Article published in Manchester Evening News 14 October 2016

THE Hallé’s ‘Opus One’ concert programme this month (given on Wednesday, repeated Thursday and next Sunday) includes a magical work by Mozart – the Concerto for Flute and Harp.

It’s pretty well unique in the orchestral repertoire, and making its lovely sounds in these performances as soloists are two of the Hallé’s own players, principal flute Katherine Baker and principal harp Marie Leenhardt. Conductor is Gergely Madaras.

Katherine and Marie are both established, familiar and much-loved figures to Hallé audiences, after 12 years and 22 years with the orchestra, respectively. Both began playing when quite young.

“I started at 12, but it was really like a hobby for me until around 17 or 18,” says Marie. “Making the harp my career didn’t cross my mind until we moved house (she is French-born) and then I had a teacher who was training professional players.

“I actually wanted to be a surgeon when I was younger – but after a gap year from school I knew I wanted to be a musician. I’ve never regretted it.”
Katherine is the daughter of musical parents – her father, Julian, was principal horn with the Hallé for seven years – and she learned the flute from the age of 10.

“My parents were very down-to-earth about the realities of being a musician, though,” she says. “I always wanted to be an orchestral player, and they’d say ‘You may never make it’” – but she went to London’s Royal Academy of Music and was with the BBC Welsh Symphony Orchestra before the Hallé.

It’s not the first time they’ve played the Mozart concerto together with the Hallé, but the first for some time. I asked how they go about preparing to be joint soloists.

“We rehearse together first,” says Marie – and Katherine chips in: “I do find it quite odd, because with a solo concerto you prepare completely on your own, of course. Then we play it through together with piano accompaniment.

“It’s almost like playing chamber music – but we’re doing it in front of the whole orchestra. And the conductor is supposed to adjust to what we want to do, isn’t he?”

Marie adds: “For me it’s easier when there’s a conductor there – then you have someone to relate to, because the orchestra is also part of the music.”

“And Gergely Madaras was previously a flautist himself,” Katherine says – “so he knows the piece really well!”

Review of Halle concert 6 October 2016

SIR Mark Elder’s inspiration of combining scenes from Verdi’s Macbeth with Beethoven’s ninth symphony for the first concert of the Hallé Thursday series paid off, not just in the full house but the quality and thrill of the performances.

Strange bedfellows, you might think. Yet not so strange, as the composers were two of humanity’s biggest-hearted visionaries, and each of the works was (as we say today) a game-changer.

For us in the audience there was the bonus of hearing two world-class operatic soloists, hot from topping the bill together in the opera at La Monnaie in Brussels, as Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. Scott Hendricks is a superb actor-singer and brought his character to life even in the limitations of concert performance. Béatrice Uria-Monzon caught the idea, too, and her creamy mezzo-soprano sound was a joy.

Almost needless to say, the orchestral contribution, from the first notes of the Act 1 Prelude on, was atmospheric, vivid and dramatically incisive, with the rasping sound of the brass, cimbasso and all, at full throttle.

The Choral Symphony shared Scott Hendricks in its soloists’ line-up, young Welsh soprano Natalya Romaniw (whose career highlights have been in the north west a number of times already) topping the texture with serene clarity, Madeleine Shaw (no stranger to us as a result of Opera North’s ‘Ring’ cycle) her rich counterpart, and Allan Clayton (another young singer whose work we’ve heard and loved before) adding to the ensemble.

With Mark Elder in charge, this symphony is never less than a fire-cracker. Unlike with most other works in the Beethoven canon, no one bats an eyelid at the power of the modern symphony orchestra (today’s timpani, too) being used and allied with a big chorus.

The Hallé Choir (now trained by Matthew Hamilton) were marvellous – particularly the sopranos, hitting the high notes again and again with formidable accuracy and glorious tone, and smiling as they did it. They sang from memory, too, which undoubtedly helps.

Beethoven’s great essay on Reasons To Be Cheerful hit the spot on this occasion, driving rhythms balanced by flowing melodies, determination and hints of ecstasy in the Scherzo, beautiful tone and real drama in the Adagio, and a finale beginning in near-theatrical style and ending in sheer exhilaration.

On Radio 3 on Monday 10 October.

Article published in Manchester Evening News 7 October 2016

TWENTY-FIVE years ago, a young musician called Tim Williams started a music group for the Manchester area.

It was called Psappha, and specialised in living composers – its first concert included music by the Salford-born firebrand Peter Maxwell Davies, and a world premiere.

Today it’s an established part of the national music scene, the north of England's only stand-alone professional contemporary music ensemble and a National Portfolio Organisation for Arts Council England. It’s based at St Michael’s, the former Italian Chapel in Ancoats.

Tim Williams is its artistic director, and still enthusiastic to share his love of new music.

“I went to a comprehensive school in Liverpool with a brilliant music teacher,” he says. “He took us to the Philharmonic and also to contemporary music concerts. He even wrote a xylophone concerto for me to play, at the age of 15.”

(He was clearly a gifted percussionist, and you’ll see him playing with top orchestras as well as Psappha).

“What I really love is being able to ask a composer about his own music and how we play it,” he says. “You don’t often get the chance to do that.

“We’ve changed with the times, but it’s always been about offering people in the north west something they can’t find anywhere else. I’m still excited about what we do – and we’ve worked with composers from all over the world.”

The latest collaboration is with Mike Walker – Salford-born and now resident near Haslingden – whom he describes as ‘the best jazz guitarist on this side of the Atlantic’, and his internationally famous quintet, The Impossible Gentlemen.

Psappha’s opening concert for its 25^th anniversary season is with them and includes Mike’s suite, Ropes, played by the Gentlemen and a 22-piece Psappha strings ensemble conducted by Clark Rundell.

Mike says: “I wanted to fuse the dynamic of the acoustic string soundworld with the electric soundworld of the jazz quintet: and I was thinking about lines in our lives, and ropes – things that can tie us up as well as help us out of a hole. There are sea shanties in there – and things about being ‘tied up’, ‘towed home’ – and even ‘a bit ropey’!”

Other music in the concert includes the Triple Quartet by 80-year-old American giant Steve Reich, and the 1970s cult track by Gavin Bryars, Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet.

Psappha, RNCM, 12 October, 7.30pm.

Article published in Manchester Evening News 30 September 2016

SIR Mark Elder opens the Hallé Thursday concert series with Verdi and Beethoven: excerpts from the opera Macbeth by the former, and the ninth symphony by the latter. The Hallé Choir play their part, alongside top operatic soloists Béatrice Uria-Monzon, Scott Hendricks, Natalya Romaniw, Madeleine Shaw and Allan Clayton.

These works might seem worlds apart, but Sir Mark says they have something vital in common:

“As we were putting this season together, we realized we were (quite unconsciously) including a connecting thread you could call ‘Northern Legends’ – from Wagner’s Ring and the material Schoenberg used in Gurrelieder to some of the tales of old Scotland. Macbeth, of course, is a real Scottish figure as well as a Shakespeare character.

“But the common factor with Beethoven’s ninth is that I think both works were what you could call ‘game changers’ – both composers wanted to do something that was above the usual.

“In Beethoven’s case it was using the human voice in a symphony to express something more than could be done with instruments alone. In Verdi’s it was, in a way, the opposite: he wanted to take out the purely vocal charm of the Italian bel canto style and create a kind of musical drama that had not been done before.

“He wanted dramatic presentation of the scenes, rather than a display of singing. He insisted on a dress rehearsal before the first performance – something never done in opera before – and worked repeatedly on the scenes he wanted delivered in a realistic way … the ones we are performing on Thursday.

“Two of our singers are coming straight from a stage performance of the opera in Brussels, so they will be singing in the way they do in the theatre. Verdi, for instance, wanted the voices of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth in the murder scene to be hoarse and whispered, because of their fears: that’s what we want to re-create.”

Sir Mark is also looking forward to his concert on November 10, when he will conduct and, it is planned, record Vaughan Williams’ sixth symphony – another in a CD succession of VW symphonies from the Hallé, now quite extensive.

“I’m excited to be doing this work, which is so different, wild and anguished,” says Sir Mark. “The orchestra will be up for whatever challenges the music gives us. My respect for, and interest in, Vaughan Williams grows every year.”

Review of BBC Philharmonic concert, 24 September 2016

Haydn’s ‘The Creation’ used to be as popular an oratorio as Handel’s ‘Messiah’. The Victorians loved it, and would cheerfully put on community presentations for Christmas and Easter just as they did the Handel staples.

It’s quite rare to hear a performance now, and Saturday’s audience was heartily grateful to the BBC Philharmonic, City of Birmingham Symphony Chorus, soloists Lucy Hall, Dietrich Hensel and Robin Tritschler, and maestro Juanjo Mena, for opening the Phil’s Bridgewater Hall season with it.

So they should have been, for care had been lavished upon it. Mena drew the maximum of atmosphere and scene-painting from the orchestral score, and the soloists animated their angelic, and later human roles with every subtlety they could.

The orchestral strings, guest led by Ioana Petcu-Colan, were beautiful to hear in the early baritone and tenor arias, and Lucy Hall brought lovely high pianissimi and warbling trills to her vocalization of Gabriel.

That said, there were some aspects that were puzzling or even a bit disappointing. I think the root of them was that this performance did not quite know whether it was in period style or not. We had natural horns and trumpets, and old-style timpani, but the strings (only a desk short of symphonic strength in each department) and woodwind were today’s instruments and played in mainstream style.

The Bridgewater Hall acoustic lends itself superbly to classical articulation, intense rather than broad tone production, and small forces. It also works brilliantly when a big orchestra fills the room with sound. But this was a compromise, and balancing the numbers in the orchestra with those in the chorus was not all that was needed. Somehow, tonal blend and neatness of note-lengths were not perfect (and, to begin with, ensemble in the band was not, either).

So we had a few raucous full-orchestra fortissimi, including the famous ‘There was light’ moment and the sunrise soon after, and Juanjo Mena’s eagerness to realize the lively rhythms of the choruses while maintaining smoothness of flow, meant some had muddied waters.

I did like the emphasis on Haydn’s little jokes, however – the trombone raspberries that represent the arrival on the planet of ‘heavy beasts’, in particular. And the duet and chorus in part three (by which time Dietrich Hensel had become a gentlemanly Adam and Lucy Hall a sweetie of an Eve), was beautifully paced and balanced, with the choir gently introduced beneath the solo and instrumental textures.

If their attempts to add some latin passion to their first-innocence relationship were not wholly convincing, they became a Papageno-Papagena happy couple by the end, which was lovely.

One more gripe: if only it could have been sung in English. There’s a charm all its own in those antique lines.

Article published in Manchester Evening News 23 September 2016

CLASSICAL fans are spoilt for choice this weekend, as tomorrow night not only do the BBC Philharmonic open their autumn schedule at the Bridgewater Hall with Haydn’s The Creation, but Manchester Camerata open theirs at the Royal Northern College of Music.

It’s a typically eclectic programme, ranging from music by Jimi Hendrix and the Rolling Stones to Haydn, Mozart, Holst and Vaughan Williams.

Gábor Takács-Nagy conducts and ‘Haydn to Hendrix’ is the title – so what’s that about?

“Our aim is always to push at boundaries,” says Camerata head of creative programming Samantha Morgan, “and we believe that good music is always good music.

“We’re looking to bring in younger, fresher members of the audience as well as older ones, and we’re saying: ‘We know it might not be what you’re used to, but come with us on this journey’.

“Gábor has been doing this kind of thing in his work in Switzerland, too, and people find they really enjoy it.

“We want them to trust us, and we will ensure that any non-classical music is by musicians who are first-class in their own right. The Rolling Stones’ Sympathy For The Devil is in an arrangement by Daniel Schnyder, and for Hendrix’s Purple Haze Variations there’s also material by Simon Parkin, who’s worked with us for a number of years.”

Further ahead there’s a visit from Tine Thing Helseth, the trumpet player who has enlivened the Camerata’s ground-breaking ‘UpClose’ performances. She’s soloist and director for their ‘Festive Happening’ on December 18 (3pm) at the Albert Hall, Peter Street.

“Tine Thing has already helped us put these kinds of things into action with her programming. Freedom of choice of music gives freedom in performance, and we can profile members of the orchestra and engage with an audience that way,” says Samantha Morgan.

Between those two events, on November 17 pianist Alexander Ullman is lead artist for a promenade concert by the Camerata at the Whitworth gallery (making its own French impression, with Poulenc, Roussel, Debussy and Stravinsky).

The UpClose concept, says Morgan, is informing all their concerts: “We’ve taken our musicians into bars where there’s no classical music normally, and people just loved it. We’ve learned about how to communicate to the audience who come through that kind of door.”

Article pubished in Manchester Evening News 16 September 2016 (full version)

BOTH the Hallé and BBC Philharmonic open their autumn concert schedule

at the Bridgewater Hall next week, and in the Hallé’s case it’s the first programme of the Opus One series, in which the young British pianist Benjamin Grosvenor is soloist in Liszt’s first piano concerto and Hallé music director Sir Mark Elder conducts Beethoven’s ‘Pastoral’ symphony.

That’s performed three times over – September 22 (2.15pm) and September 25 and 28 (7.30pm).

The BBC Phil have their opening concert on 24 September, beginning under music director Juanjo Mena with Haydn’s The Creation (aka Die Schöpfung, as they’re doing it in the German version).

It’s the first of three major choral works in their season, each with a different choir: for Haydn it’s the City of Birmingham Symphony Chorus, and the others are Bach’s St Matthew Passion (next Good Friday) with Manchester Chamber Choir, and Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder next June – a joint project with the Hallé when both orchestras together and the Hallé Choir are joined by a starry soloists’ team.

Simon Webb, BBC Philharmonic general manager, was understandably thrilled at the treats in store for his Bridgewater Hall audience.

“We’re trying to present music that’s changed things – in particular changing music itself,” he said. “Great music always has an important impact. In our 2017-18 season we’ll focus on music that had a political impact, but this is about revolutionary masterpieces in a musical context.”

That’s the idea behind starting with Haydn, and also the Bach and Schoenberg works to come, but it also shows in two programmes later this year, conducted by Mena, that include Stravinsky’s The Rite Of Spring, Ravel’s Daphnis And Chloé ballet music and the UK premiere of Magnus Lindberg’s Vivo (November 19), and Berg’s violin concerto (soloist Michael Barenboim) and Bruckner’s Symphony no. 7 (December 10).

“The former will show the colours and brilliance of the orchestra, and the latter has a lot to do with how Juanjo approaches his own artistic identity,” says Webb.

There’s also a stream of British music, with Elgar and Walton on October 9 (Mena conducts, and Jennifer Pike is soloist in Sibelius’ violin concerto) via Sir Peter Maxwell Davies’ trumpet concerto on October 22 (soloist Håkan Hardenberger, conductor John Storgårds) and Britten’s Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes on November 5 (Storgårds conducts again).

And there’s much more in the New Year, including a world premiere … but more of that another day.