Small, Hallé, Wong, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - return to Shostakovich’s ambiguous triumphalism

Kahchun Wong returned to the symphony with which he made his first big impression conducting the Hallé – and made a big impression with it again.

The evening in February 2023 when he conducted Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony was his first concert with them, and it has to be said he was a relative unknown to many of the audience listening then and probably to most UK classical music fans. I was there, and recorded my impressions to the effect that there was never a dull moment when he was in charge, and that the main characteristics of his interpretation were an assured and idiomatic approach to its rhythms, a peak of intensity which made the impassioned Largo, the third of its four movements, the unforgettable emotional heart of the piece, and a finale that brought a huge weight of sadness into the midst of the triumphalism and ensured that stolidity persisted to its end, sound and clamour notwithstanding. It still does.

The announcement of his appointment as principal conductor and artistic advisor of the Hallé came after that performance. Now we are approaching the end of his first full season in charge, and the symphony was, if anything, more emotionally charged, even though his approach to it has not essentially changed. What we have learned since then is that he can put his own signature on a wide range of music, not just the centrepieces of today’s symphonic repertoire. This concert was not the most illuminating of his breadth of sympathies (which is real and considerable), but it brought illumination nonetheless.

It's undeniable that he has inherited an orchestra of remarkable qualities from the long and dedicated stewardship of Sir Mark Elder: above all, they are highly responsive to every conductor they meet, and they listen to each other intensely. But he knows how to exploit those virtues to the full.

Prokoviev’s Classical Symphony, his first, may be more than a century old and now perfectly familiar, but there are qualities to it that can still intrigue, and Wong found them. Everybody knows that it has the spirit (and to some extent the formal shapes) of a Haydn symphony brought into the 20^th century, but we’re now at a sufficient distance to be aware that attitudes to what is “classical” have changed quite a lot since 1917. In one sense, despite its superficial homage to phrase lengths and formal structures of the 18^th century, there’s the Romantic era’s sensitivity lurking beneath the periwigged portraiture. Kahchun Wong took all its movements except the last with some deliberation: at the start the articulation was pointedly hyper-precise, the contrasts super-clear – and the “wrong” notes and progressions well emphasised, but we knew this was still a 20^th century orchestra’s version of a “classical” sound. The Larghetto had much the same ambiguity, the phrasing subtly shaped and building slowly to its peaks of expression. The Gavotte was weighty and stately, with nice little hesitations and sly fading at its close. The finale was full of life and danced along, the inner and subsidiary parts given chance to sing, and the two flutes (Amy Yule and Laura Jellicoe) and oboes (Stéphane Rancourt and Virginia Shaw) in the starring roles of piquant melody leaders.

There were starring roles, too, in the slightly off-piste work that followed: the Armenian composer (and Khachaturian protegé) Alexander Arutiunian’s Trumpet Concerto, first performed in 1950. Most obvious was that of the soloist, the Hallé’s own Gareth Small (pictured below) – it’s a virtuoso work and was given a virtuoso performance, from its ringing high notes and articulatory gymnastics, via a lovely slow, melancholy melody singing out over the entire orchestra, to a muted solo with just a touch of dreamy schmaltz. There’s a reprised jolly theme (train-ride music, a bit like the finale of Finzi’s Clarinet Concerto), and some effective orchestral moments with the strings in eloquent octaves. There’s also a secunda donna role for the principal clarinet, several times introducing a new theme, played on this occasion with distinction by Oliver Casanovas. And Arutiunian gives the trumpet a flashy cadenza which effectively finishes the whole loose-structured journey: after that there’s just a quick flourish and it’s over.For this visit to Shostakovich no. 5, with the strings up a couple of desks all round to full strength, Kahchun Wong caught every drop of emotional anguish and defiant charge latent in the “Soviet artist’s reply to just criticism”. In the pattern of the composer’s development it was a return, not only to the traditionally structured, victorious-finale format required of good servants of the Soviet state, but also to a leaner, clearer, melodically-led mode of musical expression altogether. There’s a personal love story behind that as well as political and creative ones (as we now know), and the opening movement in this performance let the melodies do the talking – expressive, nervous, agonised and fearful. Tensions built as the sound quality grew in sinister quality, with a nuanced touch of help from the pace of the music: the furious unison made a bitter climax, and the movement ended in apprehension.

The Allegretto had heavy, almost clod-hopping jollity, with very cleverly flexible interlinking of the solo woodwind tunes (and Kahchun Wong is one of those conductors whose gesturing helps interpret the music for the audience in the hall as much as the players on the platform – no bad thing when you’re seeking to build your following).

The third movement was again a thing of horror, loss and grief, with moments so anguished that hardly allowed us to breathe: the sustained intensity of it was, as two years ago, extraordinary. And the finale had, if anything, even more doom built into its triumph, discordant elements emphasized and a grim, unrelenting finish. 

• To be repeated on 12 April 
• More classical reviews on theartsdesk