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United Kingdom Drewett, Ravel, Shostakovich: Alice Sara Ott (piano); London Symphony Orchestra / Gianandrea Noseda (conductor). Barbican Hall, London, 24.11.2022. (CC)
Louise Drewett – The Daymark (world premiere, LSO Panufnik fee, 2020/21)
Ravel – Piano Concerto in G (1930/31)
Shostakovich – Symphony No.11 in G minor, Op.Xx, ‘The Year 1905’ (1957)
On paper, this live performance promised a lot. Shostakovich’s Eleventh Symphony hardly ever will get out, and it’s troublesome for it to not have some form of impact, given its dynamic extremes. A brand new piece is all the time an thrilling prospect, and naturally Alice Sara Ott has repeatedly proven herself to be a stimulating pianist. The live performance was really entitled ‘Shostakovich: The Year 1905’. It was additionally certainly one of three live shows this season that noticed the London Symphony Orchestra in partnership with the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, which has seen over 30 musicians be part of the LSO in November and work alongside the professionals.
I’ll depart it to you to resolve if one out of three is dangerous or not. The bullseye was the Ravel, which from the very opening whipcrack was masterly from all involved. Ott was in full management all through – that is music she not solely is aware of however has inwardly digested to a profound stage.
One might most likely wax lyrical about Ott’s fashionable clothes (not that I’m any form of skilled) and she or he appears to collaborate with vital jewelry corporations and has additionally designed a spread of baggage, so her svelte manner comes as no shock. But it was the musicianship that shocked. The first motion requires lightning reactions and communication between piano and orchestra, and Gianandrea Noseda, together with his no-nonsense conducting, was completely there for her each time. Parts of this concerto – the outer actions, principally – are high-wire acts, and this was like watching skilled acrobats. Ott matched her sound to Ravel completely, her phrasing impeccable, her staccato a pleasure, glissandos glowing rainbows of sound. And how pretty have been the harp and horn solos within the slower central part, Timothy Jones’s horn virtually impeccable (simply catching a few harmonics on the proper fourth leap from sounding C pure to F pure); Bryn Lewis’s harp enjoying was mesmerising.
One of the best challenges of the G-Major concerto is the prolonged piano solo that begins the central Adagio assai. It must be mild on pedal, exquisitely shaded, to maintain its momentum but really feel just like the pianist is whispering in each single viewers member’s ear, simply to them. This is precisely what Ott achieved: I’ve not heard this performed so nicely since Rostropovich brough his Washington orchestra to the Royal Festival Hall a few years in the past they usually performed this, with Martha Argerich as soloist. Together with Noseda and the LSO, Ott gave a efficiency that was the epitome of chamber music; Noseda ushering within the flute and strings gently, Jeremy Sassano providing an exquisite cor anglais solo in a while. The madcap finale was all the pieces it needs to be, Ott’s glowing fingerwork and lightness of contact (however with no lack of tone) a relentless delight, whereas collectively orchestra and piano created wit in abundance. A really particular efficiency – no encore although.
The night started with the world premiere of Louise Drewett’s The Daymark, commissioned in 2020 by way of the LSO Panufnik Composers Scheme. Born in 1989, Drewett was a 2021/22 Manson Fellow on the Royal Academy of Music. One of her core concepts is of easy patterns which are misaligned (so you probably have a number of gamers enjoying one concept, they achieve this in disjunct vogue) – and that’s precisely how The Daymark begins, a seven-note descending scale in D-Major on three bassoons, which is then taken up by a trio of clarinets. Her new piece is in two actions, ‘Luminous’ and ‘Spirited,’ lasting round ten minutes mixed. The piece is impressed by a stone beacon on the Devon coast relationship from 1864, used as an help for locating Dartmouth harbour from the ocean. It stands on eight legs and is a few 20 metres tall; as one approaches the landmark, it breaks up the sunshine in varied methods. Drewett’s music is meant to signify this refraction of sunshine. The descending scales of the primary motion are mirrored by upward-moving ones within the second. The piece is actually atmospheric: keening woodwind, an expansive cello melody. Muted brass are in play, however I couldn’t detect any change to the sound and even their attribute sound, and the primary motion felt as if it meandered alongside. And certainly, as the primary motion went down in its materials, the second went up. But to what impact? This is a pleasing piece that somewhat outstays its welcome, sadly.
The post-interval Shostakovich supplied a well-controlled, nicely performed efficiency of Symphony No.11 (‘The year 1905’, impressed by the 1905 revolution). While there’s a notion that this symphony is overly cinematic, actually Rostropovich’s efficiency with the LSO on the LSO Live label persuades us that’s not so. Shostakovich’s first motion is regularly fairly naked in scoring and, as elsewhere within the symphony, Shostakovich makes use of revolutionary tune melodies as materials – materials audiences on the premiere in 1957 would have identified solely too nicely. Noseda’s quick tempo for the primary motion (‘The Palace Square’) robbed it of a few of its poignancy, though the precise efficiency customary was of the very highest, notably from the trumpets. This first motion represents the eerie silence of the Palace Square previous to the morning of Bloody Sunday, when unarmed protestors have been shot by the Imperial Guard. The scurryings of the second motion, ‘The Ninth of January’ represents that day, January 9, 1905, on the Winter Palace. Noseda’s efficiency discovered some pleasure by way of its seemingly superhuman accuracy however fell wanting the sense of frenzy the music so requires, which most likely explains why the symphony opening’s frozen return additionally didn’t make full impact.
The third motion is entitled ‘Memory Eternal’, a funeral march based mostly on the revolutionary funeral march, “You fell as victims’. It is an enormous distinction that one might hardly keep away from feeling crushed by – and the way nicely the lengthy viola melody was managed by the LSO gamers. The dolorous falling triplets, too, carried weight earlier than ‘The Tocsin’ (The alarm bell) – the finale – took off. The opening was brilliantly disciplined – it wants to return as an enormous shock, which is less complicated on disc than stay (one can see a complete line of brass gamers on the brink of blow our socks off). This motion on this efficiency sagged somewhat in its center, shedding stress. The contribution of the cor anglais participant can’t be ignored, although – heart-rending – whereas the relentless, pounding strings did make their mark.
Overall, although, this felt somewhat like a misplaced alternative. Listen to the Rostropovich for those who have been there, for Noseda and also you may see what I imply. It is attainable to emerge from Shostakovich 11 emotionally shattered and drained – simply not on this event.
Colin Clarke
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