Tag: Kahchun Wong

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The Hallé – Mullova Plays Brahms – Live Review

Sunday 22 March 2026

The Bridgewater Hall, Manchester

★★★★★

Viktoria Mullova shines as the soloist in Brahms’ Violin Concerto, and the Hallé soloists excel in Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra

Viktoria Mullova with the Hallé © Alex Burns/The Hallé

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.”

Rupert Avis, programme note © 2018

As Robert Avis writes in his insightful programme note, Brahms’ Violin Concerto depicts the soloist as a ‘thinker and a poet.’ Mullova stood with her back to the audience, facing the orchestra, as if taking in what they had to offer in their introduction. She watched the violins closely, and they duly obliged her by playing superbly. She turned round, and her violin was part of the orchestra’s texture, playing looped arpeggios. The orchestra held back in deference with long chords.

Mullova played with beautiful control and intonation, even on the very highest notes. Her tone was sweet at the top and rich at the bottom. She played a mellower passage superbly, with lovely legato, then dug in more with double-stopping but still maintaining the legato line. The orchestra began to take a more active role, and she elegantly picked up their lilting waltz-like theme. The violin slowed almost to a halt, and there was a lovely contemplative moment with subtly discordant double-stopping. She took over again, her violin projecting over the orchestra as she executed an amazing run from top to bottom of the violin and back again. Even in the most complex parts, her violin tone remained mellow. There was a sorrowful section that Mulllova turned into a spellbinding cadenza, as the audience sat rapt.

At the start of the second movement, the orchestra regained control, as Mullova turned to watch them again. A gently nostalgic horn chorus led to a lovely solo by the oboist 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!

Kahchun Wong and the Hallé © Alex Burns/The Hallé

“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.

The Hallé © Alex Burns/The Hallé

Performers

The Hallé Orchestra
Kahchun Wong conductor
Viktoria Mullova violin

Repertoire

Richard Wagner Tannhäuser: Overture
Johannes Brahms Violin Concerto
Béla Bartók Concerto for Orchestra

Read on…

The Hallé Orchestra with Jonny Greenwood – Live Review
The Hallé – The Planets – Live Review
The Hallé – Beethoven’s Eroica – Live Review

Bluebeard’s Castle…

BBC Philharmonic Orchestra – Bluebeard’s Castle – Live Review
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The Hallé – Beethoven’s Eroica – Live Review

Thursday 12 February 2026

The Bridgewater Hall, Manchester

*****

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 Fifth Symphony 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.

Read on…

The Hallé – Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto – Live Review
The Hallé – John Adams Conducts the Chairman Dances – Live Review
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The Hallé – Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto – Live Review

Sunday 30 November 2025

Bridgewater Hall, Manchester

*****

Manchester’s oldest orchestra become the city/region’s newest cultural ambassadors

Akiko Suwanai, Kahchun Wong and members of The Hallé. Credit: Alex Burns/The Hallé

At the beginning of the second half of Sunday afternoon’s concert, Kahchun Wong, Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor to the Hallé, announced that he and the orchestra had just returned from a trip to China, during which they performed seven concerts in nine days. Amusingly, in his enthusiasm to tell us about this significant cultural event in the orchestra’s long history, he couldn’t remember how long he had been with the orchestra – was it 18 or 24 months? (this is his second season). He also struggled to remember how long the orchestra had been running, eventually choosing 167 years (he was right).

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

Kahchun Wong, Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor to the Hallé 

Wong said the orchestra had acted as cultural ambassadors, adding the Hallé’s name to a prestigious list that included the Berlin Philharmonic, the Vienna Philharmonic and the Staatskapelle Dresden. His orchestra had given ‘everything possible’ on the tour, which he found ‘moving and touching.’ As a result, he had found a new mission. He said when he came to the Hallé, he hadn’t wanted to change anything, but he now wanted ‘to represent Manchester and this region as cultural ambassadors, with your support.’ The audience applauded loudly to signify their agreement.

Football fans will know that after trips to Europe, players often suffer a metaphorical hangover on their return to domestic football a few days later. There was no sign of an orchestral hangover on Sunday, even though the orchestra, conductor and violin soloist Akiko Suwanai had played the same programme not only in China but also in Manchester on Thursday and Sheffield on Saturday. If anything, their shared travels invigorated them, perhaps because they had bonded over a significant experience.

The concert took us on a cultural tour of Europe, starting with Verdi in Italy, then Russian music written by Tchaikovsky on Lake Geneva in Switzerland, returning to Italy via the German composer Felix Mendelssohn. The concert began with a passionate performance of Verdi’s Overture to his 1862 opera La forza del destino (The Force of Destiny). This began with six repeated brass chords that represent Fate, with a counter-theme on swirling strings. There were smiles of recognition in the audience when a flute and oboe theme was introduced, which the French film composer Claude Petit adopted for the films Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources in 1986.

Conductor Kahchun Wong beautifully controlled the orchestral textures and dynamics, with dramatic use of his left hand in this most dramatic of overtures. There was Verdian warmth in the operatic theme on the upper strings, and a nagging note of doubt from the brass. Another melody appeared, with ravishing harps, restless strings and stabbing brass. Wong drew rich colours from the brass, and the upper strings played an urgent theme with perfect ensemble. There was well-deserved separate applause for oboist Stéphane Rancourt, and the harpists Marie Leenhardt and Jess Hughes.

Akiko Suwanai, Kahchun Wong and members of The Hallé. Credit: Alex Burns/The Hallé

The Japanese violinist Akiko Suwanai, wearing a long, flowing red gown, joined the orchestra for Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto. There was evident musical chemistry between her and Wong; they often stood facing each other during the solo passages: Suwanai angling the body of her violin towards the audience to direct the sound like a grand piano with its lid raised; Wong lightly keeping time for the orchestra with his right hand.

In her early, short cadenza, Suwanai played with a rich, expressive tone, with an almost cello-like lower register, beautiful legato and a lyrical top register. A cheerful orchestral melody burst out, which then descended into fragments of doubt. The violin picked up the melody, with a yearning version of the orchestral theme, with fiercely passionate double-stopping. The orchestra retorted with a militaristic version of their theme, building to a huge climax.

‘Soon vulgarity gains the upper hand and dominates until the end of the first movement. The violin is no longer played but yanked about, beaten black and blue.’

Eduard Hanslick on the premiere of Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in 1881

When the piece was premiered in 1881, the Austrian critic Eduard Hanslick famously wrote that ‘soon vulgarity gains the upper hand and dominates until the end of the first movement. The violin is no longer played but yanked about, beaten black and blue.’ His opinion seems absurd today, but perhaps he had in mind the remarkable central cadenza in the first movement. In his programme note, Anthony Bateman listed the violin techniques as glissandos, double stops, trills, vertiginous leaps and harmonics. On Sunday, the violin’s exquisite top notes seemed to be in a brutal battle with the lower notes. Suwanai’s playing was astonishing. If this had been a jazz concert, the audience would have applauded her immediately after this virtuosic display, but Sunday’s audience waited until the end of the movement.

“The whole movement was magical, with romantic Russian melodies and gorgeous string playing.”

The second movement began with a woodwind chorale, which could have come from Dvořák’s New World Symphony, written 10 years later. Here, as throughout the concert, the woodwind playing was delightful. The whole movement was magical, with romantic Russian melodies and gorgeous string playing. If there had been any sense of conflict between the orchestral and solo violin parts, that had all been forgotten. The movement ended with Suwanai standing in silence.

The third movement burst in without a pause. There was another violin cadenza, and a Cossack dance, which the orchestra joined in joyful dialogue. A study gypsy dance got faster and faster, with an orchestral drone that suggested bagpipes. There was a romantic theme on solo violin, slow and slightly mournful, which came to a moment of stasis before the lively opening theme returned. Wong’s conducting was very precise as the violins played superb pizzicato. Suwanai played with virtuosic energy as she flew through several key changes. The woodwind joined a merry dance with the horns, and there was a sweet restatement of the main theme on solo violin. Suwanai played a long, quietly ecstatic line, with judicious orchestral accompaniment. There was a massive climax as soloist and orchestra scampered together towards an invigorating finale. Without a pause, the audience applauded enthusiastically at the end. Suwanai played an encore, The Gigue from JS Bach’s Partita No. 3 for Solo Violin, with great ease and facility, prompting indulgent smiles from the audience.

Kahchun Wong and members of The Hallé. Credit: Alex Burns/The Hallé

Felix Mendelssohn completed his Symphony No. 4, known as the ‘Italian Symphony’, in the early 1830s, after he had been on a European Grand Tour. He wrote to his sister, the composer and pianist Fanny Mendelssohn, from Rome in February 1831,

‘The Italian Symphony makes rapid progress; it will be the most amusing piece I have yet composed, particularly the last movement.’

Kahchun Wong described it as a piece full of sunshine. In the first movement, he brought out the orchestral detail with vigorous but polished playing. The orchestra danced relentlessly; as Robert Philip has written, ‘Mendelssohn’s model was surely Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony (that ‘apotheosis of the dance.’ The music burst into a lively fugue, which was enthusiastically shared across the orchestra. There was a moment of relative calm with an oboe solo, followed by an expansive restatement of the opening theme. The woodwind played with gorgeous precision in the staccato section, and there were lovely legato lines in the next section.

“The orchestra’s playing under Wong’s calm, subtle leadership was beautifully poised, as he drew every detail out of the music.“

The second movement is marked ‘Andante con moto’, Italian for ‘at a moderate walking pace’. This musical marking couldn’t be more apt, as the movement describes a slow, solemn procession, inspired by a religious procession the composer had seen in Italy. Robert Philip also suggests that it was inspired by the sublime slow movement of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony. The orchestra’s playing under Wong’s calm, subtle leadership was beautifully poised, as he drew every detail out of the music.

Wong wove the unfolding narrative of the third movement beautifully. According to Bateman, Mendelssohn was inspired by Goethe’s poem Lili’s Park, in which the fairy Lili, ‘magically entices a huge bear.’ A horn fanfare, characterfully played by two horns and two bassoons, was reminiscent of the hunting horns in Mahler symphonies, several of which have been played at the Bridgewater Hall recently; the difference being that a single movement of a Mahler symphony can last up to half an hour (this can be a good thing), whereas Mendelssohn squeezed his whole Italian Grand Tour into 30 minutes.

The final movement was a Saltarello, a rustic Italian dance. Under Wong’s baton it was fiercely rhythmic, the orchestra almost falling over itself in carefully controlled anarchy. The orchestra fizzed with dynamic energy even in the quiet sections. At the end, Wong singled out the woodwind for special applause, and then other sections too. Wong gave a cheery wave as he left the stage.

After such a stunning performance, we look forward to seeing much more of the Hallé’s new cultural ambassadors soon, all over the world but also back home in Manchester.

Kahchun Wong and The Hallé. Credit: Alex Burns/The Hallé

Repertoire

Verdi The Force of Destiny: Overture
Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto
Mendelssohn Symphony No.4, ‘Italian’

Performers

The Hallé 
Kahchun Wong conductor
Akiko Suwanai violin

Sources

Programme notes by Anthony Bateman
Robert Philip, The Classical Music Lover’s Companion to Orchestral Music (Yale University Press 2020) 

Read on…

The Hallé – John Adams Conducts the Chairman Dances – Live Review
Manchester Classical 2025 Day Two – Live Review
The Hallé and Nitin Sawhney in Concert – Live Review
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Review of the Year – 2024 – Classical Music

BBC Philharmonic

A Memorable Year for Music: Highlights from Manchester and Beyond

BBC Philharmonic
The BBC Philharmonic with Chief Conductor John Storgårds. Image © Chris Payne.

Last year marked the 30th anniversary of the death of my father, John Charles Holmes, under whose benign and loving influence I developed a lifelong passion for music. He was the choirmaster and organist of the local church choir. I joined his choir at the age of six and went on to sing with several ensembles, including the choirs of Exeter and Worcester Colleges in Oxford, the BBC Symphony Chorus, the Hallé Choir and the John Powell Singers. Whenever I visit an English cathedral city, I always try to go to choral evensong, which remains part of the great choral tradition that has produced many great classical singers. Although it’s a while since I sang in public, I still appreciate choral music and several highlights of 2024 featured choirs.

I was honoured to be invited to review concerts by the superb Philharmonia Orchestra in London. I enjoyed Elgar’s choral masterpiece, The Dream of Gerontius, with a premiere of a wonderfully evocative new piece, Cusp, by the baritone and composer Roderick Williams, which describes end-of-life experiences in a powerful libretto by Rommi Smith. Another moving libretto, with war poems by Wilfred Owen, featured in another stunning concert by the Philharmonia with The Bach Choir in Britten’s War Requiem. The orchestra joined forces with Garsington Opera for a joyful, semi-staged performance of another Britten piece, his opera A Midsummer Night’s Dream conducted by Douglas Boyd at the BBC Proms.

The Bach Choir and the Philharmonia at the Royal Festival Hall
The Bach Choir and the Philharmonia. Image credit Andy Paradise

David Hill conducted both of the concerts by the Bach Choir. He appeared at Manchester’s Stoller Hall in another guise as conductor of Bach’s Mass in B Minor with the young student forces of Yale Schola Cantorum and Juilliard415, who brought joy and precision to a performance which seemed to reveal Bach’s soul in all its intellectual and spiritual glory. That weekend was very special for music-making in Manchester, as the previous day was the end of an era as Sir Mark Elder ended his tenure as Hallé Music Director, a position he held for nearly a quarter of a century. His final concert included the European premiere of James MacMillan‘s splendid new choral piece Timotheus, Bacchus and Cecilia, a performance of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, and a passionate, moving speech by Sir Mark. He is replaced by new Principal Conductor Kahchun Wong from Singapore, who I have only seen once so far, conducting a lively Rush Hour Concert in October in Tan Dun’s Violin Concerto: Fire Ritual and Stravinsky’s Firebird: Suite. He seems to be a bright prospect with an engaging stage presence.

I made two choral discoveries in Manchester in 2024. Firstly, The Apex Singers, a Manchester-based chamber choir of eight voices, founded and directed by Ollie Lambert, who directs this young choir remotely in his stunning folk song arrangements. Then Kantos Chamber Choir, under their conductor Ellie Slorach, brought Behold The Sea, a bold and innovative programme of maritime music to the Stoller Hall. I also discovered the fascinatingly intense music of Tim Benjamin, whose evocative pieces The Seafarer and The Wanderer were beautifully recorded by Kantos Chamber Choir.

Manchester Collective perform Rothko Chapel at the Bridgewater Hall, Manchester
Manchester Collective and SANSARA in Rothko Chapel

There were more fantastic chamber music performances from Manchester Collective, who I have seen perform live probably eight or ten times in the last few years, at all sizes and shapes of venues from Salford’s White Hotel to the RNCM, the Stoller Hall, the Bridgewater Hall and even the Royal Albert Hall. The Collective makes choosing to go to one of their concerts an easy decision, as it’s guaranteed there will be high-quality music-making, inspired programming and fascinating collaborations. I saw them twice in 2024, first in the uplifting Rothko Chapel with SANSARA chamber choir at the Bridgewater Hall, then in Sirocco with the force of nature that is the cellist Abel Selaocoe at the Stoller Hall. Both concerts brought deep, life-affirming joy across time and genres.

Mark Padmore - English Song Recital Image Credit Joe Briggs-Price
Mark Padmore and Libby Burgess. Image © Joe Briggs-Price

I spent the August Bank Holiday weekend in the charming market town Southwell in the heart of Nottinghamshire, enjoying the delights of the tenth annual Southwell Music Festival directed by the indefatigable baritone and conductor Marcus Farnsworth. There was supreme artistry in all the concerts, not least from the artist in residence, Mark Padmore, whose word painting in his Recital of English Song with pianist Libby Burgess was astonishing. There was new music from Martin Bussey and Gemma Bass and a world premiere of With What Sudden Joy by Cheryl Frances-Hoad, with a text compiled by the poet Kate Wakeling from words of local people in Southwell about the power and effect of music.

The BBC Philharmonic Orchestra were on excellent form as well in 2024. Early in the year, under conductor Nicholas Kraemer they were joined by Manchester Chamber Choir in a moving and dramatic interpretation of Bach’s St John Passion, 300 years after the first performance. In the Proms the orchestra under John Storgårds (Chief Conductor) played a searing version of Shostakovich’s fourth symphony, and Cassandra Miller‘s viola concerto I cannot love without trembling with Lawrence Power a remarkable soloist. The next evening, they performed Messiaen’s remarkable Turangalîla-Symphonie with pianist an Steven Osborne an energetic and compelling piano soloist. Osborne was stunning in another Messiaen work, Des canyons aux étoiles… with conductor Ludovic Morlot and outstanding solo contributions from Martin Owen (horn), Paul Patrick (xylorimba) and Tim Williams (glockenspiel) in a concert that also featured a lively wind machine and an instrument invented by the composer himself, the geophone.

The BBC Philharmonic also shone in two themed concerts. In Mischief and Magic, the orchestra under John Storgårds played one of the best live performances of Stravinsky’s Petrushka I have ever heard, and veteran Swedish trumpeter Håkan Hardenberger brought incredible virtuosity and great charm to Haydn’s Trumpet Concerto and Betsy Jolas’ Onze Lieder, and a warm arrangement of Joni Mitchell’s Both Sides, Now. In A Hero’s Life the orchestra under Alpesh Chauhan celebrated the human spirit with: Richard Strauss’ description of a heroic life; Alban Gerhardt‘s fiercely dedicated performance of Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 2; and the UK premiere of This Moment by Anna Clyne, inspired by Buddhist writings and Mozart.

The Lovers from A Midsummer Night's Dream
Peter Kirk as Lysander, Siân Griffiths as Hermia, Camilla Harris as Helena and James Newby as Demetrius in Opera North’s Midsummer Night’s Dream. Photo credit: Richard H Smith

Not content with one production of Britten’s opera A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the year brought a second one, this time a fully-staged version by Opera North. It was fascinating to compare the production with the Garsington/Philharmonia version a month earlier at the Proms. The most striking difference was the role of Oberon, played in Leeds by countertenor James Laing. He played the character in the more imperious style of James Bowman in Peter Hall’s Glyndebourne production from the early 1980s, rather than the more troubled, argumentative character played by Iestyn Davies in the Garsington version. Opera North also revived Mozart’s Magic Flute, starring Emyr Wyn Jones as a very human Papageno. The lovely, warm rich tones of his voice matched the warmth of his personality. 

Musical polymath Nitin Sawhney – producer, performer, and composer – joined the Hallé Orchestra for The Hallé and Nitin Sawhney in Concert. Last year wasn’t a good year for Sawhney – in early March, he announced that ‘out of nowhere’ he had suffered a heart attack.

Nitin Sawhney and Nikki Bedi
Composer Nitin Sawhney in conversation with broadcaster Nikki Bedi. Image credit: Hallé/David Hughes

Sawhney turned this experience into a new work for orchestra, Heart Suite. In this highly descriptive and powerful new piece, Sawhney drew on his vast experience as a film composer, taking us on a vivid, moving and immersive journey. On a personal note, I hope you will forgive me for quoting his lovely response on the new social network Bluesky to my review of the concert:

Finally, I would like to thank all my readers for sharing my musical journey in 2024. I hope you will join me again for more adventures in 2025.

For the year in Progressive Rock, click here.