Manchester Evening News review 15 October 2015

DRESDEN PHILHARMONIC   Bridgewater Hall

 

THERE’S a wonderful quality about the classic European sound from Germany’s top orchestras. Barbirolli once compared it to the taste and texture of German sausage, and he wasn’t really being rude.

It’s rich, multi-flavoured and expertly blended, and in music such as Wagner’s overture to Die Meistersinger it really is a feast for the ears.

That was the first impression of the playing of the Dresden Philharmonic under their gifted young conductor, Michael Sanderling (son of the legendary Kurt), on their visit to the Bridgewater Hall.

There’s a firm foundation, with nine cellos and eight double basses, the legato playing is wondrous, and the brass admirably restrained. Melodic lines in the central section were clearly audible as well – an indicator of the quality of this ensemble and its director.

In the Eroica symphony of Beethoven, which filled the second half of the concert, it was as if another orchestra – just as good – had turned up. It wasn’t just the exchange in the concertmaster’s desk (frequent enough these days), the rearranged strings seating or the use of classical trumpets and different timpani – and it can’t have been the small reduction in strings numbers either, that made all the difference.

These players can adopt a totally different style of articulation – still central European, but transparent and beautifully clear – and it produced rich dividends. Sanderling is a straight-bat interpreter: there are no great surprises in his Beethoven, but the sound is precise and reveals melodic detail so often lost in humdrum readings. The finale in particular had both delicacy and weight, as befits the dance music from which it was fashioned.

The best of all in this concert was, however, in the centre. Elgar’s cello concerto was played by the young Argentinian-born Sol Gambetta, who must be among the greatest of today’s soloists.

She and Sanderling made the concerto’s opening thoughtful indeed, and the slow movement changed magically from idyll to elegy. The faster sections, though, were athletic (perhaps a trifle over-strict in rhythmic terms) and made a telling contrast with the outburst of misery. It was, finally, one of the most moving interpretations of the concerto I’ve heard.

It was a charming complement to her colleagues in the orchestra that she played as an encore her all-cello version of Casal’s arrangement of Song Of The Birds.

*****

Robert Beale