Kazuki Conducts Elgar & Beethoven Parts I & II, CBSO, Symphony Hall Birmingham, Wednesday 21 February & Thursday 22 February, 2024. 4✩✩✩✩ Review: David Gray & Paul Gray.
Kazuki Conducts Elgar & Beethoven Parts I & II, CBSO, Symphony Hall Birmingham, Wednesday 21 February & Thursday 22 February, 2024.
4✩✩✩✩ Review: David Gray & Paul Gray.
“An impressive preview of CBSO pieces to be played on CBSO’s forthcoming, ten-city tour of Europe.”
Programme 21/02/24
Walton – Spitfire Prelude and Fugue
Beethoven – Piano Concerto No 3
Elgar – Enigma Variations
Programme 22/02/24
Beethoven – Violin Concerto
Elgar – Enigma Variations
Conductor Kazuki Yamada gives charming little chats to his audiences before the performance of the first work in a programme. In his introduction to the first of two concerts showcasing works he and the CBSO are soon to take on tour, he talked about humour in Beethoven. True, we first tend to think of this composer as all furrowed-brow with a tragic hearing impairment. Truth be told, the great wonder in exploring Beethoven’s music is discovering the dry, subversive and at time outrageous capacity for joy & laughter this great man had.
The genius of Beethoven is that he embraces the truth of what it is to be human: joy and anguish are not opposites, but integrated and complementary aspects of the whole human experience. The challenge facing any interpreter of his music is to find this balance, and to boldly express it. Soloist, Alice Sara Ott, explored and integrated the humorous, light-serious-shade that plays through the structure of Beethoven’s wonderful 3rd Piano Concerto.
Orchestral ensemble was sometimes a little un-unanimous during the first movement, but the second movement was deliciously lyrical, and the third an exuberant dance. Ott’s playing was marvellous: full of the kind of duet and dialogue between solo piano and orchestra that Beethoven clearly intended.
During the second concert, violin soloist Maira Duennas was charged with delivering a much more expansive and portentous expression of Beethoven’s aesthetic, in the Violin Concerto.
The orchestra’s ensemble was tighter on the whole. During the first movement Duennas guided us through the chromatic extended passages of the developmental sections with intelligence and assurance. The slow movement was simply ravishing: a meditation that seemed to hover; yet never static. Duennas alternated between limpid, translucent textures and weightier tones to tremendous effect. The final movement was buoyant and full of fun, and brought the house down.
The opening work of the first of these concerts, Walton’s Spitfire Prelude and Fugue could have been better. Fugues need to be precise and rhythmically tight. This was not - particuarly in the final fugal section - which was rhythmically rather flabby. Given Walton’s noted talent for writing exciting rhythms & counterpoint, he would surely not countenance a flabby fugue?! Some more work is needed.
The work common to both concerts, Elgar’s Enigma Variations, is always a delight to hear. Much rehearsal time had clearly gone into this work – perhaps to the disadvantage of the Walton? And, as a Midlands based orchestra, Elgar is deeply embedded in the DNA of the CBSO. The result of this was, put quite simply, perfection.
Kazuki gave us an exuberant, rich & deeply integrated reading, full of humour and character. The music flowed through the orchestra with expert precision: individual sections – and their some of their soloists - shone, and the ensemble was tight as a drum. The second performance, if this is possible, was even better than the first, with many members of the audience clearly moved to tears.
And so, now, the CBSO now fly off for a ten city tour in as many days. These cities are in for a treat.
Kazuki Yamada – Conductor
2/02/24
Alice Sara Ott – Piano
22/02/24
Maria Duenas - Violin