Tag Archives: Stephen Hough

RSNO / Wilson / Hough

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Glasgow Royal Concert Hall

There’s a stimulating book by the former Glasgow University music professor Hugh Macdonald called Music in 1853 – The Biography of a Year,  fascinating for the fact it applies “biography” in the lateral rather than vertical sense. Turning the axis of history on its side we perceive a vivid snapshot of music history, alerting us to an enriching concurrence of divergent musical voices, in 1853’s case primarily Brahms, Berlioz, Wagner and Liszt.

The works featured in this RSNO programme over the weekend were by no means products of a single year. But in bringing together Ravel’s saucy La valse (completed 1920), Rachmaninov’s truculent Piano Concerto No 1 (finalised 1919) and Vaughan Williams’ moodily colourful A London Symphony (original completion 1913, revised 1933) conductor John Wilson treated us to a panoply of roughly coexisting, yet divergent, styles. All three composers were born in the 1870s, lived through a turbulent period where the hegemony of Austro-German Romanticism faced challenges from new tonal frameworks and nationalist trends, each addressing the dilemma in their own way.

Ravel, of course, had French blood coursing through his veins, so the idea of celebrating a popular dance style (in this case the Viennese waltz tradition of Johann Strauss) must have been music to his Gallic ears. As Wilson’s rather enigmatic interpretation accentuated, Ravel’s approach was one of exaggerated fantasy, swirling irony and plentiful decadence. 

What made it interesting was the extent to which this performance aimed to realign emphases within the scoring. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. While attempting to increase the muffled mystery of the opening, important lines were lost, as if emanating from a subterranean echo chamber. Once it found its feet, though, and aside from encouraging bombastic explosions from bass drum and timpani, Wilson secured levels of woozy intoxication that seemed closer to the meaning of the notes.

We seldom hear Rachmaninov’s First Piano Concerto, but as soloist Sir Stephen Hough’s rhetorically intense performance verified, it deserves a worthier place among the composer’s more popular concertos. With Rachmaninov the Romantic spirit is fulsomely preserved, which Hough and the RSNO immediately captured in the feisty opening bars. 

As in his recent Scottish appearances – in December he gave Grieg’s famous concerto a highly-personalised going-over in the BBC SSO’s 90th Anniversary Concert – Hough loaded this performance with biting characterisation, instinctively-shaped melodic phrasing, and thunderously precise energy. There was even whimsicality in the central Andante, countering beautifully its initial mysterious charm. Rabid flippancy in the exuberant final movement added to its showpiece brilliance, but not without reflection that coloured the inevitable big tunes, or Hough’s occasional delving into the music’s fiery demons. Chopin’s Nocturne in E flat, as an encore, served its calming purpose.

Wilson seemed most naturally at home in Vaughan Williams’ Symphony No 2, its narrative of a now bygone London town – from the solemn tolling of Big Ben to winsome flower sellers and bustling streets – wrapped in the composer’s familiar modal nostalgia. Its misted opening, Wilson demanding the softest of pianissimos, set in motion a performance of searing cinematic flow and expansive vision. 

The awakening surge of the ensuing Allegro; the folksy resilience of the slow movement and its soulful, valedictory viola solo (movingly articulated by section principal Tom Dunn); the jaunty Scherzo; and the harsher reality, though ultimately distant reflection, expressed in the Finale; all found effusive voice and fluid context. As with the opening, the final bass notes were a magical whisper that evaporated timelessly into the ether. A spellbinding moment.

Ken Walton 

(Photo credit: RSNO/Clara Cowen)

BBC SSO: 90th Anniversary Concert

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City Halls, Glasgow

Ninety years is quite an achievement for any orchestra, so you’d expect there to be quite a song and dance about it as a matter of celebration. In the event – which was a “birthday concert” at its City Halls home, broadcast live on Radio 3 – the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra under chief conductor Ryan Wigglesworth played it relatively cool. 

Nothing provocatively challenging; nothing blatantly celebratory (not even an impromptu chorus of “Happy Birthday”); nothing emblematically Scottish; more a regular BBC SSO concert boosted by the presence of eminent pianist Sir Stephen Hough in Grieg’s popular concerto (thank you Messrs Morecambe, Wise and “Mr Preview”), and a rare performance of Sir Michael Tippett’s wartime masterpiece A Child of Our Time, featuring the topnotch voices of the National Youth Choir of Scotland (NYCoS).

True, Radio 3 had despatched its fast-talking No 1 Scots presenter Tom Service to emcee the event, offering as some helpful context the fact that Tippett had actually conducted his oratorio with this very orchestra in the 1960s, though of course “not necessarily these players!”. And there was, let it be said, a new work commissioned as an opener to the occasion, Bacchanale by Ayanna Witter-Johnson.

To evoke the spirit required, London-born Witter-Johnson turned to her Jamaican ancestry for inspiration, notably the exuberance of the Caribbean carnival. Bacchanale burst explosively into life, an orgy of rhythmic intoxication, ecstatic trumpeting, belligerent ostinati, sensuous string tropes and ample side helpings of percussion. The problem is it quickly ran out of ideas, everything piled into the initial outburst beyond which it had little new to say – a bit like a party popper. Or, as one astute observer within earshot put it, “a piece of a thousand endings”.

It did eventually end, signalling the way for Hough and a take on Grieg’s Concerto that reflected this pianist’s very personalised intellectualism. That’s a good thing, in the sense that he established a tantalising atmosphere of anticipation. Melodies that most of us could whistle in our sleep were often reshaped with just a hint of unexpected hiatus or recalibrated emphases. 

There was enormous power in Hough’s delivery, fiercely rhetorical in the opening movement, ravishingly shaped and intoned in the Adagio, approaching giddy (if occasionally splashy) heights in the Finale. Hough’s idiosyncrasies and forceful personality presented an interpretational challenge for Wigglesworth and the SSO, who did well to read the majority of intentions. Explaining that his choice of encore was governed by the need to avoid a broken piano string, Hough transferred his thoughts elegantly to Chopin’s E flat Nocturne.

If anything epitomised the underlying solemnity of Thursday evening it was A Child of Our Time. Inspired by the 1938 assassination in Paris of a German Embassy worker by a stateless young Jewish refugee and the resultant escalation of pre-war Jewish persecution, Tippett’s harrowing secular oratorio recasts it as a profoundly universal parable framed within a sequence of African American spirituals.  How could the words, “we cannot have them in our Empire – they shall not work nor draw a dole”, not resonate chillingly today? Or Tippett’s emotive treatment of the interwoven spirituals fail to convey the rich seam of humanity entrenched in the music?

Wigglesworth gelled his forces well, helped enormously by NYCoS’ flawless, articulate solidarity. Immaculate intonation, glowing expressiveness and thrilling homogeneity belied their youth, adding a spiritual glow to a busily efficient orchestral canvas and solo vocal quartet whose animated storytelling proved a central fascination, not least the ravishing mezzo voice of Beth Taylor, John Findon’s euphoric tenor and Ashley Riches’ proficient bass. Where Pumeza Matshikiza’s soprano was a potent enough force, her diction let her down, occasionally her intonation. 

And that was it, a substantial programme that in so many ways could just have been a typical night at the SSO. Maybe that’s exactly what we were celebrating. 

Ken Walton

(Photo by Martin Shields)

This concert was broadcast live on BBC Radio 3 and is now available for 30 days via BBC Sounds. It was also filmed for future broadcast on Inside Classical, available after broadcast on BBC iPlayer

BBC SSO / Wigglesworth

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City Halls, Glasgow

Although it was surely the presence of pianist Stephen Hough as soloist on Rachmaninov’s perennially popular Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, alongside an invitation to subscribers to hear about the coming season, that attracted a such good house to the Candleriggs on Thursday evening, the rare performance of Stravinsky’s 1928 The Fairy’s Kiss that took up the second half of the concert was a particular delight.

A stellar example of the contrary character of the composer, the drama  of this Hans Christian Andersen-derived score might be a deal more subtle than Stravinsky’s earlier ballet music, but it is there nonetheless. Unusually for him, it does seem a little prolix, but the orchestration is as full of interest over its entire 45 minutes, and there was some especially fine playing here, particularly from the SSO winds.

Conductor Ryan Wigglesworth was clearly concerned with the arc of the whole suite, the four scenes having a quasi-symphonic structure, but there were one or two moments where the tempi wavered uncertainly. Stravinsky drew on songs and piano works by Tchaikovsky for his musical material and the work references his predecessor’s own distinctive orchestrations, but the final result, and particularly the dying fall of the last bars makes its own unique impression.

The programme had opened with a contemporary interpretation of the same writer in Hans Abrahamsen’s Three Fairy-Tale Pictures from ‘The Snow Queen’. Wigglesworth’s affiliation with the orchestra’s current Composer-in-Association produced a performance that made the most of the huge orchestra required, with singular ingredients like the four flutes all doubling on piccolos. There was something distinctly MacMillan-esque about the build-up of the work, and especially the use of brass and percussion – and Sir James was in the audience to hear it.

Characteristically, Stephen Hough brought a very thoughtful approach to the fireworks of Rachmaninov’s Paganini variations, and Wigglesworth – himself a pianist of course – was very much his ally in that. Here was an account of the work that lost none of its Romantic intensity but where as much space and attention was given to the less virtuosic music. There was marvellous cohesion in the variations of tempo and a wonderfully meaty mid-range sound from the orchestra.

It was the fine detail of the soloist’s playing that really sealed the deal, though, culminating in what was surely the least showbiz despatching of the witty final bars possible.

Keith Bruce

BBC SSO / Coelho

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City Halls, Glasgow

Last-minute changes of conductor have become a regular occurrence these days, so Thursday’s replacement of the indisposed Tabita Berglund by Portuguese conductor Nuno Coelho registered as little more than a minor, necessary alteration. Coelho, a diminutive figure with a massive presence, made only one change to the programme – Dvorak’s Othello Overture for the advertised opener, Johan Svendsen’s Zorahayda. Otherwise, the advertised works by Rachmaninov and Sibelius remained in place.

Few will have regretted either substitution, for not only did Coelho demonstrate an instant rapport with the orchestra, but this particular Dvorak overture – the last of three he composed in the 1890s – provided the perfect vehicle. 

It’s a work crammed with subtleties of colour and emotional extremes, in this instance breathtaking from start to finish. Coelho’s insistence on a succulent warmth from the strings made for a captivating opening, a gorgeous hymn-like scene-setter beyond which the musical characterisations raged between the wistful and tender to forthright and menacing. 

It certainly set the bar high for Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No 2 and its chief protagonist, the now-knighted pianist Sir Stephen Hough. For two-thirds of the way it certainly didn’t disappoint. Hough played steady composure against surprise in the opening movement, a thoroughly comforting vision heightened by frequent pressing gestures that suddenly, like rocket boosts, upped the energy and fired the momentum. The slow movement was sublime, Coelho by then perfectly attuned to the pianist’s persuasive idiosyncrasies and moulding an alert and endearing response from the SSO.  

Things didn’t go so well in the finale, where Hough’s previous reliability gave way to moments of near panic as he seemed to wrestle with accuracy and tempo. Ever the professional, he pulled things together, with some mesmerising pianissimos that challenged the orchestra to follow suit, flashes of revelation where melodies and often underplayed countermelodies interacted mischievously, and a glorious finish that was, understandably, as defiant as it was resolute.

Coelho ended the programme with a wonderfully rugged, at times vividly rustic, performance of Sibelius’ Lemminkäinen Suite, each of its four constituent tone poems ravishingly sculpted, from the opulent bravado of Lemminkäinen and the Maidens to the triumphant sunburst of Lemminkäinen’s Return. Yet again the SSO responded with rhythmic brilliance and expressive warmth to Coelho’s ever-meaningful precision. And once again, the SSO found itself totally inspired by a conductor it never expected in the first place.

Ken Walton 

Recorded for future broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and BBC Sounds

BBC SSO/Chauhan/Hough

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City Halls, Glasgow

At last, a streamed orchestral concert for this age of lockdown that I genuinely felt comfortable watching. 

There were several reasons. Unlike the main diet of BBC Proms relayed from a dark and cavernous Royal Albert Hall so far this year, this BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra programme, experienced via BBC Sounds, came from a cosier, brighter City Halls in Glasgow. Rather than detached emptiness, there was palpable warmth and intimacy. Slick and sensitive camera work helped.

As did the music – a luxuriant framework of string serenades by one George Walker (1922-2018, and the first black American to win a Pulitzer Prize for Music) and Richard Strauss respectively, embracing the clean-cut dexterity of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No 2 and an impressively confident BBC commission by Scots composer Jay Capperauld.

Throw in the abundance of expressive warmth expressed by a reduced SSO under its new associate conductor Alpesh Chauhan (stepping in last minute for chief conductor Thomas Dausgaard), a helpful, to-the-point presentation style from Kate Molleson, and the spirit of inclusive congeniality was complete.

It was an important moment for New Cumnock-born Capperauld, fast emerging as an exciting new kid on the block. Circadian Refrains (172 Days Until Dawn) arises from his own experience of the past six months, referring to the number of days spent in personal lockdown. 

Circadian Refrains is, on the face of it, a straightforward musical representation of darkness into light, but within that, Capperauld’s intuitive grasp of the interplay of textures, his disciplined manipulation of essentially simple – therefore memorable – ideas, are what give this work its affecting sense of personality. 

This world premiere was enthralling from the offset, amorphous rumblings that gather ethereal substance through glassy string harmonics and woodwind flutters, before awakening horn fanfares (the one smidgeon of awkwardly written material) point the way to an inevitable knee-trembling climax, and swift subsidence to near nothing.

It was also a resounding success for Chauhan, whose intelligent, unmannered baton style was as instrumental in extracting the lush Barber-esque Romanticism from Walker’s Lyric for Strings, in accommodating soloist Stephen Hough’s intellectual assuredness in a springy but authoritative Beethoven Concerto, and in knitting together the passionate layers of Strauss’ Metamorphosen, in a mostly ravishing performance by the SSO strings.

Are we going to see much more of Coventry-based Chauhan this season than was originally intended, given the growing issue of getting overseas conductors into the country? On this evidence, that might be no bad thing.
Ken Walton