Connolly, BBC Philharmonic, Paterson, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - a journey through French splendours

The BBC Philharmonic took its Saturday night audience on a journey into French sonic luxuriance – in reverse order of historical formation, beginning with Duruflé, continuing with Chausson and ending with Saint-Saëns. It was conducted by Geoffrey Paterson and featured Dame Sarah Connolly as mezzo-soprano soloist, neither of them the artists originally announced, but 100 per cent good value as their substitutes. 

Finishing with the Third Symphony of Saint-Saëns – the “organ symphony”, which has a drawing power of its own for those who love to hear the noise that music can make – was the climax everything was to lead to, but it was the lesser known works preceding it that created the real magic.

Duruflé’s Three Dances of 1932 were the newest music on offer. Duruflé is chiefly known for his choral and organ music and did not publish very much for orchestra, but this performance made one wish he had. With 60 strings and triple woodwind plus alto saxophone and two harps, their rich modal-inflected harmony and instrumental colour were an intoxicating mix from the delicate opening for strings and flute of “Divertissement”, through its lively rhythms and rapid progress to an ecstatic climax and beyond. Paterson’s direction was instantly effective and evocative, and likewise in the “Danse lente”, which does what it says on the tin except that there’s a touch of exoticism at the start and another surprisingly big climax in its central, more animated section. “Tambourin”, led by a fast 2/4 drumbeat also has a change of pace in the middle, this time relaxing a little, and brings the saxophone’s tone to the mix, and its surprise is in its ending – a sudden harmonic lurch and halt.

Chausson’s Poème de l’amour et de la mer has been called “a song expanding over the span of a symphony” and sets two nature-referencing poems by Maurice Bouchor: its genesis being in the 1880s there’s more than a whiff of Wagner about it – but Wagner with a clearly Gallic accent. “La Fleur des eaux” is warm in its chromaticism, as it reveals that there’s a loved one in mind, not merely a vision of nature, and the vocal line becomes gradually more demonstrative, showing unease at first in its lowest register and developing into a near-recitative outburst. Sarah Connolly conveyed each of its changing moods, her voice easily flowing over the orchestral textures and registering the poem’s passionate concern. Chausson introduces a substantial orchestral interlude, tinged with grim foreboding, before the second poem, which is more about the sea of oblivion than a literal stretch of water. The orchestral colouring – woodwind plaintiveness, pianissimo trombone chords, intensity in the strings – was handled with alertness and sensitivity by Geoffrey Paterson, Connolly bringing both tender regret and passionate mourning to the solo. The final passage, dominated by her duet with the solo cello of Peter Dixon, was extraordinarily moving.

What a change there was to the soundworld of Saint-Saëns – though in date only a shift of a few years. The orchestral strings, Igor Yuzefovich guest leading, were back to full strength after slight reduction for the Chausson, and Paterson brought an extrovert and energetic reading to the opening movement of his final symphony. It was meant to be monumental, commissioned by the (now-Royal) Philharmonic Society of London, designed for the vast St James’s Hall there and to feature its resident pipe organ. The climax of that first movement took off like a rocket and its quiet ending felt like a real surprise.

By the end of it, the symphony becomes almost a battle between orchestra and organ, but in the main Adagio the instrument’s ability to create a quiet backwash of sustained, warm sound is very much to the fore. Manchester’s own Jonathan Scott (pictured) – an experienced exponent of this work – was at the console of the Bridgewater Hall organ, which has Swell and Solo stops well suited to creating such effects. The long-phrased strings melody that opens it had nobility and grew effectively in its intensity. Paterson inspired a furious assault on the Scherzo section, its Presto equally headlong and the brass-led fugato majestic, before a sense of expectation built before the grand, grand finale. The light-pressured voicing of the hall’s Marcussen organ can make a rich sound and did so for its big C major entry: whether it really packs the punch for the kind of pedal-reed-led ending that Saint-Saëns probably hoped for is always a bit doubtful in the Bridgewater Hall (a 19^th century French organ would almost certainly have drowned out all opposition), but Scott and Paterson between them engineered an exciting acceleration towards the final climactic passages.  

• · To be broadcast on Radio 3 on 23 April 

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