Review of Hallé performance of Verdi's Requiem, conducted by Sir Mark Elder

Sir Mark Elder conducting the Hallé

Verdi’s Requiem has often been described as an “operatic” setting of a sacred text.

There’s no doubting that Sir Mark Elder sees it that way. It makes fairly frequent appearances in concert programmes, but of all the versions I’ve heard I don’t think there’s been any quite as determined to make it into a drama as this.

Each of the soloists is known for their prowess in Italian opera, and it seems each had been encouraged to see their role in this performance as a character study of some sort, whether pronouncing judgment, pleading for mercy, or floating to the heights of beatification.

When it came to the big choral and orchestral highspots, all was spectacle – the Dies Irae with not one but two big bass drums, and especially the Tuba mirum, with Aida-style stage trumpeters appearing on high, to properly put the fear of God into us.

The opening of the whole work was so minimalist as to be almost inaudible (pity so many of the audience decided to show their appreciation with paroxysms of coughing at that precise moment),so much so that the stentorian sound of the men leading off with Te decet hymnus was quite rough by comparison.

It was all much appreciated for its showmanship, and the contribution of the soloists. Natalya Romaniw was a heavenly prima donna, wonderfully sustaining her purity of tone and accuracy to the very end of the Libera me. If the Romantic notion that anyone can be saved through the love of a good woman was what Verdi had in mind there, her voice exemplified it.

Alice Coote, too, so imperious in her depiction of the Last Judgment in the Sequence, was the perfect Secunda Donna when it came to the Agnus Dei, which was one of the most beautiful parts of the whole performance. Thomas Atkins shone as every Italian tenor at prayer should do, in Ingemisco, and James Platt caught something of the pleading tone of Germont father in his singing of Confutatis maledictis (though in ensemble his foundation of the harmony didn’t always seem quite precise enough).

Whatever Verdi did or didn’t believe about the hereafter, he got something right with his setting of the Sanctus in this work: the dwelling place of God must be a scene of supreme rejoicing, which is what he caught in that wonderful fugue for double chorus. For me, it’s the climax of the whole work, though Sir Mark took it quite gently, with rhythmic life – unusually – somewhat lost in the part-singing for some of the time … until the last glorious cadence.

This work should always be something special for the Hallé: its founder, not known for operatic ventures into the Verdi canon particularly, was quick off the mark in appreciating it when it first appeared: he gave it here in Manchester in spring 1876, only about a year after Verdi, with his hand-picked Italian troupe, had toured it to London (and thus performed the British premiere). But Hallé was almost certainly the first to do it with all-British forces.

Review of BBC Philharmonic 'centennial' concert

Eva Ollikainen conducting the BBC Philharmonic

Calculating the age of an orchestra is a funny business. You might think that continuous existence as a group who played together under the same name, with slow membership changes over time, would be definitive.

By that standard the BBC Philharmonic is still quite young. Even allowing for changes of name (via the BBC Northern Symphony Orchestra and the preceding BBC Northern Orchestra), but looking for its existence as a body of players on full-time contracts, you can’t go before 1942, or, allowing for almost universal freelance orchestra membership in earlier times, only back to 1934, when its players were basically those of the Hallé anyway (and also appeared as the Liverpool Philharmonic). Before that there was a BBC Nonette – the “Northern Studio Orchestra” – although attempts had been made in 1930 to establish something bigger.

So how do we get the idea that the orchestra’s lifetime stems from the 2ZY radio station in Manchester of May 1922, which started even before the BBC existed? (It’s not too long since Margaret Wyatt wrote a little book for the BBC called BBC Philharmonic: A celebration 1934-1994, so even by that count the Phil is 88 years old now).

Only on the basis that a body that employs musicians can “own” an orchestra, even if it’s simply paying for one-off concerts, and using various names from time to time (“2ZY Orchestra” and “Northern Wireless Orchestra”, from 1926).

It’s been considered thus before – Charles Hallé employed his band from 1857 to 1895 either from gig to gig or on six-month contracts (though for many years he paid some a weekly wage for that winter season), and it was most often known as “the Manchester Orchestra” then.

Never mind: the BBC in the North West is celebrating 100 years of paying musicians to perform for it, which is a good thing whether you call that having an orchestra or not. The Philharmonic marked this with a great performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in the Bridgewater Hall, conducted by Eva Ollikainen. It was full-bodied Beethoven, with 60 strings and effectively triple woodwind, and the vocal line-up of Tuuli Takala, Kitty Whately, Steve Davislim and Simon Shibambu, abetted by the CBSO Chorus, made a strong body indeed.

Big bodies can still be light on their toes. Ollikainen brought energetic tempi to the first two movements, resulting in playing of incisiveness, vehemence even, and the timps pounded by Paul Turner were emphatically prominent in both. The Adagio was all suavity and songfulness, and the finale eloquent, full of gloriously realized counterpoint and surging and bounding in rhythmic energy to its climax.

Before it there were just two short orchestral pieces; the first the overture, Chanticleer, by Ruth Gipps, which the orchestra has recently recorded. Written in 1944, it’s a bit of a stop-start piece, but with plenty of instrumental colour. Oddly enough, its fairly conventional mid-century harmonies end on a strange cadence – as if it was meant to lead straight into the opera it was originally written for.

Present-day composer Erland Cooper wrote his Window over Rackwick to a BBC commission, and it had its world premiere in this concert. It’s a kind of tribute to Peter Maxwell Davies, the son of Salford who was associated with the Philharmonic for many years, inspired by the Orkney spot where he had his home, and setting a poem by his friend and collaborator, George Mackay Brown. The soprano soloist was pure-toned Héloïse Werner.

It’s like a simple, oft-repeated song refrain, beautiful to hear in its string chamber ensemble garb, and, like Max himself, very pleasant to encounter, but leaving you in no doubt of his being amply content with his own company.

Review of Hallé concert with Tami Pohjola, conducted by Taavi Oramo

Violinist Tami Pohjola and conductor Taavi Oramo pictured with the Hallé (credit Tom Stephens)

This week’s repeated Hallé programme (I heard it on Wednesday afternoon) was an intriguing one. Not so much for the headline works – Mendelssohn’s Italian symphony and Sibelius’ Violin Concerto – but for the two overtures by women composers added to those, and the two guest artists.

They were both Finnish and young, and going places. The conductor was Taavi Oramo and the soloist Tami Pohjola.

She is a wonderful player. She has both a gorgeously lyrical sound and some very big tone, allied with formidable technique. Standing against around 50 strings in the tutti orchestra was no problem, and the first movement cadenza was not just confidently negotiated but heartfelt in style. That makes a difference: the slow movement, too, was soulful in spades, and the finale much more than a mere fireworks display.

Oramo ensured that the orchestral role in the concerto had plenty of emphasis, energy and expression, and the Hallé wind players lightened the atmosphere with their usual expertise.

The two overtures were Fanny Mendelssohn’s in C major and Louise Farrenc’s no. 1 in E minor. They were near-contemporaries in life, and the overtures are near-contemporary in date – but, for me, there was a world of difference. Fanny Mendelssohn, for all her technical accomplishments, seems to borrow effects from others (Mozart, and maybe even Beethoven at some points) but has a tendency to repeat herself in shortish phrases, and her harmonic progressions are not always too adroit. Taavi Oramo made sure her writing was pushed along to create real tension, but even he could not make this overture into more than a curiosity.

Louise Farrenc, on the other hand, was a composer of imagination and originality, as well as technical accomplishment. Her harmonic changes are sure-footed and she writes remarkable counterpoint almost throughout, so that her themes intertwine to great effect. What a pity she doesn’t seem to have written very much more for orchestra than this and one other overture.

Felix Mendelssohn, the Italian’s composer, gave us a masterepiece and it’s now a familiar one. I specially liked the charm Taavi Oramo and the musicians drew from the Con moto third movement (a Goldilocks tempo there, with some very individual touches from the horns), and the finale was definitely fast and furious – perhaps a tad too much ...