Selected Reviews

Nigel Reigns Supreme in Aussie

The scheduled items were Mozart's Concerto in D major K 218 and Beethoven's Violin Concerto, also in D, roughly 65 minutes of music and yet the event took just short of three hours. The place was Melbourne's Hamer Hall, seating over two thousand five hundred yet with a crystal clear acoustic. How come it took so long? Well, it was a Nigel Kennedy entertainment. The 51-year-old enfant terrible made it an unforgettable evening on 28 February, aided and abetted by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.

The scruffy maestro made his entrance in a messy outfit based on bovver boots, tassels dangling, making gestures of the footie stadium, punching the air, greeting some of the players with tangent knuckles in place of handshakes. He picks up a mike and delivers some stand-up gags after which he launches into the Prelude from Bach's E major Partita, faultless violin playing, matchless musicianship.

More stand-up comic patter, including a smattering of Billy Connolly-like dirt, the whole larded with his pseudo-cockney patois, most sentences beginning with the intrusive 'like'. Eventually he gets round to introducing Mozart's Concerto in D for Violin, Orchestra and Harpsichord. Eh? Harpsichord, did he say? But there's no harpsichord in the score. But as we couldn't hear it, no matter.

The performance was exemplary: stylish, virile, graceful; not since Szigeti and Beecham have I heard such a pleasurable reading. Mind you, there was a surprise in the cadenzas: suddenly there are sustained chords in the strings, over which the violin weaves some virtuoso larks and then some quiet rhapsodies Szymered into our ears. Shock horror, but not displeasing, would you Adam and Eve it? Oh yes and there was a reference to the first eight notes of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring: Nige is at his exercise! The opening tutti confirmed that while the music played there was to be no tomfoolery. Nige directed in a space in mid-orchestra, at times playing with, at times at various sections of the band as if exhorting, even daring them to play as well as they could, perhaps even beyond their capacity. Not easy to judge an orchestra on an accompanying gig but the MSO played full bloodedly, warmly and competently.

Music over, Nige gagged a bit more and paid compliments to the Orchestra and in particular to its Leader, Wilma Smith, leading to the two of them playing three of Bartók's 44 Duets for 2 Violins.

At last, the interval, after which without further ado came the Beethoven. Fast tempi for the first movement, drum taps underplayed, the usual Kreisler cadenza followed by a rapt performance of the slow movement, surely Beethoven's most dreamlike elegy. A lively Rondo and you might think the concert was over. Not a bit of it. Of all pieces they played Monti's Czardas. A precedent? Remember that at the first performance of all a double-bass solo with tricks was played between the movements. Two more encores and the audience went home thoroughly satisfied.

Curious to know whether the orchestra took exception to Nige's gags and cavorting I went backstage and talked to some of the members. No, they enjoyed it all, nice change from the usual routine and they had respect for Kennedy for his exemplary musicianship and the fact that he played his instrument better than any of them played theirs.

They were fascinated by my telling them that I was probably the only person who had known Nige before he sported a Cockney accent. But of course the infant I cradled in my arms was then only three months old.

John Amis

NIGEL KENNEDY: Beethoven & Mozart Violin Concertos

Nigel Kennedy: Violin
Michal Baranski: Double Bass Polish Chamber Orchestra
Nigel Kennedy: Conductor
EMI Classics 0946 3 95373 2 7 77.55

If you intend listening to the Prom concert on 19 July when Nigel Kennedy will be back in the Royal Albert Hall after 21 years, as soloist in the Elgar Violin Concerto why not also hear his Late Night Jazz Prom, with his Nigel Kennedy Quintet. Readers should also be encouraged to buy this new CD with Kennedy's interpretation of the Beethoven Concerto, partnered in every sense of the word by the Polish Chamber Orchestra who also join him for the fourth of Mozart's Violin Concertos and a sweet little piece of jazz as an encore.

Those of us who were quite properly enthused by the young Kennedy and the millions who still revel in his recording of Vivaldi's Four Seasons will understand and appreciate that this brilliant instrumentalist is now in the forefront of great musicians.

Critics of all ages and experience love to say of the young that they still have to find true wisdom but quite often the young have an inbuilt understanding of composers and their needs which is all too often lost. With young players of Yehudi Menuhin's personality, every time he played a masterpiece there was something unique, but the listener had to accept that some performances were routine and lacked inspiration. In these Concertos Nigel Kennedy gives us a mature and sensitive musician's comprehension of what would have delighted Beethoven and Mozart as inspiration took them. He creates those moments when the listener will feel their hair standing on end as the player feels a direct relationship with the composer.

One tremendous advantage that the always independent Kennedy has is the Polish Chamber Orchestra who apparently work regularly without a conductor. With them Kennedy is leading an orchestral ensemble of experienced musicians who listen to each other and form a team akin to any great string quartet. Kennedy sets his mood for the Beethoven Concerto in collaboration with the PCO's timpanist and those four drum taps guarantee the quality of further performance. Throughout the work Kennedy leads rather than controls and the other players work with him rather than for him. There are so many moments, all of which obviously belong to the Concerto as a whole, which individually had me bubbling with delight.

Kreisler's famous Cadenza to the first movement was beautifully integrated into the performance. For the other movements and similarly in the Mozart Kennedy has provided his own highly individual Cadenzas, involving the other players, each of which is flavoured with the idiom of jazz yet provides an introspective element for a 21st-Century interpretation.

In other words, Nigel Kennedy is fulfilling the destiny which we older music lovers anticipated while we took full advantage of his early brilliance and musicianship.

Denby Richards

World Premiere of Birtwistle's The Minotaur at Covent Garden

Photo by Bill Cooper

Harrison Birtwistle has been working towards his new opera The Minotaur for more than ten years.

Commissioned by The Royal Opera and given its world premiere on 15 April it is an intriguing, dark and horrifying work based partly in Greek legend but creatively reworked to suit Birtwistle's purposes.

The opera opens to a simple scene with Christine Rice's Ariadne on a beach with an electric stripe of blue horizon in the distance. A drop down screen features a swelling, viscous sea, heaving and throwing up gurning faces created by the waves that dissipate as it rolls on. The introductory music, which is familiar atonal Birtwistle fare, is a perfect foil for this. The dark and angry sea on screen becomes a repeated feature during scene changes throughout the opera.

Ariadne awaits the arrival of a black sailed ship which carries the Innocents, youngsters of Athens, being brought as a sacrifice to the Minotaur. This half man, half bull, whose name is Asterios, is Ariadne's brother, born of a liaison between her mother Pasiphae and a Sea God in the shape of a bull, possibly Poseidon. With the Innocents comes Theseus, son of Aegeus, King of Athens or also possibly another son of Poseidon, who wants to kill the Minotaur. Ariadne looks at Theseus, heartily sung by Johan Reuter, as a means of escape from the confining life of Crete and offers to help him kill the "half and half".

The arias between the two during Act 1 are lengthy and it sometimes seems that the extremes in musical range don't always sit comfortably with the voices. The Innocents make their way down into the labyrinth where the first of them, in the guise of Rebecca Bottone, is confronted by the Minotaur who then rapes and kills her. This realistically designed beast is testament to the talents of designer Alison Chitty and to John Tomlinson whose acting creates a terrifyingly convincing Minotaur. A blood bath ensues as the rest are killed following taunts from crowds sitting above the pit. The Keres, ably led by Amanda Echalaz as Ker, now join the fray ripping apart the bodies and feeding on the entrails: these one-winged noisy, birdlike vultures are again very frightening.

The Second Act was slicker, faster paced and more varied with less gore! The Minotaur can speak like a man only when he dreams. These sequences are reflected back by mirror where he sees the shadow of a man in the background. Tomlinson brought such genuine feeling to the singing in these passages that I felt compassion towards this troubled creature: he looked truly vulnerable, exposed. Ariadne seeks the advice of an oracle vividly portrayed and sung by Andrew Watts whose words were lucidly interpreted by Philip Langridge as Hiereus. Theseus and the Minotaur eventually fight and in his death throes Asterios is able to clearly articulate his years of suffering and pain. The spectators abandon him to his fate and he dies alone. With a tremendous bang Ker arrives to feast on his flesh and the opera ends.

Initially the applause was timid as if the audience was unsure if it really had finished and then the lights came up on John Tomlinson standing alone on stage, still as the Minotaur, and the house erupted. Antonio Pappano controlled and delivered Birtwistle's multi faceted score with the confidence and enthusiasm of a great interpreter. The opera was a triumph of words, music, visual effects, drama, tension and talent from all who took part but for me John Tomlinson's Minotaur was magnificent.

Judith Monk

KARL JENKINS: Stabat Mater

Jurgita Adamonyte: Mezzo-Soprano
Belinda Sykes: Ethnic Vocals EMO Ensemble
Pasi Hyökki: Director Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Chorus
Ian Tracey: Director
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Karl Jenkins: Conductor
EMI Classics 50999 5 00283 2 0 62'

The CD Notes tell us that Stabat Mater is a 13th-Century Roman Catholic poem attributed to Jacopone da Todi and relates to the suffering of Jesus' mother Mary during his crucifixion. Many composers have also set these words to music including Haydn, Dvorák, Vivaldi, Rossini and Verdi, along with half a dozen others. Jenkins though has inserted other poetical works within the poem, some sung in Arabic, some in Greek and Aramaic. Ancient instruments and modes from the Middle East and the Holy Land are also featured.

This complex mixture of different sounds and songs, bound together with music unmistakably Jenkins is gorgeous. I played this CD continuously from the moment I first heard it; especially track 2, the Incantation in Arabic and I loved how shades of the Incantation are revisited in track 9, Are you lost out in the darkness which is sung in both English and Arabic. Track 11 Fac, ut portem Christi mortem resonates to a deeply sombre drum beat overlaid by luscious choral singing from the Liverpool Philharmonic Chorus. Track 12, as the name implies, Paradisi Gloria, leads us to Heaven.

Thoroughly recommended - buy one for each ear!

Judith Monk

JOSEPH HOROVITZ: Fantasia on a Theme of Couperin*; Oboe Quartet; String Quartets Nos 4 & 5

Carducci Quartet and Ensemble*
Nicholas Daniel, Oboe
Carducci Classics CSQ 6482 57'02"

We have become used, during the last decade or so, to symphony orchestras having their own record label, such organisations issuing live concerts or studio recordings themselves, but I don't recall many string quartets, if any, apart from the present ensemble starting a record label of their own. Having heard an earlier disc from the Carducci Quartet and been impressed thereby, I give the highest praise to this outstanding new release of chamber music by Joseph Horovitz. It is good news that this fine and very gifted composer has been receiving recently a too-long-delayed general recognition of his art, and this exceptionally well played and beautifully recorded disc of what the composer has said are some of his more 'serious' works will further draw attention to the range and depth of his music.

The music dates from between 1953 and 1969, and I find it quite extraordinary that a masterly score such as the Fantasia on a Theme of Couperin should have had to wait so long for a recording; dating from 1953, it has perhaps been sidelined, quite unfairly, by Tippett's Fantasia Concertante on a Theme of Corelli from the same period, also for String Ensemble, but Joseph Horovitz's work can certainly stand comparison with the more well known Tippett score.

The three other works are all equally impressive, especially the very fine String Quartets; real string quartet writing, this, although I would have preferred the final note in the Fourth Quartet to have been slightly more elongated, to bring this work to a more definite conclusion. Some may feel, as I do, that the Oboe Quartet pays homage to the composer's adopted country. It is without question a work of genuine imaginative character, perhaps 'lighter' in expression, but no less serious in compositional skill.

This is a very impressive record; the playing is excellent, the recording is of high quality and the music is by a genuine and most admirable creative figure.

Robert Matthew-Walker

RALPH KOHN: Songs from the Vienna Classics Vol.II

Lieder by Brahms & Mahler
Ralph Kohn: Baritone Graham Johnson: Piano
Raphael Records £11.91 62:17
www.ralphkohnmusic.co.uk

I have always had great respect for Ralph Kohn as a singer of musical integrity and the ability to project the great poetry which inspired such composers as Schubert, Brahms and Mahler. His collection of recordings made over the last decades include some particularly memorable cycles, notably Schubert's Winterreise.

He has now put together nineteen carefully chosen songs by Brahms and Mahler in which he has the outstanding partnership of Graham Johnson. What comes across in these performances is Kohn's obvious love for the poetry he is projecting. In such songs as Mahler's setting of Es sungen drei Engel and Brahms' of Da unten im Tale, the singer intones the poetry with a delicious sense of music while placing the meaning at the service of the listener.

The many CD collectors who have been buying Ralph Kohn's discs will know that the music making he shared with Graham Johnson is of a special quality and they will look forward to hearing this second volume of Viennese songs. They will not be disappointed.

Denby Richards