RLPO
David Nice
After 14 years as principal conductor, Vasily Petrenko has left the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra in top-league shape. The players must be as thrilled as we are that his successor, Venezuelan Armenian Domingo Hindoyan, carries the flame, catches the spark, call it what you will, with a distinct personality of his own, combining clariy and elegance in baton-wielding with a very watchable physical freedom. This Proms programme was well-tailored to presenting the new incumbent and the skills of each orchestral department in equal measure, and the star soloist, Sheku Kanneh-Mason, Read more ...
Glyn Môn Hughes
It probably goes without saying that there will be "dream teams" in a football-mad city like Liverpool. What might be a little unusual is that this particular one has long been associated with the Liverpool Philharmonic and has turned into one of the most potent marketing forces for the organisation for many a long year. It has nothing to do with the "beautiful game", though. Instead, Vasily Petrenko and Simon Trpčeski have become the organisation’s box office golden boys, with concert tickets selling almost instantly and recordings garnering cupboards-full of trophies.Indeed, as Trpčeski Read more ...
David Nice
Even seemingly immortal singers grow old. Sir Bryn is closer to the "Martinmas summer" of Shakespeare's and Verdi's Sir John than when first he put on the fat suit at the Royal Opera 18 years ago. Even if he walks the gouty walk that matches the belly, vocally he seems richer than ever. Maybe not quite the definitive operatic Falstaff of our era - that honour falls to Ambrogio Maestri - but a suitable planet for the variable young moons of Liverpool's European Opera Centre to revolve around, at least two of them shining bright. With the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra very much present Read more ...
Glyn Môn Hughes
The new season at the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic is focusing on revolutionaries. Bach, Beethoven and Berlioz all feature strongly over the next few months, as will Stravinsky and – where else but Liverpool? – The Beatles.The RLPO has another reason to celebrate, too. It’s 10 years since Vasily Petrenko took up the baton as chief conductor of the orchestra and much has changed in that decade, not least the edgily confident way in which Petrenko and the RLPO explore the repertoire. The start of the 11th season with Petrenko at the helm presented audiences with something of a marathon: all Read more ...
Helen Wallace
He still looks every inch the golden boy, but Vasily Petrenko has just turned 40, and next month celebrates a decade with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic. Time well spent, as this impressive evening revealed: after years of Russian immersion under his crisp command, here’s a band who can conjure Shostakovich’s smoudering darkness, and all the glitter and the grit in Rachmaninov’s third symphony.If the concert belonged to Petrenko, it was probably the promise of Truls Mørk playing Shostakovich’s first cello concerto that had packed the hall. Young Russian Alexey Stadler (pictured below) had Read more ...
graham.rickson
James MacMillan: Since it was the day of Preparation Hebrides Ensemble/William Conway, with Brindley Sherratt (bass), Synergy Vocals (Delphian)A follow-up to James MacMillan's St John Passion, Since it was the day of Preparation tells the story of the Resurrection as narrated in the Gospel of St John. It feels like a big work, though scored with startling restraint for a solo bass, vocal quartet and just five instrumentalists. And what instrumentalists: Elizabeth Kenny's gorgeous theorbo solo opens proceedings, and a Steven Stirling's horn obbligato near the work's close recalls Messiaen's Read more ...
graham.rickson
Kenneth Hesketh: horae (pro clara) Clare Hammond (piano) (BIS)Pianist Clare Hammond writes of Liverpudlian composer Kenneth Hesketh’s ‘fierce intelligence’ in her sleeve notes. He’s not yet a household name, but he deserves to be: the music on this handsomely produced disc is strikingly original. His mentors include Oliver Knussen and the late Henri Dutilleux, both composers with fastidious ears. Hesketh’s dense, complex textures never sound too congested, and many of the heavier passages have an incredible resonance – presumably harking back to the composer’s early years as a chorister in Read more ...
David Nice
Why play a very substantial act of ballet music in concert? In the case of Aurora’s wedding entertainment from Tchaikovsky’s The Sleeping Beauty, there are at least three good reasons. It embraces the most inventive and unorthodox of divertissements in any ballet – the one in The Nutcracker comes a close second – and a symphony orchestra deserves the chance to perform at least a substantial chunk of what Stravinsky called Tchaikovsky’s chef d’oeuvre. Besides, you won’t have heard every sequence in any choreographed version, not even the very thorough one by Matthew Bourne, who includes more Read more ...
Glyn Môn Hughes
Four years ago, Vasily Petrenko and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic embarked on a two-year project to play all the Mahler symphonic works over a couple of seasons. It was an ambitious project but it was one which, then, had hall staff dusting down the House Full signs and the queues for returns forming well before the first note was due to played.There was an air of that at the most recent performance – a shattering interpretation of the Sixth Symphony – where a full house was clearly moved: the long silence at the pitiful ending after so much chaotic emotional wrangling said it all. The Read more ...
graham.rickson
Alessandro Scarlatti: Con eco d'amore – Arias from operas and cantatas Elizabeth Watts (soprano), The English Concert/Laurence Cummings (director and continuo) (Harmonia Mundi)Scarlatti? He of keyboard sonata fame? That's actually Domenico; this recital disc collects soprano arias by his father Alessandro (1660-1725), whose star has been eclipsed by his son. Scarlatti senior didn't write much instrumental music, but was amazingly prolific in other areas. He composed 600 cantatas, 30 oratorios, and claimed to have written over 100 operas during a 40-year career. So you worry that his music Read more ...
Glyn Môn Hughes
If you’re going to employ tens of extra musicians for Strauss’s gigantic Alpine Symphony, it’s probably just as well that a few other "biggies" are programmed in the same concert. So it was at the Philharmonic Hall, where the Strauss shared the programme with a new orchestration of Tchaikovsky’s The Seasons as well as a selection of Canteloube’s haunting Songs of the Auvergne. All three pieces are evocations of a place or a season, so this whole concert was almost a musical novel or an orchestrated visit to an art gallery.The Strauss is a blockbuster of a work, with members of the audience Read more ...
Glyn Môn Hughes
When the curtain came down on Liverpool’s year in the limelight as European Capital of Culture, back in 2008, there may have been some who thought that the party was over. Things in the city’s arts world were never going to the same, however, and much has changed since 2008, mostly for the better. But there is one institution which, though it’s been through some major changes in its lifetime, is a constant on the Liverpool scene.The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic is celebrating its 175th birthday. Philharmonic Hall has been refurbished and building work continues to provide a new performance Read more ...