HALLE
ORCHESTRA Bridgewater Hall
IN one of
the outstanding concerts of the Hallé season, Sir Mark Elder conducted a
stunning performance of Vaughan Williams’ fourth symphony, and a fascinating
one of a rare Elgar work, both of them recorded live for future CD issue.
There was
almost a First World War theme running through the programme: I say almost,
because although John Casken’s Apollinaire’s Bird (an oboe concerto) and Elgar’s
A Voice In The Wilderness are both definitely inspired by it, the most you can
say about the VW symphony’s references is that they catch a 1930s mood of
foreboding which was no doubt inspired by the 1914-18 war and fearful of
another one.
First off
was Ravel’s Pavane Pour Une Infante Défunte, dating from 1910 in its orchestral
version – a foil for the ‘war’ music, perhaps. It served to show off the
exceptional solo talents of Hallé principal horn Laurence Rogers and oboist
Hugh McKenna, and the warmth of the strings’ playing under Lyn Fletcher’s
leadership.
Apollinaire’s
Bird was written two years ago for the Hallé and its principal oboe, Stéphane
Rancourt. I said then it was both a serious and demanding concerto and grimly
evocative of the noise and horror of trench warfare, and I would say the same
again. The fact that it has been given a second performance by the orchestra so
soon after its premiere is an indication of the esteem in which both it and its
soloist are held.
Elgar’s A
Voice In The Wilderness, written during the Great War itself, was a theatre
piece originally and was given with its narrator and soprano soloist in
costume. It sets words by the Belgian poet Emile Cammaerts (newly translated by
Geoffrey Owen) describing the experience of soldiers at the front who hear a
girl’s voice singing, from a lonely cottage, of her hopes for peace and
restoration.
Elgar gives
it a near-pastoral setting of desperately moving innocence – an epitome of
British understatement, if you like. The speaker, Joshua Ellicott (Evangelist
in the Easter performances of The Passion at Upper Campfield Market) was
eloquent in his native Mancunian voice, and Jennifer France sang the role of
the girl with the purity and strength tone heard before in her Royal Northern
College
Then it was
the symphony. Sir Mark had the violas front-of-stage and massed violins on the
left: the sound was rich and he found lyricism and sweetness in the grittiest
of music (and there’s a lot of that).
The solemn
tread of the bass line was emphasized in the slow movement, with lamenting,
tender melodies above, and tension screwed up expertly in the scherzo. Then the
finale’s marching pace and rhythms – I can hardly resist hearing this music as
ironic distortions of Tchaikovskian hysteria and Germanic B-A-C-H precision –
were superbly realized.
The audience
reaction at first was shock and awe (and then fulsome applause). But sometimes
shock and awe say more than anything else.
*****
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