Review of Psappha's concert at Hallé St Peter's on 19th January 2017

Psappha, Manchester’s leading contemporary music performing group, is coming to the end of a year celebrating its 25^th anniversary. This has included a joint tour with the Hebrides Ensemble (which called at Salford University in November), but in a way the main event so far was a concert at Hallé St Peter’s – just round the corner from St Michael’s, Ancoats, where the group is now based – consisting of two works by Peter Maxwell Davies and a world premiere by David Horne.

Maxwell Davies’ Stedman Doubles, in its original version for clarinet and three percussionists, and Eight Songs For A Mad King have become two of Psappha’s calling cards, and, since Max was Psappha’s inspiration, Patron and (in 2014) guest in a memorable concert celebrating his 80^th birthday in this venue, there was something right about bringing his music back to Manchester again.

Stedman Doubles was indeed written for Manchester performance, by students, in 1955. It was deemed unplayable at the time and languished for 40 years (although Max made a version employing just one percussionist in the 1960s). He said it was influenced by Indian classical rhythmic practice and raga improvisation, and hearing it today the major impression (apart from how far ahead of its time it was) is that of the twinkly-eyed Max having fun. There are touches of humour – those points that are just too neat and twee to be simulations of real Indian style – and throughout a sense that Western, motoric rhythms keep nosing in enough to make the whole thing sound, as we would have said then, just cool.

Eight Songs, with the solo performed by Kelvin Thomas, who has become Psappha’s regular partner in the work, is another thing again. Almost as much theatre piece as concert item, it casts the instrumental ensemble members as bullfinches, with little beaked face masks, as well as keepers of the mad King George III. Once you get over the shock of simulated insanity in music, its content becomes very serious indeed, and challenging to its audience. Yet there are still moments of humour, particularly the send-ups of others’ styles, from Handel’s Messiah (contemporary to George) onwards. This was a virtuoso performance by all concerned.

David Horne’s Resonating Instruments was commissioned by Psappha for this occasion and puts their familiar team of violinist Ben Holland, cellist Jenny Langridge, flautist Conrad Marshall, clarinettist Dov Goldberg and pianist Benjamin Powell alongside a solo role for Tim Williams on the cimbalom.

What an attractive instrument the cimbalom is! You can hear it in rural Austrian hotels as an easy-listening background evening entertainment, and giving folkish touches in some orchestral scores, but maybe it’s time it had its place in the spotlight for serious music, too.

It works a bit like a piano with human hands guiding two mobile hammers, instead of fingers on a keyboard, but there’s a sustaining pedal with damping mechanism that enables resonances to build and be built, which is the aspect of its sound David Horne has seized upon. The accompanying instruments imitate its tremolos and figurations as well as creating their own ‘sympathetic’ vibrations, and Horne exploits the solo instrument’s considerable dynamic range from aggressive twanging to gentle whispers that can interchange with pianissimos from the others.

He also explores both the lowest and highest registers of the sound, and gives the other instrumentalists virtuosic solos as well as the main protagonist. At around 25 minutes it was maybe a smidgeon too long, but as a piece d’occasion to celebrate a visionary artistic leader and the group of brilliant musicians with whom he works it was perfect.