BBC
PHILHARMONIC Bridgewater Hall
THE
audience for Friday’s BBC Philharmonic programme must have been one of the best
for a regular series concert in Manchester
The master
musicians were conductor Jesús López-Cobos – a great and vastly experienced
Spaniard making his belated debut with the BBC Philharmonic – and familiarly
favourite pianist Jean-Efflam Bavouzet.
The opening
piece (not quite an acknowledged masterwork, and the only one linked to the
season’s America-and-Bernstein theme, incidentally) was Hindemith’s
Konzertmusik for strings and brass.
López-Cobos
made it sound like a masterpiece, though. With a full complement of 60 strings
and a wonderful brass choir, he had the resources for a resonant and
magisterial sound, making such an effective close of the first section of the
music that it gained a little spontaneous applause.
And in the
long, slow melody of the second there was a surprisingly passionate atmosphere,
opening my eyes, at least, to a new aspect to Hindemith.
A long,
slow melody is also the highspot of Ravel’s piano concerto in G, in its serene
central movement: Bavouzet played this with all the wistful beauty you could
for. He, and López-Cobos, found expressiveness in the bluesy opening movement,
too (not always the case), with nostalgia, melancholy and patches of almost
infinite sadness catching the listener unawares. It was musicality of the
highest order, and the effortless brilliance of the finale proved a
show-stopper.
López-Cobos
conducted Mahler’s fourth symphony from memory, and he and the Phil (with guest
leader Sarah Oates) gave a performance of classic dimensions, skilfully poised
and balanced, incorporating mellow smoothness and electric energy.
After the
sunlit landscapes of the opening, the ‘Pied Piper’ second movement had a
gorgeous lilt to it, with episodes of quicksilver incisiveness, and in the
third the strings were sweet, accurate and achingly beautiful, its moment of
ecstasy full and noble but not blaring.
The soprano
soloist for the finale, Ruby Hughes, has the pure, youthful sound it was surely
meant for, and though she was a little over-conscious of the microphone in
front of her at first, the gentle blend of voice and orchestra was near-perfect
by the end.
*****
Robert
Beale
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