The combined talents of Nicholas Collon as
conductor and Boris Giltburg as soloist made their shared concert one of the
outstanding events of the Hallé season.
Giltburg is a pianist whose reputation goes
before him, especially in Rachmaninov, and you could hear why. From the very
opening there was a tenderness and thoughtfulness in his playing, both wistful
and limpid, modest and heartfelt, which pervaded much of the opening movement
of the composer’s Piano concerto no. 3.
But that wasn’t all. In the first solo episode
we heard flashes of the drama that was later to come, and there was no shortage
of steel in Giltburg’s playing either. Nicholas Collon was an excellent partner
for him, drawing a big, Romantic sound from the orchestra – beautifully rich in
the strings at the beginning of the second movement and gorgeously blending in
the wind at its end.
Boris Giltburg played that Intermezzo in a
swaying, lullaby-like style; but when it came to the finale he was transformed
again: mercurial, exciting and still forming his phrases and melodies with
elegance. The orchestral solos were nicely characterized, too, to match him.
Collon’s programme continued with Ravel’s Valses nobles et sentimentales. It’s a
strange series of wisps and flashes, with vigour and dreaminess – proof of the
remarkable ability of this conductor to obtain the best from an orchestra. His
visits are becoming ‘don’t miss’ events (and he’s conducting the Opus One set
of concerts this time, too).
He finished by putting the Hallé Choir in
the spotlight in John Adams’ Harmonium.
Written in 1980, it’s an essay in writing (to use Adams’ own words) for ‘human
voices – many of them – riding upon waves of rippling sound’. So the Hallé
Choir were very much the team to tackle it, along with the orchestra. The piece
sets words by John Donne and Emily Dickinson, but you would hardly know it had
they not been printed in the programme booklet.
That’s not the singers’ fault, as far as I
can see, as it’s more about waves of sound and multi-layered textures than
anything else, with the voices sustaining high and demanding lines over a
myriad of orchestral figures and complicated rhythms. The Hallé Choir (trained
by Matthew Hamilton) achieved that, and it was quite an achievement.
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