United Kingdom R. Wigglesworth, Mahler: Elizabeth Watts (soprano), BBC Symphony Orchestra / Ryan Wigglesworth (conductor). Barbican Hall, London, 20.1.2023. (JR)
R. Wigglesworth – Till Dawning (UK premiere)
Mahler – Symphony No.5
This live performance allowed composer/conductor Ryan Wigglesworth, lately appointed Chief Conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, to current for its UK premiere his current orchestral song-cycle entitled Till Dawning. Wigglesworth has taken 4 poems by George Herbert (1593-1633), from a group posthumously titled The Temple to kind a sequence to mark the principal occasions of Holy Week. The Agonie, the work’s first motion, opens most attractively with harp and celeste tinkling as if it’s dawning and there may be dew on the grass. The central part is noisy and discordant as Herbert describes the crucifixion; right here the soloist struggles to be heard. The second track is a type of scherzo with significantly playful, witty orchestration, burbling woodwind and woodblock – the protagonist realises that the sufferer of a mugging is his grasping landlord. The third track describes the resurrection, and all is introduced neatly collectively within the remaining Easter II with an enormous orchestral climax.
As is acceptable for the subject material, there may be little pleasure and levity within the work, however loads of invention and transparency; a recurring single melody holds all of it collectively. Wigglesworth’s phrase setting is delicate and soprano Elizabeth Watts gave a sterling efficiency, sturdy at backside and high of the registers, diction clear, intonation by no means wavering. This is a contemporary work which deserves, and I hope will probably be given, repeated performances.
Many of my era watched Luchino Visconti’s Death in Venice and wallowed in Mahler’s Adagietto from his Fifth Symphony; right this moment it’s the movie Tár which is introducing this excellent rating to potential new concertgoers. There had been loads of younger folks within the viewers, which gladdened the guts, despite the fact that a lot of them had been permitted to herald their drinks (and crisps!). Thankfully, they had been all spellbound by the music and didn’t distract consideration from the efficiency in any approach.
Wigglesworth proved a masterful conductor on this piece, alive to each element and, significantly within the remaining motion, highlighting some passages, which frequently go unnoticed. His broad sweeping gestures had been handiest. Eeriness predominated within the opening Funeral March. The second and third actions had been completely judged, tempi all the time considered. Whilst the strings might not have a lot of a bloom, woodwind and horns had been all first-rate and the principal trumpet (Joseph Atkins), clarinet (Richard Hosford), and trombone (Helen Vollam) all had a very good evening. There had been indicators of loads of rehearsal (woodwind and horn bells held excessive) and as regular, it was a reside broadcast on BBC Radio 3.
The breath-taking Adagietto was not over-sweetened; and there was clever inserting of the harp virtually entrance stage, each visually and sonically pleasing.
I hope that the BBC SO can coax Wigglesworth right down to London extra typically to offer us extra Mahler, clearly he has a penchant for this composer. The viewers audibly thought so.
John Rhodes