RLPO
Glyn Môn Hughes
While there is, of course, safety in numbers, but five premieres on four continents is, perhaps, a little novel. Tan Dun’s new Concerto for Double-Bass, subtitled Wolf Totem, is a co-commission by five orchestras: the Royal Concertgebouw, St Louis Symphony, the Taiwan Philharmonic, the Tasmanian Symphony and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic.The principal bass player in each orchestra is to be soloist and the piece received its world première last month in Amsterdam.So to Liverpool for its second outing, where the soloist was Marcel Becker. The composer, who has been commissioned by many of Read more ...
Glyn Môn Hughes
Major change is afoot at the Liverpool Philharmonic. The new season has just opened as Philharmonic Hall has been undergoing a major refurbishment and earlier concerts during the autumn were held in the gargantuan acoustics of both cathedrals, where hearing the work being performed is difficult and where comfort for the listener comes at a premium.Work is still ongoing at the hall, with a new performance space and bar area due for completion in summer 2015 – coinciding with the 175th anniversary of the Philharmonic Society. Cosmetic changes have made the hall a much brighter place but Read more ...
graham.rickson
Barry: The Importance of Being Earnest Soloists, Birmingham Contemporary Music Group/Thomas Adès (NMC)I missed the live performances of this work; being allergic to Wilde as a dramatist, I wasn't in any hurry to assimilate The Importance of Being Earnest as contemporary opera. But this is a superb live recording – edgy, brilliantly sung and boasting electrifying playing from Thomas Adès' Birmingham Contemporary Music Group. And while I didn't laugh out loud, I was beguiled and entertained by Gerald Barry's ruthless deconstruction of Wilde's original. Which could probably form the basis Read more ...
David Nice
A monstrous celebration prefaced by thunderous organ chords is always going to be more the Albert Hall’s kind of thing than a comic opera viewed through the wrong end of the telescope. So Strauss’s Festival Prelude kicked off a first half of 150th birthday celebrations in more appropriate style than last week’s Der Rosenkavalier. Unfortunately what it ushered in worked less well up to the interval; but then there was Elgar’s Second Symphony to redeem all with heart and soul, the best possible visiting card for a golden-age Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra under Vasily Petrenko.You could Read more ...
Glyn Môn Hughes
One of the joys of attending an opera in the Concert Room at St George’s Hall, Liverpool, is the feeling that the audience is sitting in the set itself. Now one of the city’s foremost concert venues, this Victorian gem never ceases to amaze, even though it was reintroduced to active use in 2006 after extensive refurbishment. This summer and autumn, much of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic’s musical activity has decamped to the venue as the Philharmonic Hall has closed for a multi-million pound refurbishment and partial rebuild.So it was that the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra came Read more ...
Roderic Dunnett
With the Albert Dock just a few hundred yards down the road, and Liverpool the launchpad for two centuries of Atlantic crossings, it’s perhaps not too shocking to hear Wagner’s intercontinental Ride of the Valkyries resound round Philharmonic Hall.Though perhaps that was the problem: in the first half of this Scouse tribute to the bicentennial Saxon, under an (initially) slightly deferential Vasily Petrenko, the first half somehow failed to shock. One problem is those naffly abrupt cut-offs, which even Stokowski couldn’t sidestep: common chords snatched at, like rounding off Read more ...
Glyn Môn Hughes
The prospect of a new concerto from a largely unknown composer who, it’s safe to say, had never been performed previously in Liverpool may have seemed a little daunting. By the end of the 22-minute world premiere, however, rapturous applause greeted this approachable, tuneful, understated and, above all, gentle work. This was so much the case that it will no doubt be heard again soon.Soloist Cormac Henry, the principal flute of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, continued the long-established tradition of commissioning major works which showcase the RLPO's principals. So it was that Read more ...
Kimon Daltas
Sir Peter Maxwell Davies’ Ninth Symphony, completed in 2012 and heard in London for the first time in this concert, is dedicated to the Queen on her Diamond Jubilee. Those are not words to strike eager anticipation into my heart , though I’m happy to say that being Master of the Queen’s Music doesn’t appear to have dulled the composer’s powers in the way the equivalent title seems to nobble poets. Indeed, the dedication is merely that, and the work is no winsome tribute.The 25-minute single-movement symphony is modelled, Davies’ programme note explains, on the idea of a church with a central Read more ...
Glyn Môn Hughes
The new Ninth Symphony, from the pen of Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, is something of a paradox. It was commissioned by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and the Helskinki Philharmonic Orchestra and is dedicated to the Queen on the occasion of her Diamond Jubilee. And yet it is a round condemnation of the nation’s interventions – called "disastrous" by the composer in his programme notes – in Iraq and Afghanistan.Quite how that sits in a work dedicated to Her Majesty who is, after all, Head of the Armed Services created some confusion in the minds of those attending its premiere. The Read more ...
Glyn Môn Hughes
There’s always a bit of a buzz around a premiere, even one which may seem slightly off-the-wall. Jan Sandström’s Echoes of Eternity is a concerto for two solo trombones – unusual in itself, given that there are precious few concerti for just one solo trombone – and symphony orchestra. Add to that the fact that one of the soloists is also the conductor and it’s easy to see that this piece is beginning to get complicated.Even more odd was the fact that it started last night with neither conductor not the other soloist on the platform. One moment, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra was Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
For the couch-bound classical music lover, keeping up with the Proms is pretty straightforward. Step one: open bottle of agreeable claret. Step two: turn on Radio 3 and listen, or watch selected Proms on BBC Two or BBC Four. Or, indeed, catch up on the iPlayer. But needless to say, there's a colossal amount of work going on behind the scenes to make it all happen.
Round the back of the Albert Hall for the duration of the Proms season is the BBC's Truck City, a fenced off enclosure crammed with outside broadcast vehicles, stuffed with all known gadgetry for recording and mixing sound and Read more ...