Manchester Camerata finished its season
with a world premiere – a concerto for two cellos and orchestra by Colin Riley,
titled Warp and Weft. Gábor Takács-Nagy
conducted in this and a symphony each by Haydn and Mozart, and Adi Brett led
the orchestra and was also soloist with Caroline Pether in Philip Glass’s Echorus, just after the interval.
The new work was described as the world’s
first double cello concerto, and in Guy Johnstone and Gabriella Swallow it had
top-class soloists to bring it to birth (and, incidentally, make up an all-Chet’s
line-up in its creation, as they and Riley are all alumni of the music school).
It’s certainly unlike a standard solo concerto
in make-up and impact, despite its apparent three-movement content. Beginning
very softly with a single, long-held note for one of the cellos, at first it
builds an ever-denser chordal texture and introduces long and languid solo
lines for the soloists while a virtuoso percussion role brings most rhythmic
and indeed colouristic activity to the sound. The soloists eventually take
their cue from the energetic kitchen noises, while the latter eventually seem
to collapse from sheer overload, while soloists and strings sustain high,
multi-part chords.
The centre movement is marked by stillness
throughout, with slow glissandi chords almost reminiscent of the magical similar
effects in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Tension quickly grows to a
passionate climax, with help from the ever-active percussion, and equally
rapidly subsides into reverie and multi-layered chords once more. In the third
movement the cellos sing a mournful song together, while the percussion provide
both rhythmic drive and timbral interest, and tremolando strings form a halo of
sound. The tempo quickens, then staggers to a halt, before an acceleration, a
pause and then frantic flurries and guttural percussion leading to the finish.
So there is little opportunity for
showmanship for the named soloists – indeed, they share their role at times
with the orchestral cellos, making for a more concertante-style contrast than a
soloistic one. The structure is episodic in effect, and though Riley has
created several notable ideas it’s difficult to see how they interconnect or
hold together. Maybe he was trying to achieve too many different things at one
go. Significantly, the biggest cheer from the audience was for percussionist
Janet Fulton at the end.
The short work by Philip Glass, played
without conductor, made an interesting contrast. Its regular, repetitive
unfolding of string textures over a simple chordal sequence (and figurations
not unlike Bach’s opening prelude of the ‘48’) were full of atmosphere and
thoughtfulness.
The two symphonies received the imaginative
and neatly pointed treatment, from the full orchestra, typical of Takács-Nagy’s
interpretations. Haydn’s no. 38 (the ‘Echo’) began with charmingly emphatic
phrasing and awareness of the many respects in which echo effects permeate its
construction (in the first movement as well as the more obvious examples in the
second). Its third and fourth movements have marvellously brilliant writing for
solo oboe, a challenge to which Rachael Clegg rose like a star.
Mozart’s ‘Linz’ (no. 36, K425) has almost
equally prominent roles for both oboe and bassoon in its Minuet and finale,
which was an appropriate piece on which to bow out for the Camerata’s
long-serving principal bassoon, Laurence Perkins, making his final appearance
as a member of the orchestra. Needless to say, it was impeccably played and
modestly contributed – from a player who is both expert and self-effacing and
will be much missed.
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