HALLE
ORCHESTRA Bridgewater Hall
SIR Mark
Elder’s ending to the Hallé Thursday series concerts at the Bridgewater Hall
had its own fun factor, to match the jollity just down the road.
Completing
the orchestra’s season-long survey of all six of Shostakovich’s instrumental
concertos, they had wonderboy Benjamin Grosvenor to play the solos in both the
piano concertos – one before the interval and one after.
Both have
plenty of that frantic, helter-skelter Keystone-Cops style music that the
composer so brilliantly created (perhaps remembering his own days as a silent
film accompanist), in the first concerto highlighted by the virtuosic
tongue-twisting interjections of the solo trumpet (the Hallé’s own Gareth
Small).
He and
Benjamin Grosvenor were aware of the hints of deeper things that are just below
the surface in the music – the pianist subtly articulating that in his very
opening phrases alongside the spritely, positive attack of the orchestra under
Sir Mark. His playing in the inner movements, too, caught a sense of sad
resignation, before the pops and pratfalls of the finale.
The second
Shostakovich piano concerto is a different kettle of fish – overtly show-off
and seemingly shallow at start and finish, but with a mysterious and enigmatic
heart in its slow middle movement. Benjamin Grosvenor’s playing here was
restrained and thoughtful, conveying the idea of feelings too deep for mere
conventionality, despite appearances. Both pieces, and his performances, went
down extremely well.
We began
with music which, for me, has as much sheer magic as any: the Suite from
Janáček’s opera, The Cunning Little Vixen (in Charles Mackerras’s version). The
opera itself is a beguiling charmer, and these orchestral interludes show much
of the reason why – in the clarity and high-def intensity of a concert
realization, the colours of the writing and beauties of the melodies are
amazing. Sir Mark’s reading had all the sweetness and lyricism of the magical
original.
Last – and
enjoyed as much by older members of the audience as by the four school parties
present – was the Hallé’s own version of Britten’s Young Person’s Guide To The
Orchestra, with newly written introductions by Tom Redmond accompanying the
well-worn tunes (spoken by students from Manchester Metropolitan University’s
School of Theatre).
It was
witty and up-to-the-minute, the orchestra was up to full strength, its members
enthusiastically joining in with little mimes to fit the words, and everyone
had a grand time.
****
Robert
Beale
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