BBCSSO, 27/04/2017
Britten : Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings
(Ian Bostridge, tenor; Christopher Parkes, horn)
Elgar/Payne : Symphony No. 3
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
John Wilson
I've found that watching Ian Bostridge sing in concert can be an odd experience. He has this habit of singing with his chin tucked in, often head lowered, and you wonder just how he manages to project, and yet the voice rings out, clear and pure, astonishingly expressive and responsive to both text and music. If he was a little stretched in the third stanza of 'Nocturne', at other times, the intimacy of his singing drew us in close and attentive, to catch every nuance of the phrasing, every tint and shade of the notes. Christopher Parkes proved an equally responsive partner, while the strings of the BBCSSO supplied a finely crafted setting for the two gems of voice and horn.
Anthony Payne's reconstruction of Elgar's 3rd Symphony must be counted as one of the great musicological triumphs of the last century. In terms of British music, it might even be the greatest achievement. There have been other completions of unfinished works but few with the kind of authority that Payne's carries. Deryck Cooke's work on Mahler's 10th comes to mind, but he kept tinkering with it, never fully satisfied, and his was not the only attempt at a reconstruction. Payne's work, however, has an undeniable ring of authenticity to it, there's no mistaking it for anyone other than Elgar.
That said, considering when it was sketched out, it does seem almost reactionary. If you consider that Vaughan Williams was working on that scream of defiance that is his 4th Symphony at much the same time, the classic Elgarian nobility does seem to belong to a lost world, but there's a breadth of scope here that is nevertheless impressive. It's a mighty play for the orchestra, virtually an hour of music, much of it on the grand scale, with sweeping melodic lines and rich orchestration, and Wilson and the BBCSSO did it proud, with silken strings and hearty brass.
[Next : 10th May]
(Ian Bostridge, tenor; Christopher Parkes, horn)
Elgar/Payne : Symphony No. 3
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
John Wilson
I've found that watching Ian Bostridge sing in concert can be an odd experience. He has this habit of singing with his chin tucked in, often head lowered, and you wonder just how he manages to project, and yet the voice rings out, clear and pure, astonishingly expressive and responsive to both text and music. If he was a little stretched in the third stanza of 'Nocturne', at other times, the intimacy of his singing drew us in close and attentive, to catch every nuance of the phrasing, every tint and shade of the notes. Christopher Parkes proved an equally responsive partner, while the strings of the BBCSSO supplied a finely crafted setting for the two gems of voice and horn.
Anthony Payne's reconstruction of Elgar's 3rd Symphony must be counted as one of the great musicological triumphs of the last century. In terms of British music, it might even be the greatest achievement. There have been other completions of unfinished works but few with the kind of authority that Payne's carries. Deryck Cooke's work on Mahler's 10th comes to mind, but he kept tinkering with it, never fully satisfied, and his was not the only attempt at a reconstruction. Payne's work, however, has an undeniable ring of authenticity to it, there's no mistaking it for anyone other than Elgar.
That said, considering when it was sketched out, it does seem almost reactionary. If you consider that Vaughan Williams was working on that scream of defiance that is his 4th Symphony at much the same time, the classic Elgarian nobility does seem to belong to a lost world, but there's a breadth of scope here that is nevertheless impressive. It's a mighty play for the orchestra, virtually an hour of music, much of it on the grand scale, with sweeping melodic lines and rich orchestration, and Wilson and the BBCSSO did it proud, with silken strings and hearty brass.
[Next : 10th May]