Final Concert Of Arcomis Brass Festival: Hindemith; Brostrom and Arnold
Hindemith: Konzertmusik for brass and strings, Op. 50
BBC National Orchestra of Wales,
Alexandre Bloch (conductor).
2.15pm
Tobias Brostrom: Lucernaris (Trumpet Concerto)
Hakan Hardenberger (trumpet),
BBC National Orchestra of Wales,
Alexandre Bloch (conductor).
2.50pm
Arnold: Symphony no. 5
BBC National Orchestra of Wales,
Alexandre Bloch (conductor
broadcast at 14.00 Wednesday 16th October, 2013.
The final concert of the Arcomis International Brass Event,
Before the programme started there was an extra – Dukas Villanelle. I mention that for the articulation of the horn soloist ( BBC NOW’s section talented leader) was brilliantly fast and accurate – he set a test for strings that their fingers couldn’t match!
Apparently, the conductor, Alexandre Bloch was a last-week replacement. My word he did well mastering such a selection of rarities in 7 days. The late Hindemith was played with conviction at a broad speed and plenty of emphasis that suited its first movement supremely well. I was further pleased by the clear articulation of the fugal movement: it that had enough bounce and good humour to make it sound as it Carl Nielsen & Willy Walton had a hand in its construction, and the contrast with the mysterious and, eventually elegiac, music that followed was nicely achieved without losing the necessary sense of connection with what had gone before and was to come again. It’s one of the least “chip off the old block” of Hindemith’s oeuvre and I really enjoyed this convincing performance. The BBC NOW brass had the time of their lives, and the coda needed to pop straight across to the For 3 coda thread!
Tobias Brostrom was a new name to me. His Trumpet Concerto, Lucernaris, written for Haken Hardenberger, started promisingly with colourful percussion that set off Harden’s low, slow line which was full of “bent” notes in a dark, Jazz-inflected style. Although the piece derived inspiration from Catholic liturgy, Tobias said that it wasn’t a religious piece although, sometimes, the shades of Holy Minimalism spread across its music. As the piece moved on, I wondered whether it had something in common with some of the music of Malcolm Arnold to be heard in the second half – over accessibility and the lack of sufficient complexity to maintain the attention of alert audience members? Was it a triumph of colour and clever effects over substance? Once again, the performance seemed confident, well-produced and thoroughly controlled. Despite my reservations, it deserved a hearing and was just right for a brass convention with all involved clearly enjoying themselves.
Malcolm Arnold’s 5th was the first of his symphonies that I got to know well- through a domestic tape of an early BBC broadcast. I’m unsure that Arnold does subtle very often – blatant is more his style. That straightforwardness projected through admirably clear orchestration, I’m sure that helped Alexandre Bloch to learn the score in two days! Another asset was an orchestra in fine fettle playing in a supportive acoustic. These days I wish that Arnold would “worry” his materials more – he can never be accused of composing over-wrought music. I suppose his personality tended to impatience and volte-faces and his music can resemble a film in the way it is cross-cut and fails to exploit its material in depth – Shostakovich could have made two fifty-minute symphonies out of the 5th’s ideas! Some of Arnold’s elegiac ideas came too close to the world of Mahler (50 years ago not a well-loved figure in the UK) for my comfort although these passages quickly dissolved into a world that I recognised as peculiarly Arnold : full of personal loneliness, loss and sorrow expressed against an empty landscape. The development of the slow movement was impressive and unsettling, and for once, its mood is sustained and not thrown away prematurely. Rather like Arnold Bax’s 1st Symphony, this slow movement saves the whole for me and makes what is a fractured piece, a vital part of the British repertoire. The music hall theme in the finale was not realised quite as cheekily as it can be, but, just perhaps, the sombre inflection that Bloch found in it helped to connect it better to what had gone before. I loved the crisp rhythms that came from the percussion. I needed a little more weight from the strings in the work’s Coda. Structurally, this finale remains problematical, for me. Required hearing, however, for those who want to know all about the British symphony in the 20th century.
BBC National Orchestra of Wales,
Alexandre Bloch (conductor).
2.15pm
Tobias Brostrom: Lucernaris (Trumpet Concerto)
Hakan Hardenberger (trumpet),
BBC National Orchestra of Wales,
Alexandre Bloch (conductor).
2.50pm
Arnold: Symphony no. 5
BBC National Orchestra of Wales,
Alexandre Bloch (conductor
broadcast at 14.00 Wednesday 16th October, 2013.
The final concert of the Arcomis International Brass Event,
Before the programme started there was an extra – Dukas Villanelle. I mention that for the articulation of the horn soloist ( BBC NOW’s section talented leader) was brilliantly fast and accurate – he set a test for strings that their fingers couldn’t match!
Apparently, the conductor, Alexandre Bloch was a last-week replacement. My word he did well mastering such a selection of rarities in 7 days. The late Hindemith was played with conviction at a broad speed and plenty of emphasis that suited its first movement supremely well. I was further pleased by the clear articulation of the fugal movement: it that had enough bounce and good humour to make it sound as it Carl Nielsen & Willy Walton had a hand in its construction, and the contrast with the mysterious and, eventually elegiac, music that followed was nicely achieved without losing the necessary sense of connection with what had gone before and was to come again. It’s one of the least “chip off the old block” of Hindemith’s oeuvre and I really enjoyed this convincing performance. The BBC NOW brass had the time of their lives, and the coda needed to pop straight across to the For 3 coda thread!
Tobias Brostrom was a new name to me. His Trumpet Concerto, Lucernaris, written for Haken Hardenberger, started promisingly with colourful percussion that set off Harden’s low, slow line which was full of “bent” notes in a dark, Jazz-inflected style. Although the piece derived inspiration from Catholic liturgy, Tobias said that it wasn’t a religious piece although, sometimes, the shades of Holy Minimalism spread across its music. As the piece moved on, I wondered whether it had something in common with some of the music of Malcolm Arnold to be heard in the second half – over accessibility and the lack of sufficient complexity to maintain the attention of alert audience members? Was it a triumph of colour and clever effects over substance? Once again, the performance seemed confident, well-produced and thoroughly controlled. Despite my reservations, it deserved a hearing and was just right for a brass convention with all involved clearly enjoying themselves.
Malcolm Arnold’s 5th was the first of his symphonies that I got to know well- through a domestic tape of an early BBC broadcast. I’m unsure that Arnold does subtle very often – blatant is more his style. That straightforwardness projected through admirably clear orchestration, I’m sure that helped Alexandre Bloch to learn the score in two days! Another asset was an orchestra in fine fettle playing in a supportive acoustic. These days I wish that Arnold would “worry” his materials more – he can never be accused of composing over-wrought music. I suppose his personality tended to impatience and volte-faces and his music can resemble a film in the way it is cross-cut and fails to exploit its material in depth – Shostakovich could have made two fifty-minute symphonies out of the 5th’s ideas! Some of Arnold’s elegiac ideas came too close to the world of Mahler (50 years ago not a well-loved figure in the UK) for my comfort although these passages quickly dissolved into a world that I recognised as peculiarly Arnold : full of personal loneliness, loss and sorrow expressed against an empty landscape. The development of the slow movement was impressive and unsettling, and for once, its mood is sustained and not thrown away prematurely. Rather like Arnold Bax’s 1st Symphony, this slow movement saves the whole for me and makes what is a fractured piece, a vital part of the British repertoire. The music hall theme in the finale was not realised quite as cheekily as it can be, but, just perhaps, the sombre inflection that Bloch found in it helped to connect it better to what had gone before. I loved the crisp rhythms that came from the percussion. I needed a little more weight from the strings in the work’s Coda. Structurally, this finale remains problematical, for me. Required hearing, however, for those who want to know all about the British symphony in the 20th century.
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