Liive in Concert - 29.01.14 - Beethoven, Pesson, Dalbavie & Ravel

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

BBC SO - Beethoven, Pesson, Dalbavie, Ravel

Wednesday 29 January 2014

The brilliant young French conductor Lionel Bringuier joins the BBC Symphony Orchestra for music by Beethoven, Ravel, Pesson and Dalbavie.

Live from the Barbican Centre, London

Beethoven: Symphony No. 4 in B flat

20.05 Interval: A selection of French chamber music performed by members of the BBC New Generation Artist scheme

Gérard Pesson: Ravel à son âme (UK premiere)
Marc-André Dalbavie: Flute Concerto
Ravel: Boléro

BBC Symphony Orchestra
Michael Cox (flute)
Lionel Bringuier (conductor)

Lionel Bringuier, Music Director of the Zürich Tonhalle Orchestra, is one of the most exciting young conductors to emerge from France in recent years. This is a programme to conjure with for a conductor of his contagious vitality: between Beethoven's spirited Fourth Symphony and the hypnotic extended climax that is Ravel's sultry Boléro are two 21st century French gems. Marc-Andre Dalbavie's Flute Concerto is characterised by transparency and by a fluent dialogue between soloist and orchestra, in which each finds resonances in the other. In Ravel à son âme (Ravel, to his soul), Gérard Pesson pays brief, entrancing tribute to his illustrious predecessor

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

It isn't often we are given two 21st century compositions in a regular orchestral concert.

[jayne lee wilson]

One of the joys of a live concert is having no idea how a conductor will do Beethoven 4... so I'm up for this, even if Part Two looks a bit slight on paper. "Slight on paper"? Sorry, still a bit bleary here... still the Dalbavie should be worth a shot.

As for Bolero, I mean, did they HAVE to? REALLY? But if I get that far I'll probably stick it out.

[Richard Tarleton]

still the Dalbavie should be worth a shot.

Double-take there jayne - thought for a moment Dalbavie might be a rare single malt, but that would have to be Dalbervie...

[jayne lee wilson]

Are we having fun yet? Certainly should be after as light, swift and fresh a Beethoven 4th as that, so Springlike just before the next cold snap. Wonderfully humorous too (those brief wind solos just before the end!) and with real heart to the sound from the centrally-placed lower strings. Perhaps there was something French about it, and not only autosuggestively...

Mind you, if our former member for Bournemouth was still around, he wouldn't have been best pleased at one or two details in the adagio...

[Serial_Apologist]

The Pesson and Dalbavie were lovely, I thought - the former gone all-too soon; the latter could have been a tribute to the late Dutilleux.

[jayne lee wilson]

I guess there wasn't much interest in this, the Bolero was offputting (and a lacklustre performance anyway - duh! Roussel 4 would have fitted in well here...) but the newer French items were... "exquisite" is a cliche about French delicacies, though true enough here - but the Dalbavie Flute Concerto had plenty of powerful climaxes in its flowing, continuously inventive sub-20' length, rich as it was in incident and colouristic orchestral detail. A classic Flute Concerto really, the soloist active throughout, with greater use of the lower, mellower registers than usual, often ear-temptingly imitated by the lower brass. An excellent piece of "pure music", I'd love to hear it again and urge any curious listener to seek it out on iPlayer.

Pesson's "Ravel a Son Ame" was - again, sensuously fascinating - a quiet processional, hesitant and fragmentary, with any allusion to Ravel's music only ever hinted at (those three, warmly sonorous, descending notes reminded me of...well, SOMETHING...) It glittered, clicked and murmured slowly along, with bursts of actual birdsong (mechanical or taped, I'm not sure...) during its brief span. I really did wish it were longer, so alluring were its inventions.

Fine production values throughout on HDs live. (Unlike the LSO Walton 1 on Thursday )

[edashtav]

The Pesson and Dalbavie were lovely, I thought - the former gone all-too soon; the latter could have been a tribute to the late Dutilleux.

A succinct summary,S-A.

Lovely,decorative, elegant, French-chic, wonderfully transparent textures... but also ephemeral, insubstantial and will-o'-the-wisp. I found the Pesson distracting because I was constantly sleuthing its micro-Ravel references. But... of the two pieces I found it the more substantial despite its brevity. Both pieces displayed wonderful craftmanship.