Review of Northern Chamber Orchestra with leader Nicholas Ward and soloist Craig Ogden

 

Nicholas Ward (left) and Craig Ogden

The highspot of the weekend Manchester Guitar Festival at Chetham’s School of Music was a concert on Sunday afternoon by the Northern Chamber Orchestra in the Stoller Hall, featuring Craig Ogden as soloist in both Malcolm Arnold’s Guitar Concerto and Peter Sculthorpe’s Nourlangie.

But the concert – a repeat of one given in Macclesfield Heritage Centre the night before – was important for another reason: it was the final performance by the NCO with Nicholas Ward as leader and artistic director. Nick has been in the leader’s chair since 1984, and I’ve followed the fortunes of this remarkable ensemble, player-led both organizationally and musically, throughout that time. His departure is a wrench.

Nick’s whimsical and sometimes far-ranging spoken introductions to the music played in their concerts have long been a welcome part of their special atmosphere: you know that this is real chamber music, played by friends among friends. His inspiring musical contribution, literally leading by example, has also been something to savour, making the sound of the NCO one that can vary from subtlest intimacy to extraordinarily big effects. There was one right at the start, as for this performance he had a strings strength of 17, augmented to 27 by musicians from Chetham’s School for the opening Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis, by Vaughan Williams – one of three wonderful examples of string writing on the programme. Designed for a cathedral acoustic, the varied textures and sense of the past brought to new life were equally entrancing in the bright, reflective Stoller Hall, and this was no routine performance but full of passion.

Percy Grainger’s setting of the Londonderry Air (Irish Tune from County Derry, as he called it), with a horn added to the texture, was equally beguiling. Then we heard a special piece for the occasion: the NCO’s own composer-player James Manson’s Bânjöeš Yètí, based on a Moldovan folk tune but completely in the English pastoral tradition in nature, with lovely roles for solo clarinet, horn and flute – and, of course, a violin solo.

And so to the guitar pieces. The Arnold concerto should be heard much more often: it’s got sweet and wistful tunes in each of its three movements, of the sort he crafted so well, and the central one of the three is both long and rather mysterious, partly like a score for a Hitchcock thriller (as it’s been described), with portamento slides on the violins and the menace of thudding bass notes – but also by turns energetic and finally haunting.

Craig Ogden’s mastery of his instrument needs no endorsement from me: his playing is always crystal-clear, super-sensitive and beautiful to listen to. And so it was again in Sculthorpe’s piece, which brings on an array of percussion (thunder sheet, gong and cymbals included) to present its ingeniously developed themes.

Finally it was strings alone again, for Elgar’s Introduction and Allegro. For me it’s one of the most glorious things ever created, and the sound of Nick Ward and the NCO playing it, molto sostenuto and molto espressivo (as it says towards the end) is the way I shall remember the enriching time that his leadership of this orchestra has given us.