a brass fanfare splintered into fractured melodies. A robust melody kept trying to start in the lower strings, the violins ran with it, and dashed to a stunning brass fanfare.
Launched by a side-drum, the second movement featured a series of superbly characterful, witty duets, which Bartók marked as ‘couples’: bassoons, oboes, clarinets, flutes and trumpets. A brass chorale, warmly played, and a lovely horn quartet brought brief respite before the duets returned as trios. Wong brought out the detail superbly here, keeping the movement superbly rhythmic.
The highlight of the piece was the ‘lugubrious death-song’ of the third movement, showcasing Bartók at his best. It began with the night music of the first movement, the solo oboe singing like a lonely bird. This passage was reminiscent of the ‘lake of tears’ behind the sixth door in the composer’s Bluebeard’s Castle, written 20 years earlier. The orchestra played with incredible intensity, bringing out the amazing variety of colour. A keening piccolo solo, set against a desolate landscape, brought the movement to a melancholy end.
The fourth movement began with more birdsong and a folky dance as the woodwind shone again. The violas played a huge, Elgarian tune that the violins picked up, echoed by an anxious cor anglais. There was a nod to another great 20th-century composer, Shostakovich, in the sarcastic parody of his Leningrad symphony, superbly played here. But the movement ended with a moment of stasis, with a gently questing flute solo.
The finale began with a stunning horn fanfare and a restless string dance. Wong was more animated here, bringing out the strings that were spinning like a whirligig. A folky dance accelerated, with virtuosic brass, and the strings were almost out of control in ecstasy as they reached a huge climax. After an earlier failed attempt by the woodwind at a fugue, the strings began a fiercely executed fugue of their own. The orchestra played with precise syncopation, before a thrillingly triumphant final statement brought this superb performance to an end. Wong acknowledged all the soloists, which took a while, as there were so many of them. Then, with a cheery wave, he was gone.
Many contemporary artworks and installations describe themselves as ‘immersive’; the word is perhaps overused now. A concert in a former swimming pool (yes, actually in the pool) could have been immersive in another sense, but fortunately, the water had been removed first. For a choral concert to be truly immersive is very unusual, and it’s a tribute to Ellie Slorach, Kantos Chamber Choir’s Creative Director and Conductor, that the concert’s staging was so effective. The music ebbed and flowed, creating a continuous narrative and a musical argument, so that it was sometimes difficult to tell where one piece ended and the next began. The generous acoustics of the former swimming pool immersed us in sound, creating a lovely bloom around the voices, but it was still possible to hear individual voices perfectly. The huge golden sun, or ‘Helios’, created by the artist Luke Jerram, was suspended above us, immersing us in a sun-baked landscape.
Slorach greeted us with a cheery ‘good morning’; it was 5.00 am, and the sun was about to rise. Magically, a Dawn Chorus of singers surrounded us, singing from changing cubicles that were transformed into birdboxes. Above the backdrop of offstage chords, individual singers sang birdcalls. Being neither a twitcher nor an ornithologist, I was only able to identify a cuckoo, but composer David Matthews says ‘they’re not exact replicas, but artistic approximations.’
Meredith Monk’s Early Morning Melody was passed among the singers as they moved around the old baths, processing like monks singing plainsong. Slorach conducted from the middle of the audience as the singers surrounded us, singing Eric Whitacre’s Lux Aurumque(Light and Gold). This piece described ‘Light, warm and heavy as pure gold’, like the sun above us. Whitacre’s falling chromatic harmonies sometimes felt like those of the Italian composer Carlo Gesualdo, born 460 years ago.
The men of the choir dashed to their positions at the front to create the Dawn and Dusk sounds in Ken Stevens’ piece, chanting like the All Blacks performing the Haka. There was clapping, finger-clicking, animal noises, amazing vocal swoops and joyfully syncopated polyrhythms. The Eternal Sun, as depicted by John Tavener, featured lovely key changes and dissonances, uneasily shifting yet ecstatic, while an offstage choir sang fiercely nostalgic chords.
Two composers described the Morning Star. Nathan James Dean took Milton’s words, ‘Now the bright morning Star, Dayes harbinger/Comes dancing from the East’ to create a lively, dancing theme like some of John Rutter’s Christmas carols, with syncopated lower voices. At the end, voices fell over each other like birdsong. Arvo Pärt’s Morning Star was a highlight, with rich, warm vibrato from the basses.
George Harrison’s Here Comes the Sun is The Beatles’ most popular song, with 1,788,000,858 plays (and counting) on Spotify at the time of writing. As the sun rose, the song was uplifting in Kirby Shaw’s close-harmony arrangement. Ben Nobuto’s Solwas a more frantic yet playful view of the sun than Harrison’s gentle, welcoming one. It featured repeated words, snatched syllables, excerpts from romantic songs, and a human menagerie, with manic chatter. This was virtuosic music, virtuosically sung.
The hall darkened, and Eric Whitacre’s gorgeous dissonances returned in Nox Aurumque (Night and Gold), which sings of night and death. This was another highlight, with robust, passionate singing; the sopranos shone on their high notes, and the tenors sang with a bright, ardent tone. Hendrik Hofmeyr’s Desert Sun was a dense, complex song of the Kalamari Bushmen, saluting the setting sun with falling, chromatic melodies at the start and cacophonous chanting later, all beautifully executed by the choir.
Night and sleep came quickly now. Emeli Sandé’s Where I Sleep, arranged by Alexander L’Estrange, felt like a spiritual, with superb tenor and alto solos. Nightfall was depicted by Meredith Monk, with a repeating bass line, as in Purcell’s An Evening Hymn, which begins,
‘Now that the sun hath veil’d his light, And bid the world goodnight; To the soft bed my body I dispose…’
Monk’s piece features wordless voices, but the sentiment is the same. After the complexity of some of the previous pieces, Monk’s simple, tonal world felt cathartic. The choir gradually left the stage, like musicians in Haydn’s FarewellSymphony. Slorach herself then left, leaving a single bass and a soprano decorating the bass line. They left, too, as the birds retreated into their bird boxes again. A stunning end to a concert that was not just a concert, but a life-affirming experience.
Kantos Chamber Choir: Soprano Emily Brown Gibson, Eleonore Cockerham, Felicity Hayward, Sarah Keirle-Dos Santos, Emily Varney Alto Louise Ashdown, Toluwani Idowu, Rachel Singer, Lucy Vallis Tenor Alistair Donaghue, Jonny Maxwell-Hyde, Louis de Satgé, James Savage-Hanford Bass James Connolly, Jonny Hill, Joshua McCullough, David Valsamidis Ellie Slorach Creative Director & Conductor Luke Jerram Artwork
Repertoire
David Matthews Dawn Chorus Meredith Monk Early Morning Melody Eric Whitacre Lux Aurumque Ken Steven Dawn and Dusk John Tavener The Eternal Sun Nathan James Dearden The Bright Morning-Star Arvo Pärt Morning Star George Harrison arr. Kirby Shaw Here Comes the Sun Ben Nobuto Sol Eric Whitacre Nox Aurumque Hendrik Hofmeyr Desert sun Emeli Sandé arr. Alexander L’Estrange Where I Sleep Meredith Monk Nightfall
Luke Jerram’s Helios installation is at Victoria Baths until the 6th April 2026
Jan Vogler travels the world as an internationally acclaimed cello soloist. He was in the UK in February to perform with various orchestras, including a superb performance of Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 1 with the Hallé in Manchester under the baton of Kahchun Wong. He has been Artistic Director of Dresdner Musikfestspiele (Dresden Music Festival) since 2009. The annual Festival was established by government decree in 1978 when Dresden was still part of the German Democratic Republic (GDR).Nick Holmes Music spoke to Jan in New York via Zoom earlier this month.
The Dresden Music Festival
Nick Holmes Music: How did you become involved in the Dresden Music Festival?
Jan Vogler: I developed an interest in festivals in the 1990s. I was very lucky to be a guest artist at the Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont, directed by Rudolf Serkin, when I was a young man. And Serkin was very interested in Eastern European players. He really helped me to get out of East Germany, which was very difficult, to come to Marlboro. And when I came to Marlboro, I saw the combination of excellent musicians, good programming, and a summer atmosphere, and I understood what a festival was right away.
After four summers in Marlboro, I founded the Moritzburg Festival in 1993, together with my brother Kai and a friend who’s also a cellist, Peter Bruns. We learned about financing, ticketing, organisational skills, stage crews, and all the details one needs to know. And by about 2001, I had taken over the running of the festival.
“I like organising…”
I had installed an office in Dresden, had a couple of non-profits supporting the festival, and learned how to direct a festival. Even if you’re called ‘artistic director’, it means you are the one everybody will call when they don’t know what to do. I was fine with that. I like organising. I was always interested in the process: how does music get from the musician to the audience? Because it’s a process that in the 19th century involved musicians much more than today – think about Clara Schumann writing out her own tickets for concerts and inviting guests by handwritten letter.
At the end of the 20th century, we became a kind of protected species, soloists who travel around the world, everybody arranges everything for you, and you’re supposed to just think about your concert. I never really liked that. I wanted to get my hands dirty, wanted to understand how it works, and see if I could help bring the music to the audience in a more innovative way. And that was all expressed in the Moritzburg Festival.
Then in 2007, the mayor of Dresden invited me for lunch, and he said, “Would you be interested in taking over the Dresden Festival?” The festival was not doing too well, and my first thought was, should I really do this? Should I really cut out more time from my playing career to dedicate to the festival? But a lot of people around me, including family and friends, were excited that this would be a great thing for me to apply some of my ideas.
I took the job and started in 2009, and we rebuilt the festival in a more modern way with more entrepreneurial involvement. I wanted to make sure that I applied everything I’d learned in America with the Marlboro Festival, that you can do a festival even if there’s no defined space from the government funding for it before. So I applied some of those experiences to my work with the Dresden Music Festival, and now we have a festival that is up to 80% financed by ticket income and sponsorship, which is very high for Germany and very unusual. So this way we could enlarge our budget, have more wonderful musicians come, and have a more glorious festival.
Artistic Changes
Nick Holmes Music: What’s changed artistically under your control?
Jan Vogler: A lot. My vision was always to both observe changes in classical music that are coming anyway, and at the same time bringing my own ideas to the table. I think every director who ignores the trends in classical music will sooner or later have a problem because the audience is our main supporter. But at the same time, adjusting to what the audience is asking you to do is not always right, because they also want to be led a little bit, and they want the music to be curated as well. So I think finding a good combination of those took about five years.
I started with very high-quality music; I invited all my friends. At this point, my career was going pretty well, so I could invite lots of partners, like Hélène Grimaud, with whom I played duos. Or the New York Philharmonic. I had just played my debut in 2005 and toured with them. So I could ask Zarin Mehta [president and executive director of the New York Philharmonic]. It was a bit scary. He was a very, very strong leader. I wrote an e-mail: “Would you consider coming with the New York Philharmonic to Dresden?” He was like, “Sure, we could come. It will cost a lot of money, but we can raise it together.” And that brought the festival back on the map and also helped with sponsorships and ticket sales.
Other Genres Apart from Classical Music
But then I thought, what about other genres, such as crossover created for example by the Yo-Yo Ma and Bobby McFerrin album [Hush, 1992]. Crossover was already well-established, but it was blooming, and people were listening to playlists across different genres. So I really focused on having all these genres present and started with world music from people like Anushka Shankar. I went to jazz, and even did some rock because I liked British rock music from my childhood on. I’m a big fan of Queen and Eric Clapton.
Eric Clapton came to a concert in London. He didn’t come backstage, but I heard he was there. And then he came backstage at another concert in Edinburgh, and I recognised him, and I was like… starstruck. But then we talked about how strings feel under the fingers, and he asked me how cello strings differ from guitar strings, and he was very interested. I texted him: “Would you consider coming to Dresden to play a concert?” He said, “Yes, if you play along with me.” So we made a deal.
“Classical listeners still whistle pop songs in the shower”
Then I was in London for a Wigmore Hall concert. I had studied all his songs and had studied a little bit of rock and blues. I was super nervous, but everything went well in the rehearsal, and then we played together in the concert. And I really internalised that the same audience that would buy tickets to the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra or the LSO would buy tickets to the Eric Clapton show. It was not a different audience. It was, of course, some new people, but I realised that classical listeners still whistle pop songs in the shower. It was a great honour that Sting came, another hero of mine.
Nick Holmes Music:Was it important to you that Sting is a fellow bass player, playing at the low end of the music?
Jan Vogler: Exactly. I always thought of Sting as his own musical life insurance, the bass line. There was this fantastic bass guitarist in Eric Clapton’s band, and he was my life insurance. I looked at him all the time. If he played a certain note, I knew I was in the right key. But wonderful musicians.
I’m still curious how we can be inventive and progressive with our festival, and I think it helps me that I live in New York, because the two cities are very different. Dresden is a cultural icon and incredibly dense culturally. New York is more artificial because it’s not grown as naturally here, but it’s incredibly lively and incredibly high quality, just like the big British cities like London or Manchester. So it helps me to have this perspective because lots of things will fall through if I look through my New York glasses at the programmes.
“Some human values come into play, which, for me, is important to convey through music; values that are in danger of being lost in every generation“
I want to bring the idea of a globalised cultural world that is still extremely specific in specific places, like, for example, the sound of the Hallé Orchestra compared to the LPO [London Philharmonic Orchestra]. This is wonderful, these differences, but we still have to see it in context, especially when you do a festival. What is so different about the orchestra and the sound, and which repertoire suits them? How can I host a special cultural event in Dresden that represents a certain culture with all its refinements, while still giving you an idea of how big and beautiful our whole world is? So it’s an idea of tolerance, too, and some human values come into play, which, for me, is important to convey through music; values that are in danger of being lost in every generation.
Elgar and the LPO at the Festival
Edward Elgar. Source: Wikimedia Commons
Nick Holmes Music: And talking of the LPO, they’ve got a residency at the festival, haven’t they?
Jan Vogler: That’s very exciting. At first, I think my team was a bit shocked when the idea of an all-Elgar residency came about. The LPO said Edward Gardner [Principal Conductor] would like to do two complete days of Elgar. And I was like, “That is a great idea.” And everybody was shocked. They were very silent. My two artistic administrators looked at me like, “What did he smoke?” I said, “Look, who has ever done this in Germany? When did you last hear an Elgar symphony?” And the LPO are masters of this music. They really know this music better than most performers in the whole world. So why don’t we do it?” And it’s selling very well. So I’m very happy.
Edward Gardner. Photo by Mark Allan
Nick Holmes Music: I come from the land that was famously “without music” for a long time. And then Elgar came along, and we thought, thank goodness we’ve got a good composer, finally. How is Elgar viewed in continental Europe and in New York as well? Because obviously, I view him very much through English eyes.
Jan Vogler: That’s an interesting question. I do feel that Elgar is a little bit like a bathroom where the bathtub overflows. I think the BBC Music Magazine named Elgar’s Cello Concerto the most popular cello concerto. I read that while I was in Great Britain playing Elgar last week, because I did play two Elgars, one with the Hallé in Middlesbrough, and one with the LPO in Eastbourne. It was enlightening to play Elgar with British orchestras because it seems so natural. Mostly, they are more modest than an American or German orchestra playing the Elgar, but sometimes it’s very pompous, but naturally pompous. It’s a little bit like British humour, extremely unique somehow, the way Elgar is played.
I feel in some parts of the world, there’s so much excitement about Elgar. I would say the whole of Great Britain, and then big cities outside of the UK. So if the Elgar Cello Concerto is played in Berlin, Paris or New York, it’s very enthusiastically received. I’m going to play it in Taiwan in a couple of weeks. where I think Elgar is played less. So they asked specifically, “Would you be willing to play the Elgar? We haven’t had that for a while.” And I hear that quite often in some regions. But it’s so popular in so many places that I think it’s spreading very fast. That’s why I said it’s like a bathtub overflowing, because if there is enthusiasm in the world for something, somewhere, it always spreads, because we have such fast communications. We have such wonderful ways to communicate these days that this enthusiasm will be communicated, and therefore, I expect Elgar to still grow.
“That was a mistake I made for 25 years. I always played the [Cello Concerto] so seriously and with so much darkness..”
Now in Germany, The Dream of Gerontius is being played here and there, and there are more pieces being picked up by these orchestras. It used to be entirely the Cello Concerto or Enigma Variations, but now it’s really the full Elgar repertoire that is played by the great orchestras around the world. When I play the piece, I feel that the main thing Jacqueline du Pré invented about Elgar, in a way, that made his Cello Concerto so popular, was that she understood it was a dark piece that was about empire falling and about things crumbling at the time when it was written. But she understood that the enthusiasm in it is probably just as strong.
That was a mistake I made for 25 years. I always played it so seriously and with so much darkness and everything. And the audience went, “Thank you” [he claps politely]. And then I thought, hmm, what is missing? Lately I discovered, it’s this enthusiasm that runs throughout the piece – Elgar always gets up again and he tries again, with this kind of counter-stream of positive energy. I feel that British orchestras know that there has to be positivity, even in darkness.
Nick Holmes Music: But in some ways it’s quite playful, isn’t it?
Jan Vogler: It is quite playful. And we cannot just see this very serious side. Outside of the UK, many, many countries see this as very serious music, and very, very late Romantic. But there is a lot of positive energy that counters that, and then you see the sun, and then you see the clouds closing, and then you see some melancholy, and then it all makes sense. But without this enthusiasm, of which Jacqueline du Pré was the perfect example, the music is not as effective.
Wagner on Period Instruments
Nick Holmes Music: Talking of late 19th-century music takes us to your Wagner project – Götterdämmerung – which is coming up for rehearsal very soon?Tell me about using period instruments in Wagner?
Jan Vogler: Yes, that’s another project that’s a little bit crazy. The outcome was definitely completely unclear when we took it on. But I personally believe very much in period instruments, because my father in East Germany had the early [Nikolaus] Harnoncourt recordings of the Monteverdi operas. So I grew up with these very early Harnoncourt recordings, which were extremely fascinating.
My father was a cellist. Later, he also became a fan of the [Dutch] cellist Anner Bylsma. I found Anner Bylsma’s Bach interpretations, so when I was in school in East Berlin, I was the only one playing these fast tempos in the Bach Cello Suites. And all the teachers were like, “What the hell is he doing?” Because they were still taught by the Russians with these very slow and very heavy tempos.
I studied with Heinrich Schiff, who was close to Harnoncourt and very interested in performance practice. I had a strong interest in bringing the best period instrument groups from all over the world to Dresden, and we did. We founded our own Festival Orchestra playing on gut strings about 12 – 13 years ago, and we thought, what if we get the best players on period instruments to Dresden, and play pieces created in Dresden in the Romantic era, with a different sound from the other orchestras.
That worked well, but it didn’t really make a big wave, because we would have only one or two concerts a year. It would be expensive to get all the musicians, all freelancers, to Dresden: lots of people from the UK, from [John Eliot] Gardiner’s band, and lots of great players from London. That was the first step.
Then Kent Nagano came to me – we are friends, we have played a lot together – and said, “I have this idea about doing The Ring on period instruments.” I started a little bit with Concerto Köln, but there was no chance because we didn’t have the organisational structure, the funding, or enough players. And I said, “Well, I have the [Dresdner] Festspielorchester, and it’s a fabulous group, and you can bring some of your musicians from Concerto Köln, and then maybe we can combine them, and we can attempt to do the whole Ring. I can try, on the fundraising side, to work with the Federal Government in Berlin and integrate the project into the Festival.”
Finding Period Instruments
Nick Holmes Music: In this context, though, I’m really interested to know what you mean by period instruments? You mentioned gut strings, but the symphony orchestra was pretty much established by the end of the 19th century, wasn’t it? So what are you doing that’s different from a modern symphony orchestra?
Jan Vogler: We found some original Wagner Tubas, which were very different from the ones used today. And wind instruments changed a lot during Wagner’s time; they sound a lot thinner and clearer than the wind instruments used later. The wind players who travel around Europe and play period instruments have four different flutes. They have one for 18th-century repertoire, one for early 19th-century repertoire, one for mid-19th-century repertoire, and one for Wagner. They were very excited.
Some of them collect instruments like crazy. We have a trumpet player who collects anything from percussion instruments to trumpets from this time. And he buys them at auctions for very little money. Some of them are original instruments, but they are no longer playable. There are experts in Germany who rebuild these brass instruments for these period players.
“All these little details make a huge difference when added together.”
The discussion about instruments was very detailed, and we had musicologists. That was Kent’s idea. Kent is a very interesting guy. He’s very academically interested, and his idea was to let the musicologists lead. So we have a little army of musicologists who go into the score and sit in on rehearsals. We have one musicologist, Ursula Hirschfeld, just for language, just for the way the German words were pronounced in Wagner’s time. So she would correct the singers all the time.
And all these little details make a huge difference when added together. I would say not every detail is conceivable when you hear just that one detail. But in the end, it’s stunning that, for example, in Die Walküre, when the fire starts around the mountain where Brünnhilde is captured, I suddenly saw the fire: the sound was fascinating. I saw the fire in front of me.
One of Josef Hoffman’s 14 set designs for Wagner’s Rheingold in 1876. Source: Viktor Angerer, via Wikimedia Commons
At the beginning of Rheingold, there’s a lot about running water, and everybody always says, ” Why does [Wagner] stay in the same key for so long at the beginning, and can you please speed up the tempo?” And many conductors tried to do it just faster. Suddenly, it was incredible, with the three Rheintöchter [Rhine Maidens], you could understand every word.
“[Wagner] said, the theatrical effect is most important. If you can sing it, speak it.”
So certain effects are almost like Debussy was later, very descriptive of nature and other subjects. The transparency of the sound allows the singers to have much more differentiation in dynamics. I’m quoting the musicologist because I haven’t read enough; apparently, Wagner liked pronouncing the words very much, sometimes even as spoken words. He said, the theatrical effect is most important. If you can sing it, speak it
And so musicologists pulled up some recordings from singers who worked with Wagner, for example, songs like Erlkönig. And it’s incredible. They change intonation. When it gets depressed, they go lower. They change the tempo all the time. That’s something Wagner encouraged, he said, “change the tempo as often as you want. If it’s dramatic, go faster. If it’s Romantic, take your time.” We learned almost the opposite: to be strict with the tempo and metronome, stay in this tempo, and be very static.
So all these little revelations would add up. For example, Matthias Naske, the director of the Konzerthaus [in Vienna], came to one of our performances in Amsterdam of Die Walküre, and he said it was maybe the most single, most impactful opera performance of his life. I don’t see it this way because I hear it too often. Kent Nagano is a very modest person. He always says, “Well, Jan, it’s different, right?” So it’s definitely different, I would say!
A Different Type of Singer
Nick Holmes Music: You were talking about singers. Does that mean that you can go for a different type of singer? I mean, we’re all familiar with Wagnerian sopranos and tenors, and the huge voices they have to have to rise above a massive orchestra?
Jan Vogler: Exactly, with our Siegfried, it was very much like that. But then, of course, our singers get picked up by the Wagner people because they hear that they’re singing with us. So sometimes it’s hard. We discover a lot of talent this way. We have a wonderful young Norwegian Brünnhilde, Åsa Jäger, who is a huge talent. Now we can hardly book her for our complete Ring because she’s making a big career. People observe her, and they hear her, and say, “Oh, we want to have her – we are fine having some influences from [period] performance practices!” So we lose some of them: Derek Welton has become quite famous. He’s a wonderful Wotan, and of course, now the Deutsche Oper [Berlin] or Bayreuth even ask, “Can we have them as Wotan?” I understand.
Playing the Cello
Jan Vogler with members of The Hallé. Credit: Alex Burns/The Hallé
Nick Holmes Music: How did you find the cello? Were you following in your father’s footsteps, or was there something personal to you about the cello that attracted you?
Jan Vogler: It was put in my hands because my brother had the violin. And so, as the middle child, I got the cello, my sister got the piano. I felt a connection right away, a physical connection to the cello. And I really became very competitive to make it sound better. It was pretty clear when I was something like 10 years old that I wanted to be a cellist. And my luck was that I had two musician parents who were very strict and said, “We know you like to play soccer and meet your friends, but if you want to be a serious cellist and not end up in a very, very depressed situation, you have to practice hard.”
So they took my ambition and kind of weaponised it against me in a very good way. And they knew that teenagers can take a lot of work and a lot of pressure . I was very, very lucky when I was studying to feel that, somehow, with the cello, I’d found something special.
Nick Holmes Music: My wife came with me to watch you doing the Shostakovich at the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester. She said it felt as if the cello was an extension of your own body. Does it feel like that to you?
Jan Vogler: My ideal is to try to forget that it’s a piece of wood with four strings. I’d like to feel that I can make it come alive. And it helps if you have a good instrument. I am very, very fortunate to have a very, very fine instrument. Of course, it helps. And then the cello shows you the way. I don’t think I will ever reach 100%, but I’m trying to make it sound alive so you forget it’s coming from four strings. And that’s the ideal.
Nick Holmes Music: And again, looking back on that concert, I was struck by your playing style. Many players who perform the famous concertos seem to be battling with their instrument. Are you as calm as you look on stage?
Jan Vogler: No, no, no, I’m not! I’m constantly trying to improve things. But what I do feel is that the orchestra is a mass of energy, lots of individuals who unite to give energy. And the soloist has to be a dialogue partner with the orchestra. So I have to be extremely strong, because the orchestra is the energy of 60 people or something like that, with very, very strong players, and I’m alone.
“If something goes wrong, I let it go and do not worry about it”
So I team up with my cello, try to be at one with it, and then talk to the orchestra. So that’s my idea. I’m not at ease, of course. I always have my own struggles like everyone else, but I do feel that if I can somehow create a connection with the cello at home, that is not a discussion at the concert.
Even if something goes wrong, I let it go and do not worry about it, and still keep talking to the orchestra, because the orchestra is my main partner, and the audience is kind of an observer, but once in a while, you can also turn to the audience and preach a little bit. The German way of making music is a little bit like a pastor in church. Sometimes it can be too much, but when we play Bach’s Cello Suites, we tell stories to the audience.
So I feel that in the concerto, you have these few moments when you turn to the audience, but you also have a lot of moments when you try to converse with the orchestra and the conductor. And I felt with The Hallé, it was wonderful, because they were very lively, excellent musicians. And I also had a good connection with Kahchun [Wong]. And he told me afterwards he liked somehow the way I played the Shostakovich, and he said, “Does it have to do with your childhood in East Berlin?” I said, “Who knows, but possibly, you know.” I try not to copy my colleagues, even if I like a colleague very much. I try to find my own way to play.
The Reopening of the Frauenkirche in Dresden
Dresdner Musikfestspiele and Jordi Savall in the Frauenkirche, Dresden. Photo: Oliver Killig
Nick Holmes Music: Yes, and talking about East Berlin, I think one of the highlights of your career to date has been performing at the reopening of the Frauenkirche in Dresden in 2005, after it had been destroyed in WWII. And as an East Berliner, as an East German, how did that feel?
Jan Vogler: I was in the green room preparing a few minutes before, and I couldn’t feel anything. I was like, “Just remember the piece. Is everything okay?” I was very prepared, I must say, and I had created a good connection with Lorin Maazel during the rehearsals, thank God, because he was supposed to be a difficult man. He was very kind to me, almost fatherly. I had worked with the New York Philharmonic before. I recorded Dvořák’s Cello Concerto a year before with the New York Philharmonic and David Robertson. So I knew the orchestra a little bit, and Maazel had accepted me. That was a big compliment already.
So there I was in my green room, I thought, okay, this is one of those concerts. You just focus on this. My father was there. My father didn’t want to come initially. He didn’t come to many of my concerts. He was too scared. I had exceeded his expectations, I think. For him to sit in the audience, and I’d be on the stage, and anything could happen, I think it scared him very much.
But he did come to Dresden, and my mum was there. And then I came on stage and I focused and when the whole thing was done, I felt like, okay, I had I played my Schumann and the Colin Matthews, the way I could play it. And my father came, and he said, “Well done.” That was the biggest compliment he would ever give by far. But that he accepted my playing that night was already a lot.
“It was one of those moments when you can’t fold, you have to hold on”
And then I thought, the orchestra accepted [my playing], the conductor, my partners, the audience had lots of tears because the event itself, you know? But it was one of those moments when you can’t fold, you have to hold on, because your career will always have these moments, and often you play a piece that’s dear to you. If you’re lucky, you can play the Schumann or Shostakovich. Those are some of my favourite pieces. You can play something you can tell a story about, then people will trust you, maybe with more work.
It was almost like my audition in Dresden when I became principal cellist [at the Staatskapelle, at the age of 20]. Dresden. It was similar. I worked very hard. To my surprise, I got the job, and then I knew, okay, this is just the first step. Now you have to focus and learn all this music.
The Rebuilding of Dresden
The ruins of the Frauenkirche in Dresden in the early 1990s. Credit: Alison Howe
Nick Holmes Music: How do you feel about the rebuilding of Dresden? Is that something that moves you?
Jan Vogler: Yes, it does. I guess every generation feels that, but do we keep all the memories of history, have we learned the right lessons from history? I still remember my grandmother telling me how she took my father and his brother to the basement when there were fire alarms in Leipzig, and how she wrapped them in wet towels so they wouldn’t catch fire, if there was a fire. I grew up with the Cold War, and there was a constant fear that the whole situation would explode. And then 1989 came, and we were all like, “Oh my God, we have new hippies or something!”
The rebuilt Frauenkirche in Dresden, showing how existing stonework was incorporated in the new church
And then the Frauenkirche was rebuilt, and it became a symbol of the healing of the wounds of war and the whole of Dresden is a testimony to this incredible story of how humans can overcome great tragedies. So it does move me very much, and I get shivers when I talk about it, because I feel, aren’t those the great stories of humanity that we can overcome something? Those things, I think, are wonderful.
“We are all humans, and don’t we all want peace, harmony, and fun?“
If humans could sometimes forget the past and move on, and say, “let’s just do something positive,” remember the past as a learning experience, and go into the future with a fresh, open heart.And that’s what we all felt in the Frauenkirche, because we felt like we were enemies in the war, but aren’t we all humans, and don’t we all want peace, harmony, and fun? It was really, really very basic in a way.
And I just played last week, excuse me for the digression, but it was really wonderful. I just played the Schumann Concerto in Seattle with Xian Zhang, who was Assistant Conductor to Maazel during the concert. She said, “Oh, you don’t have to play the Schumann for me because I remember it. I was sitting in every single rehearsal.” She also remembered that trip as one of the highlights of her life.
Nick Holmes Music: Thank you very much. It was a real pleasure speaking to you today.
Jan Vogler: Same here, same here!
This interview has been edited for length and clarity
The Dresden Music Festival, ‘Lightness of Being’, runs from 14 May to 14 June 2026. For more information, click here
A viscerally powerful production of Britten’s masterpiece
John Findon as Peter Grimes and Philippa Boyle as Ellen Orford. Credit James Glossop
In his programme note for Opera North’s performance of Peter Grimesat Lowry in Salford on Friday, Andrew Mellor compares the central character in the opera with the Peter Grimes of George Crabbe’s poem The Borough (1810) that provided Benjamin Britten’s inspiration,
[Grimes] appears in just one poem out of Crabbe’s 24. He does so as a scoundrel: a villain unequivocally guilty of murder. As they sketched out their scenario, [Peter] Pears (destined for the title role) and Britten reimagined the character.
Britten, his partner Peter Pears and the librettist Montagu Slater turned Grimes into a morally ambiguous anti-hero, a dreamer and a visionary with a darker, more violent side – like Shakespeare’s Hamlet. In doing so, they raised profound questions about the nature of society and its relationship with outsiders. Phyllida Lloyd’s stunning production takes Britten’s subtle characterisation and adds a further layer of complexity, providing empathy without denying the violent volatility of Grimes’ character: a tragic hero for our troubled times.
John Findon (Grimes) and Toby Dray (John, Grimes’ Apprentice) in Grimes’ hut. Credit James Glossop
In Lloyd’s production, the opera opens in silence with the half-naked figure of Grimes dead on the stage; in the libretto, we learn that Grimes’ boat is ‘sinking at sea’, but we don’t see his body. In the scene in the pub, where Grimes sings his aria ‘Now the Great Bear and Pleiades’, the townspeople gradually rise from the floor and seem briefly to share his vision of the stars beyond our world, before dismissing him as ‘mad. or drunk.’
Later, we see the second Apprentice walking above the stage, before his death, in a ghostly vision, like the ghost of Hamlet’s father on the battlements at Elsinore. Grimes reacts in horror at this premonition of the boy’s death. In a dumb show, we see Grimes and Ellen Orford married (‘I’ll marry Ellen’) and celebrating with the townspeople, illustrating his vision of marital bliss, ‘in dreams I’ve built myself some kindlier home.’ His vision is brutally shattered.
Like many contemporary directors, Lloyd uses the orchestral interludes (four of which Britten later arranged as the orchestral suite Four Sea Interludes) to add further layers to the story. (Britten wrote them to cover scene changes while the curtain was down.) Lloyd uses the fifth interlude at the start of Act III as a threnody for Grimes’ second Apprentice, as Grimes carries the dead boy and holds him aloft in agony. The contrast with the dance music’s frivolity as the townspeople come onstage is heartbreaking.
Friday evening’s performance was a revival by director Karolina Sofulak of Lloyd’s production. The tenor John Findon played the central character in an intensely moving and powerful portrayal. We shared his dreams and recoiled at his violence. He projected his voice superbly, and coped with the high tessitura of the part wth ease. His lower register had a lovely, rich baritonal quality. He was a brooding physical presence, in Britten’s words, a ‘visionary and highly skilled fisherman, [who] is very unpopular with the community, just because he is different.’
Philippa Boyle was a hugely sympathetic Ellen Orford, with a gorgeous, lightly florid soprano voice. The domestic calm of her scene with the Apprentice while the villagers were at church was heartwarming. Her true concern when she discovered that Grimes had bruised the boy was a demonstration of her practical morality, in contrast to the townspeople’s false piety as they sang hymns and intoned prayers in church. Like Grimes, she was an outsider. She was incredibly moving in the scene in which the townspeople confronted her, and she described the shared dream she briefly shared with Grimes of their life together, ‘We planned this time to share…’ Much later, when she found the pullover she had embroidered for the Apprentice, which signified that he was dead, she sang of her ‘dreams of a silk and satin life’ of luxury, contrasting brutally with the reality of the life that Grimes had forced on her.
The Chorus of Opera North. Credit James Glossop
In 1945, Britten wrote of ‘the perpetual struggle of men and women whose livelihoods are dependent on the sea.’ In the early part of the opera, the townspeople’s struggle to make a living and their genuine fear of the oncoming storm were drawn sympathetically. But they soon displayed the terrifying hypocrisy and brutality of humans united in a group against an outsider. When they formed a lynch mob to flush out Grimes from his hut, one of them carried a cross, giving false religious legitimacy to their mission. There was a terrifying scene when they ripped the head off a life-size effigy of Grimes and waved it triumphantly aloft. They left the stage, revealing the real Grimes as a tragic figure, a sweet violin duet adding to the poignancy. The chorus singing was superb throughout; their spine-chilling cries of ‘Grimes’ will live long in the memory.
Claire Pascoe (Mrs Sedley), Nazan Fikret (First Niece), Ava Dodd (Second Niece), holding the effigy’s head, Blaise Malaba (Hobson), and the Chorus of Opera North. Credit James Glossop
The staging was highly imaginative; there were no fixed sets, which allowed the orchestral interludes to be used for dramatic purposes as mentioned above. A huge net represented, at different times, an actual fishing net, the walls of the pub and a physical barrier between the townspeople and Ellen Orford. At the end, the nets swayed gently in silence as normal life returned to the town, a moment of catharsis after the drama and tragedy we had experienced. Simple wooden platforms were used as furniture in Swallow’s court, as a wooden barrier, and as the walls of a dance hall. Grimes’ hut sprang up before our eyes, with a vertiginous drop.
The supporting cast was very strong. Simon Bailey made a robust and sympathetic Captain Balstrode, with superb diction. Claire Pascoe was excellent as the scheming busybody Mrs Sedley. Blaise Malaba, as Hobson, had a lovely, rich voice, similar to Willard White’s. James Creswell was suitably pompous as the lawyer, Swallow. The two Nieces, Nazan Fikret and Ava Dodd, were flirty but steely when rejecting unwanted advances. Hilary Summers was a characterful, down-to-earth Auntie. There was a gorgeous moment when the Nieces, Auntie and Ellen Orford joined in a Mozartian quartet. As conductor Garry Walker wrote in his programme note, the characters are ‘suddenly furnished with great depth by the quality of the music.’ The Orchestra of Opera North was absolutely superb. They played with passion and precision, inexorably ratcheting up the tension in the most dramatic sections, bringing out all the power and relentless rhythmic energy of Britten’s remarkable score.
Performers
John Findon Peter Grimes, a fisherman Philippa Boyle Ellen Orford, schoolmistress, a widow Simon Bailey Captain Balstrode, retired merchant skipper Hilary Summers Auntie, landlady of The Boar Nazan Fikret First niece, Ava Dodd Second niece: main attractions of The Boar Stuart Jackson Bob Boles,a fisherman and Methodist James Creswell Swallow, a lawyer Claire Pascoe Mrs Sedley, a widow Daniel Norman Reverend Horace Adams, the rector Johannes Moore Ned Keene, apothecary and quack Blaise Malaba Hobson, a carrier Dean Robinson Dr Crabbe Toby Dray John, Peter Grimes’s Apprentice Chorus of Opera North Townspeople and Fishermen Children of the Borough Maneli Bahmanesh, Ethel Brand, Olivia Dunning, Isaac Falkingham Charlotte Gould, Charlotte Handforth, Finlay Lothian Holm, Joni McElhatton, Leon Sumi-Cathcar
Garry Walker conductor Phyllida Lloyd director Karolina Sofulak revival director Tim Claydon revival director/movement director Anthony Ward set and costume designer Paule Constable original lighting designer Ben Jacobs lighting designer
Sources
Garry Walker, To Hear and Sea: A Personal Reflection on Peter Grimes (Opera North Programme Notes) Gavin Plumley The Outsider (Opera North Programme Notes) Andrew Mellor Peter Grimes An Opera for the English (Opera North Programme Notes)
Peter Grimes will be performed at Newcastle Theatre Royal on Friday 20 March at 19.00
The Bach Choir’s 150th Anniversary season, which opened last October with a superb performance of Mahler’s Eighth Symphony, was marked on Sunday with Bach’s St Matthew Passion, part of the Choir’s repertoire since 1894. For nearly a century, the Choir has performed the work at least once a year, starting with the conductor Adrian Boult in 1930 at the Queen’s Hall, then moving to the Royal Albert Hall. For nearly 70 years, the Choir has performed the Passion annually at the Royal Festival Hall, with a short break during the Pandemic. Sunday’s performance was the 177th by the Choir.
According to Katharine Richman’s very helpful programme note, the Choir has usually performed the work on the day of a significant Christian festival associated with the Passion of Christ, such as Passion Sunday, Palm Sunday or Good Friday. For the first time on Sunday it was performed on the Third Sunday of Lent, which is a less important day in the Christian calendar. But this still felt like a deeply religious occasion, partly due to the request that the audience reserve their applause until the very end of the work, and the fact that the soloists all wore sombre clothes. The concert had a devotional, ritualistic feel, enforced by the fact that it started at 11.00 on a Sunday, as Christian services often do; this in itself, together with the long lunch break, has become a ritual for these concerts, dating back to at least 1935. The audience played its part, too, sitting in respectful and sometimes spellbound silence as this most moving of narratives gradually unfolded; there was a real sense of this being a special occasion.
Bach wrote the Passion in German, his native language (see Bach and Luther below for the importance of this), and it wasn’t until 1930 that the Choir began singing it in English. The composer was keen for his work to communicate in the language of his audience, even though, as Richman writes, it has been a challenge to find an English singing version that matches Bach’s rhythms.
On Sunday, Toby Spence told the story in English as the Evangelist, a superb and tireless communicator, with very clear diction. He sang with a light, lyrical tenor with a touch of vibrato, from within the orchestra, joining the continuo players.
The Choir opened the concert after a short and stately instrumental introduction. Early Music performances of the Passion use much smaller forces, but the Choir’s decision to use its traditional large forces was completely vindicated by the precision with which they sang, and maintained a long and worthy tradition. The opening chorus, ‘Come, ye daughters, share my weeping’, illustrated the Choir’s excellent diction and conductor David Hill’s superb shaping of the vocal lines. Spread across the choir seats above the stage, the stereo effect created by the two choirs was an important part of the drama (again, see Bach and the acoustics of St Thomas Church below for the significance of this.) The London Youth Choir stood in the middle and often sang together with the adult singers. But the opening chorus was a chance to hear their soaring legato part, sung with great purity, brightness and precision, contrasting with the more staccato-sounding voices. It would be difficult to find choirs, including professional choirs, that could perform the work better than these.
BACH AND LUTHER
Bach’s St Matthew Passion was first performed in St Thomas’s Church nearly 300 years ago, on Good Friday, 11 April 1727, at the Lutheran Vespers. Around 200 years earlier, it’s thought that Martin Luther posted his Ninety-five Theses on the door of All Saints’ Church, Wittenberg, Germany, widely considered the catalyst for the Reformation. Luther’s translation of The Bible into German is thought to have played a crucial role in making it more accessible to the laity. It’s important, therefore, that the text of Bach’s Matthew Passion used a German translation: St Matthew’s Gospel (Chapter 26 and 27) for the narrative, and the work of the German poet Christian Friedrich Henrici (known as Picander) for the reflective arias and choruses.
The bass-baritone Neal Davies played the role of Jesus. A seasoned veteran, Davies won the Lieder Prize at the 1991 Cardiff Singer of the World Competition – 35 years ago – and is still in superb voice. His interpretation was devotional, inward-looking, and thoughtful for much of the first half, reminding us that Christ is often a passive character in this story: the words passion and passive come from the same Latin root (pati to suffer; passivus suffered). His voice was often surrounded by a halo of strings, adding to the profundity of his utterances. As Richman points out, a notable exception to this is in Part Two, where he cried out ‘My God, my God, why has Thou forsaken me’, in an anguished, passionately lyrical voice. After Jesus ‘yielded up the ghost’, there was a profoundly moving silence.
Mezzo soprano Carolyn Dobbin shared Davies’ thoughtful approach: for instance, in her first aria,‘Grief for sin rends the guilty heart within’, with a lovely running accompaniment from woodwind and chamber organ. Her tone was gently conversational with expressive body movements.
We soon heard from soprano Lucy Crowe, who had excelled as Fiordiligi in Mozart’s Così fan tuttein Manchester a week earlier. In her aria ‘Break Open, Thou Loving Heart’, she sang with subtle passion, her creamy voice lovingly caressing the words as she immersed herself completely in the music.
There was more, luxury casting in the baritone Christopher Purves, who stunningly sang the title role in Béla Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castleso memorably in Manchester recently. As well as singing the bass arias (of which more later), he sang the smaller roles of Judas, a robust Peter, and an operatic High Priest, and Pilate, communicating urgently with the audience in these character roles.
A highlight of Part One was when the tenor Benjamin Hulett and the Choir sang ‘O grief! how throbs his heavy-laden breast’/’O saviour, why must all this ill befall me?’, the soft-grained warmth of the Choir contrasting with Hulett’s gently operatic voice.
And there was a moment of high drama when the two female soloists sang the lilting duet, ‘Behold, my Saviour now is taken’ while the Choir sang of ‘lightnings and thunders’, superbly articulated and powerful.
According to Professor Trevor Cox of the University of Salford, in his book Sonic Wonderland: A Scientific Odyssey of Sound, the acoustics of St Thomas Church had a profound effect on the composition of Bach’s Passion, ‘Before the Reformation, the priest’s voice took 8 seconds to die away in the church… In the mid-16th century, galleries and drapes were added that muffled the reverberation, dropping the decay time to 1.6 seconds.’ According to Cox, Bach ‘exploited the reverberance to write more intricate music with a brisker tempo. Cox quotes the acoustician Hope Bagenal, the senior acoustician at the Royal Festival Hall, as stating that the insertion of galleries into Lutheran churches such as St Thomas Leipzig was ‘the most important single fact in the history of music because it leads directly to the St Matthew Passion and [Bach’s] B Minor Mass.’ The balconies that faced each other at St Thomas Church also allowed Bach to write for double choir and orchestra, exploiting the stereo effect to heighten the drama of his music.
In the second half, Hulett returned with the recitative ‘He holds his peace’, demonstrating the quality of his lower range, with lovely legato in contrast with the broken-up chords of the orchestra. Reiko Ichise on Viola da Gamba was stunningly virtuosic here.
The orchestral leaders Huw Daniel and Gabriella Jones provided superb solos in the arias ‘Have Mercy, Lord, in me’ (the renowned aria, Erbarme Dich, mein Gott) for mezzo soprano and the bass aria ‘Give, O give me back my saviour.’
It felt as if the Earth had stopped turning and time was suspended as Lucy Crowe sang her intensely moving aria, ‘For love my Saviour now is dying’, accompanied by high woodwind solos. And there was a remarkable moment as Purves briefly broke down during his recitative describing the ‘evening hour of calm and rest’ after Jesus’ death. Conductor David Hill gently put a hand on Purves’ shoulder in a subtle gesture of humanity.
But Part Two belonged to the Choir, often singing now without scores, adding to the drama as they faced the audience. Their interjections in the scene with Pilate were perfectly controlled. They sang their immensely complex running lines in the chorus ‘He saved others’ with accurate aplomb. Elsewhere, they were suitably mournful and tender, with excellent blend and dynamics. It was appropriate, therefore, that they brought the concert to an end with the final chorus, ‘We bow our heads in tears and sorrow.’ Hill let his hands drop slowly, and after the silence was broken, this spellbinding performance was honoured with a standing ovation.
Toby Spence Evangelist Neal Davies Christ Lucy Crowe Soprano Carolyn Dobbin Mezzo soprano Benjamin Hulett Tenor Christopher Purves Baritone
The Bach Choir London Youth Choir Florilegium director Ashley Solomon Huw Daniel. Gabriella Jones leaders Philip Scriven Organ Continuo David Hill conductor
Sources
Cox, T., Sonic Wonderland: A Scientific Odyssey of Sound (The Bodley Head Ltd, 2014) Richman, K., The Bach Choir and the St Matthew Passion (Programme Note, 2026)
English National Opera is rapidly establishing a foothold in Manchester, with appearances at the Manchester Classical festival last summer, a production of Benjamin Britten’s Albert Herring at Lowry, and a forthcoming production of the new opera Angel’s Bone by the Chinese composer Du Yun at Aviva Studios in May. Last weekend, ENO performed Mozart’s Così fan tutte on Friday and Saturday in a semi-staged version at the Bridgewater Hall.
Alexander Joel conducted the orchestra, which was on stage throughout, in a stylish rendition of the overture, with well-controlled tempi, a fleetness of foot and a lovely lilting motion. The orchestra continued with precision and excellent ensemble throughout the evening.
Andrew Foster-Williams, as Don Alfonso, the cynical schemer behind the opera’s partner-swapping shenanigans, was nattily dressed as a ‘spiv’ in a bright yellow suit and white-topped shoes. He sang with a rich, warm voice and excellent diction, relishing his role. Lucy Crowe, as Fiordiligi, was luxury casting, with a gorgeous, creamy soprano. Mezzo Taylor Raven was Dorabella, with a lovely edge to her voice and magnificent control. Her early duet with Crowe, where they proclaimed that without their lovers they would be in despair, was delightful, their voices perfectly matched.
Darwin Prakash sang Guglielmo with a substantial baritone voice, easily filling the Bridgewater Hall’s cavernous acoustic. Joshua Blue, as Ferrando, sang with great animation. Both singers clearly enjoyed the physical comedy their roles provided. They clearly relished their roles as the disguised lovers, overacting deliciously as they declared their ‘love.’ But there was genuine emotion when Blue sang his ardent aria, ‘I know she adores me’ and broke down. An early highlight was when all five of these singers sang together; Don Alfonso’s comment ‘What a performance’ seemed appropriate here.
But the soprano Ailish Tynan, singing with an Irish accent as the maid Dorabella, stole the show. It was impossible to take your eye off her when she was on stage; she was a superb character actor, drawing all the comedy out of any situation with conspiratorial glances and rolled eyes. Even the way she walked was amusing. Yet she was more than just a character actor; her singing in the aria on fidelity was stunning. She had great fun when she dressed as the ‘doctor’, in a suit and a white Einstein fright wig and moustache. Her high notes were astonishingly good here.
The chorus of English National Opera appeared in the final gala concert of Manchester Classical last year, and also entertained the crowd outside the Bridgewater Hall in operatic excerpts. It was good to see them in a full-length opera, although Mozart doesn’t give them a great deal to do. They sang robustly from the Choir Seats in front of the Hall’s magnificent organ. They enthusiastically waved flags as Ferrando and Guglielmo headed off to war, in the splendid chorus ‘It’s a soldier’s life for me.’ Whether they were waving goodbye with their flags or using them for semaphore as in the Monty Python Wuthering Heights sketch was unclear.
At the start of Act Two, Tynan had another chance to shine as she wittily explained that even a chambermaid such as her could attract admirers. She excelled herself near the end of the opera when she came on dressed as a lawyer, a ‘cowboy’ in both senses of the word, with a prodigious Stetson and an American accent to match. She did a line dance as she described her legal practice, making Saul Goodman (the lawyer from Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul) seem prim and proper in comparison. Yee-hah!
But this production also brought out the underlying pathos and emotion of Mozart’s comic opera. There was a moment of contemplative beauty when Lucy Crowe sang Fiordiligi’s aria, ‘I have sinned’, bathed in pure white light, standing like a lonely, fallen angel in the Choir Seats. She sang the aria very sweetly, with a pure but full voice, genuinely moving. This moment was the highlight of the whole opera. Joshua Blue also revealed genuine emotion of a different kind when he sang his ‘I will be avenged’ aria, revealing the true depth of Ferrando’s character.
As this was a comedy, all ended well as the reunited lovers sang ‘Peace and love will win the day.’ There was huge, well-deserved applause from the packed house at the end. There continue to be good omens for ENO’s ongoing work in Greater Manchester.
Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood has been a classical composer for the last twenty years. His film scores, including There Will be Blood (2007), Phantom Thread (2017,) The Power of the Dog (2021), and One Battle After Another (2026) have received multiple award nominations. On Thursday evening, the Hallé, under the baton of Hugh Tieppo-Brunt performed two of his works, including his new Violin Concerto. He also played bass guitar and tanpura, a four-stringed Indian instrument with a long neck.
Greenwood is a huge fan of twentieth-century classical composers, including Olivier Messiaen, Krzysztof Penderecki, and Steve Reich, whose work we heard in the second half of the concert. The concert opened with a piece by the Polish composer Witold Lutosławski, his Musique Funèbre(Funeral Music) for string orchestra, written in the 1950s in memory of the Hungarian composer Béla Bartók, who died in 1945. There are strong echoes of Bartók’s music in Lutosławski’s piece, but it also marks the beginning of a new modernist language in his work, including the use of twelve-tone technique: the piece begins with a twelve-note row.
Musique Funèbrebegan with a mournful, lugubrious tone row on solo cello, joined by a second cello and viola, with an eerie sense of mystery. The rest of the cello section made the texture denser, and the violins joined like trees sprouting in a dense forest. The music became obsessed with the tritone, giving it a sense of anxious instability. An elegant orchestral dance, beautifully controlled by Hugh Tieppo-Brunt, was filled with sadness, with Bartókian offbeat rhythms, the lower strings offset against the upper strings in fierce dialogue. The music reached an anguished climax with a repeated twelve-tone chord. A rich and imposing unison melody arrived, like a threnody. The tritone returned, with a chamber music section that reminded us of Bartók’s skill as a composer of some of the finest string quartets of the 20th century. The piece ended with another tribute to Bartók, a canon that symmetrically mirrored the opening section, a device the Hungarian composer used in his string quartets and his Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta (1936). It felt as if the cellos were creeping dolefully back to where they came from, and we ended where we started with a solo cello. The magic of both Bartók and Lutosławski is that powerful emotions are drawn out of tight musical structures, which the Hallé strings did superbly here.
Jonny Greenwood and tanpura. Photo credit Sharyn Bellemakers/The Hallé
Jonny Greenwood’s Water is inspired by lines from the poem of the same name by the English poet Philip Larkin, who died in 1985. Larkin’s poem celebrates water not as a liquid essential to life on our planet, but as something on which a secular religion could be constructed. Greenwood’s piece has a ritualistic element in its use of the tanpura drone on which the work sits. The piece also views water from many angles, as in the glass of water in Larkin’s poem.
And I should raise in the east A glass of water Where any-angled light Would congregate endlessly.
Philip Larkin, 'Water' from 'The Whitsun Weddings'(Faber,1964)
The piece began with limpid, watery textures on the upper strings, piano and organ. A revolving, minimalist theme was underpinned by the richly exotic sound of the tanpuras, played on Thursday by Greenwood, Sharona Katan and Mehrbaan Singh. The music felt like light glinting on water, then it rose like water constantly rising. Changes of key came in watery waves. The music endlessly cycled back on itself, creating a glittering sound world within a narrow compass of light and optimism. A low organ pedal note added another kind of drone. The music flowed like water, endlessly moving until the tanpura drones were revealed in a solo passage. Harmonics from the upper strings joined the drones, like sunlight dancing on water. There were two particularly magical moments: a duet between piano and strings, unfolding like gorgeous lilies floating on water; and swelling organ chords that led to a section where the drones dropped out, and all the strings pulsated. There was a brief expression of ecstatic joy, then the main theme unwound itself gradually. Sparkling organ chords that could have been written by Messiaen led to a final, frenetic violin solo.
‘Like lilies floating on water.’ Image: White Water Lilies. Source: nathanieljoyce/Wikimedia
The second half of the concert began with Pulse by the American composer Steve Reich, which Greenwood performed with the orchestra in the Manchester Classical festival last summer. It’s an attractive, melodic piece for winds, strings, piano and electric bass. According to the score, it never rises above mezzo-forte, and it’s a calm, contemplative work. In his note on the piece, Reich wrote that it was a reaction to his Quartet of 2013 which ‘changed keys more frequently than in any previous work’ of his,
In Pulse I felt the need to stay put harmonically and spin out smoother wind and string melodic lines in canon over a constant pulse in the electric bass and or piano.
Pairing the piece with Greenwood’s Water brought out the airy lightness of Pulse, which moved on continually like long sections of Greenwood’s piece. Greenwood played a gentle bass part that was rhythmic and propulsive. The bass felt like the drone in Water, an almost constant presence. When the bass dropped out, we felt it by its absence; a subtle effect. Tieppo-Brunt conducted calmly, keeping a simple beat going. The pleasure of this music was partly listening out for subtle changes, such as the key changes, which were rare but delicious when they came. There was a moment of hope when the bass line began rising, before falling back again. The piece ended with a light-infused section when the bass re-joined with the opening theme. Greenwood left the stage first, with a shy, gentle wave to the audience.
Daniel Pioro. Photo credit Sharyn Bellemakers/The Hallé
The concert ended with Jonny Greenwood’s Violin Concerto, an almost complete rewriting of Horror Vacui, which premiered at the Proms in 2019. In his note on the piece, Greenwood wrote that he was inspired, tonally, by the electronic works of the Japanese composer Isao Tomita, who is perhaps best known for his arrangements of classical works on his pioneering 1974 album Snowflakes Are Dancing. Greenwood was also inspired by Penderecki’s ‘orchestrations of the electronics and sounds’ of the 1960s, and his conviction that ‘the same sounds could be conveyed more interestingly with strings.’ The piece is scored for solo violin and ’56 solo strings’, which were arranged on Thursday in a semi-circular formation.
The piece began with swirling strings; we were immediately lost in a dense, terrifying forest. Violin soloist Daniel Pioro played a theme that could have come from a classical interpretation of a gypsy dance. The strings provided what sounded like an artificial studio reverb, on one of the many occasions in this work when Greenwood used the orchestra to recreate digital and analogue sound processing, to stunning effect. The concerto also used whole-tone intervals and microtones to brilliant effect. An evocative sinking theme often recurred. Another theme. with a Tomita-like analogue synth tone, passed around the orchestra. Pioro played a romantic lead line, gently virtuosic. The orchestra then asserted itself with strings that could have come from a film noir soundtrack by Bernard Herrmann. Pioro played an almost cadenza-like section, but with orchestral accompaniment. The orchestra roused itself again, as pulsating notes drifted down microtonally, chopped up as if treated by gated reverb. At one point, glancing up from the notes I was writing, I looked for the effects unit that was creating all these effects, then remembered it wasn’t there…
Music that starts and ends with the push of a space-bar appeals less and less to me: where’s the peril? In this work, the conductor is key. I think of it as a piece of music for solo violin, string orchestra and conductor – as three equals.
Jonny Greenwood on his Violin Concerto (2026)
This was a mature work from a highly accomplished composer. It created its own unique sound world, often the mark of a great work. In a remarkable passage, the strings wound themselves up again like an infernal machine, and Pioro valiantly tried to assert himself against a wall of noise. The violin gradually asserted itself, sometimes joined by harmonies from the massed strings. Had the violin won? Pioro played a mournful melody that could have come from the Lutosławski piece we heard earlier; another threnody? In reply, the whole orchestra seethed, wheeling up and down like the bellows of a giant steam engine. Pioro, whose performance was superb throughout, played an eerie, slippery line, which the orchestra echoed sarcastically with fractured echoes. A romantic violin solo found the orchestra almost in agreement with the soloist, surrounding him with a halo of consonance. An ecstatic Baroque section felt like Vivaldi thrown out of shape, heard in fever dream. The concerto ended with a single held solo note, with consonant harmonics like the end of a conventional violin concerto… until it drifted off into the ether, unstable to the end.
Jonny Greenwood, Daniel Pioro, Hugh Tieppo-Brunt and members of The Hallé. Photo credit Sharyn Bellemakers/The Hallé
Repertoire
Witold Lutosławski Musique funèbre Jonny Greenwood Water Steve Reich Pulse Jonny Greenwood Violin Concerto
Performers
The Hallé Orchestra Hugh Tieppo-Brunt conductor Daniel Pioro violin Jonny Greenwood bass guitar and tanpura Sharona Katan and Mehrbaan Singh tanpura
Sources
Programme notes by Steve Reich and Jonny Greenwood
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.
Read on…
The BBC Philharmonic playing Cassandra Miller’s I cannot love without trembling at the BBC Proms in 2024
The Hallé orchestra, Choir and Youth Choir. Image credit Sharyn Bellemakers/The Hallé
On Thursday evening, it was a pleasure to see a full stage (The Hallé orchestra under the baton of Kahchun Wong, on a specially extended stage), full choir stalls (the Hallé Choir and the Hallé Youth Choir) and a full house (the concert was sold out).
The concert consisted of two epic pieces about outer space, Le Chant des Enfants des Étoiles by the South Korean composer Unsuk Chin, and Holst’s The Planets with the added final movement, Pluto, the Renewer, by Colin Matthews.
Le Chant des Enfants des Étoiles was premiered ten years ago, in the opening season of Lotte Concert Hall in Seoul, with the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Korean National Choir and Boys Choir under the baton of Myung-whun Chung. On Thursday, the Hallé orchestra, the Hallé Choir and the Hallé Youth Choir performed a revised version of the piece. The composer was present at the concert and worked with the performers to prepare the work.
The title of Chin’s work means ‘The Song of the Children of the Stars.’ It was inspired by her love of astronomy and physics. When she has finished composing for the day, she relaxes by watching videos and reading books about astronomy. In her programme note, she quotes the scientific fact that we are all ‘stardust’. As Dr Ashley King, planetary scientist at the Natural History Museum, says,
‘Nearly all the elements in the human body were made in a star and many have come through several supernovas’
Chin says that this scientific fact gives us a ‘cosmic perspective’ that can provide ‘experiences of transcendence’, similar in effect to the religious narratives that have existed for thousands of years. These experiences and narratives,
‘…can also guide towards a more global perspective, seen from which all national, ethnic or religious chauvinisms (which, sadly, seem to increase in today’s world) turn out to be very ludicrous indeed.‘
The Overview Effect
The Overview Effect is a term coined by author and space philosopher Frank White to describe the sometimes profound change of perspective experienced by astronauts looking back at the Earth from space. This change in perspective is described in the Booker Prize-winning novel Orbital (2023) by Samantha Harvey, and it inspired the top-five album The Overview by Steven Wilson, reviewed here.
Chin says that the realisation that we all come from the stars gives us hope. She dreams that Le Chant des Enfants des Étoiles will one day be performed by choirs from both North and South Korea. The piece, which consists of 12 movements, uses texts from several poems she chose from a list of 150. The final choice includes poetry from Portuguese, Scandinavian, Mexican and British poets on ‘natural phenomena and on our physical relationship with the cosmos.’
In Thursday’s concert, the texts of the poems weren’t available, either in the programme book or in titles above the stage, but in any case, individual words in the piece often overlap to create a babel of sounds: Chin makes it clear that her work does not ‘aim to convey any particular extramusical message.’
The piece began with a single note on tubular bells, and a fanfare on horns, launching our journey into space. Mysterious strings and muted brass were obsessed with the same note. There was a huge climax, with crashing percussion, before the music fell away. It was immediately evident that the piecewas as much about creating an ethereal, immersive exploration of orchestral colour as about conveying a specific message. The men of the choir joined in, intoning the words of the 20th-century Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa, like ancient monks, with ritualistic tubular bells.
The second movement, with more poetry by Pessoa, was more avant-garde, reminding us that Chin studied with the Hungarian composer György Ligeti. Very high soprano parts headed to the heavens, then sank to the depths. The men joined, with equally complex lines. This was difficult but fascinating music, challenging both singers and listeners alike. The Hallé Choir did a splendid job of delivering such demanding music. The Youth Choir sang more innocent, simpler music in the third movement, though it still retained angular lines. They sang superbly throughout the piece, with a lovely purity of tone, expertly drilled by their director, Stuart Overington. The fourth movement brought a moment of lightness, the women of the Hallé Choir coping admirably with the tricky vocal lines and uneven rhythms. An atmospheric harp line suggested that we were now drifting out in the cosmos. The Choir expertly delivered their rhythmic whispering and vocal parts in the fifth movement. Constantly rising phrases created a Babel-like tower of sound, with robust brass. There was a brief moment of unison as the voices combined at the end of the movement.
The sixth movement featured extended organ solos, superbly played by Darius Battiwalla. The music was reminiscent of the organ improvisations of the French composer and organist Olivier Latry. Chin was brought up playing the organ: her father, a Presbyterian minister in South Korea, taught her the rudiments of Western Classical music. In the seventh movement, lilting harp accompanied the Youth Choir in their superbly rhythmic, detached vocal lines, and in the tenth they sang with the pure tone of folk singers. The movement also featured a gorgeous orchestral effect at the end, glittering percussion themes cascading down. The Youth Choir brought the whole piece to an end, with a simple, quiet melody that opened a window on the cosmos, a stunning ending to an absorbing work. Kahchun Wong held up the score to the audience to acknowledge the composer, who came on stage to acknowledge the performers.
The Planets is sometimes thought of as a description of planets from an astronomical perspective. Holst instead concentrated on their astrological significance, each of the seven movements of his suite describing an aspect of the planet’s personality: Mars is the Bringer of War, Venus the Bringer of Peace, etc. (each planet named after a Greek god). In a letter to the music critic Herbert Thompson, Holst wrote that,
‘The pieces were suggested by the astrological significance of The Planets and not by classical mythology. ‘
At the suggestion of Kent Nagano, Hallé conductor from 1992 to 1999, the composer Colin Matthews wrote an extra movement for the end of The Planets, based on the planet Pluto. In 2000, Matthews wrote that ‘Pluto’s status as a planet has for some time been in doubt – it may well be declassified.’ He was right – it was declassified 6 years later. Matthews thought that Holst’s interest in astrology was probably ‘pretty peripheral’, and he himself ignored the astrological significance of Pluto. What’s important is that Matthews’ Pluto, the Renewer works artistically at the end of The Planets, and on Thursday evening it did.
The suite began compellingly with Mars, The Bringer of War, with the visceral thrill of a full orchestra playing a syncopated rhythm in 5/4 time. Wong conducted the opening slightly faster than it’s sometimes done, but with perfect control, crafting the sound beautifully. Venus, The Bringer of Peace featured a series of excellent solos from within the orchestra: Laurence Rogers (horn), Emily Davis (violin), Stéphane Rancourt (oboe) and Leo Popplewell (cello). The violins played a long-limbed melody with lovely ensemble. The harps (Marie Leenhardt and Lauren Scott) and celeste (Gemma Beeson) played with an appealing romantic flow. Beeson excelled again in the fleeting Mercury, The Winged Messenger.
Jupiter, The Bringer of Jollity began with splendid brass playing. The orchestra played the great Elgarian theme, I Vow to Thee My Country, with subtle eloquence and grace. Saturn, The Bringer of Old Age, with its rocking chords, strangely brought to mind the haunting arrangement of David Bowie’s This is not America that featured in the Lazarus. No doubt the Starman would have approved.
After a fantastic brass entry, Uranus, The Magician, called to mind the cheeky, playful sorcerer’s theme from Dukas’ The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, although whether Holst knew that piece is sometimes disputed. To end Holst’s suite, Neptune, The Mystic, opened with four flutes playing a gorgeous theme. We were transported into the cosmos, just as we had been at the end of Unsuk Chin’s piece. The ethereal women’s voices, floating from offstage behind the organ, created a magical effect.
Colin Matthews’ Pluto, the Renewer, came in without a break on very high woodwind. The piece perfectly matched Holst’s, staying in the same sound world without falling into pastiche. There were Holstian blocks of chords, fast, ambiguous and ethereal, and playful, scurrying strings. This was virtuosic music, handled well by the Hallé musicians. It also felt modern, even though it’s now over a quarter of a century old, just as Holst’s music must have felt modern over a century ago. It ended with a final chord from the women of the Hallé Choir – in Matthews’ delightful phrase, ‘ almost as if Neptune had been quietly continuing in the background.’
The Hallé with conductor Kahchun Wong. Image credit Sharyn Bellemakers/The Hallé
Sources
Kerry Lotzof, Are we made of stardust?Natural History Museum, London Programme notes by Unsuk Chin and Colin Matthews Composer Unsuk Chin on The Song of the Children of the Stars (Interview) YouTube 23 May 2018 Robert Philip, The Classical Music Lover’s Companion to Orchestral Music (Yale University Press 2020)
Repertoire
Unsuk Chin Le Chant des Enfants des Étoiles Gustav Holst The Planets Colin Matthews Pluto, the Renewer
Performers
Kahchun Wong conductor The Hallé orchestra Hallé Choir Matthew Hamilton, choral director Hallé Youth Choir Stuart Overington, director
The Hallé and Kahchun Wong shine in Beethoven’s heroic symphony
Cellist Jan Vogler with members of The Hallé. Credit: Alex Burns/The Hallé
For a second at the start of Thursday evening’s Beethoven-themed concert, it felt as if the opening piece was his Coriolan Overture. In fact, the concert began with subito con forza (suddenly with force, a common marking of Beethoven’s in his scores) by the South Korean composer Unsuk Chin. She wrote the piece in 2020 to celebrate the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth. Her piece is a loving tribute to the composer.
Chin was inspired by Beethoven’s works, some of which she quotes, such as the opening chord of the Coriolan Overture and, later, the opening rhythm of his Symphony No. 5. On a human level, she was also inspired by his increasing struggle with hearing loss and the ‘inner rage and frustration’ he experienced, which
‘may have found their expression in the extreme range of his musical language, spanning emotions from volcanic eruptions to utmost serenity.’
Chin’s piece vividly conveyed the range of emotions Beethoven experienced, refracted through the sensibility of a contemporary composer, a series of phantasmagoric images: from spectral and shimmering upper strings to macabre lower strings, stabbed chords, and waves of sound. A highlight was the piano solo, played dexterously by Gemma Beeson, reminiscent of the French composer Olivier Messiaen’s piano music. Near the end, the rhythmic four-note from Beethoven’s FifthSymphony was wittily passed round the orchestra.
Cellist Jan Vogler, conductor Kahchun Wong and members of The Hallé. Credit: Alex Burns/The Hallé
The next piece also featured a distinctive four-note theme (see ‘Shostakovich and DSCH’, below), Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 1. The composer wrote the concerto in 1959 for the Russian cellist Mstislav Rostropovich. It features some of the most virtuosic and difficult music written for the instrument, spanning the entire fingerboard from the lowest to the highest reaches. Unusually for a 20th-century symphony, there are no brass instruments except for a single French horn, which plays a major role in the first and last movements.
The first movement began with the German cellist Jan Vogler playing the four-note theme, surrounded by playful woodwind. Grumbling bassoons, mocking violins and clarinet put the virtuosic playing of the cello into sarcastic relief. The solo French horn, superbly played by Laurence Rogers, stole the cello’s four-note theme. The horn kept on having its say until the cello picked up the theme, as if it had won the battle. But the conflict continued to the end of the movement, which ended suddenly with a horn flourish as if the horn had finally triumphed.
The second movement began with night music, reminding us that Shostakovich shared Beethoven’s ability to write music of ‘utmost serenity’ as well as the strident music of the previous movement. Vogler turned to watch the strings intently as they played. The horn joined with its own hunting horn theme, prompting the cello to start playing. Vogler played with lovely legato and tone, as mesmerising strings surrounded him. Throughout the concerto, Vogler seemed relaxed, thoughtful, sometimes wistful, as if he was completely at one with his cello. The night music returned, mournfully reaching for an achingly beautiful high note. Vogler played a series of long cantabile notes against breathtaking harmonies: a moment of stunning beauty. The movement ended with another spellbinding moment, a ghostly duet between Vogler on cello and Gemma Beeson on celeste.
The third movement was a fully-composed cadenza for solo cello, possibly the first time such a movement appeared in the history of the concerto. Doleful cello chords separated the virtuoso passages. Vogler wore his phenomenal technique lightly, playing at first mournfully, then with a lively double-stopping in a dancing theme that could have come from a Bach cello suite, then a lonely, nostalgic and eerie theme, ending with a frenzied journey across the fingerboard.
Without a break, the orchestra joined in the fourth movement, with the composer in full sarcastic mode again, particularly in the opening dance theme, with ironic woodwind swoops, and a grotesquely piercing clarinet. As if to defy the orchestra, the cello began an incredibly fast run, which the orchestra briefly matched before giving up and accompanying Vogler instead. The solo horn wheedled its way back in again, then majestically restated the concerto’s opening four-note theme. The piece ended with huge thwacks on the timpani, and conductor Kahchun Wong rightly applauded both the horn and the cello soloists.
Shostakovich and DSCH
Shostakovich often used DSCH in his works to represent his own name in German musical notation (Dmitri Schostakowitsch) = D-S-C-H = D – E flat – C – B). This sequence of notes became so strongly associated with his works that the Schostakowitsch Festival in Leipzig last May adopted the acronym in their publicity material.
In his Cello Concerto No. 1, the composer uses another four-note motif, G – F flat -C flat – B flat, which some believe is a distant variant of the D-S-C-H theme. Shostakovich used it in his autobiographical String Quartet No. 8. He also used a related version in his score for the 1948 film The Young Guard.
Jan Vogler’s encore was JS Bach’s timeless C Major Sarabande, in which he brought out the full resonance of his 1703 Stradivari cello. He played with great elegance, warmth and poise – and superb control.
In her programme note, Unsuk Chin described Beethoven as,
‘arguably the first modernist composer in musical history, a figure who constantly felt the urge to stretch the boundaries of musical language, and whose quest for originality completely changed the course of music history.’
The Hallé’s performance of Beethoven’s Symphony No.3 ‘Eroica’ under Kahchun Wong felt fresh and new. The performers, except for the lower strings, all stood, which perhaps gave them additional energy. Wong stood on a specially raised podium so the standing players could see him. From behind, his figure brought to mind the Wanderer in Caspar David Friedrich’s painting, Wanderer above the Sea of Fog, the Romantic hero in control of all he sees.
Wanderer above the Sea of Fog (1818) by Caspar David Friedrich. Source: Wikimedia Commons
Conducting without a score, Wong was so excited to launch his performance that the audience had barely stopped clapping when he raised his arms to launch the symphony from the vertiginous heights of the podium. In the first movement, he had immediate control of the main theme, superbly shaping the limpid textures, while assigning weight where necessary. The tempi were fast but perfectly disciplined, and Wong pulled them back where appropriate. The orchestra really dug into the repeated chords, reacting to the punchy gestures from Wong’s left hand. He brought out details like the short horn motif, pointing his finger up to the heavens. Sometimes he shook his fist in passionate affirmation, at other times, he flicked his fingers to create precision in the orchestra. He drew out the sense of inevitability, as the music unfolded, that much great music has.
The second movement, a funeral march, was not overly mournful, but still respectful, with a sense of hushed awe, feeling perfectly paced. There were splendid solos from the oboist Stéphane Rancourt. The wind playing was gorgeous, offset against heavy strings. As the movement progressed, the textures grew heavier and the counterpoint denser, yet Wong still maintained absolute clarity. The funeral march theme was almost buried in ornamentation, but then a more robust restatement of it emerged. There was a sorrowful ending as the funeral procession crept away with a gentle flourish.
The Hallé horns. Credit: Alex Burns/The Hallé
In contrast, the scherzo was immediately jolly, bubbling up nicely. The sense of momentum was restored here, with double basses much lighter than they often are in this movement. A repeated offbeat phrase had an elegant twist at the end. The horn trio was excellent here. The orchestra began a spritely dance – delightful and foot-tapping. The final movement burst in with an explosion of joy. An elegant fugue was superbly ornamented. The whole orchestra was dancing, before a series of graceful pauses. Under Wong’s expert baton, a syncopated section was clearly delineated, and the texture was almost Mozartian. There was a mellow oboe solo, and a robust hunting horn theme as the movement headed to a celebratory ending. Beethoven famously destroyed his dedication to Napoleon as the hero of the symphony, but the real heroes on Thursday evening were Wong and his orchestra.
Conductor Kahchun Wong and members of The Hallé. Credit: Alex Burns/The Hallé
Repertoire
Unsuk Chin subito con forza Shostakovich Cello Concerto No. 1 JS Bach C Major Sarabande (encore for solo cello) Beethoven Symphony No.3 ‘Eroica’
Performers
The Hallé Kahchun Wong conductor Jan Vogler cello
Sources
Programme note on subito con forza by Unsuk Chin
The concert will be repeated on Sunday 15 February at 16.00.
