United Kingdom Christopher Churcher, Beethoven: Robert Taub (piano), Southbank Sinfonia / Mark Forkgen (conductor). Levinsky Hall, University of Plymouth, 4.2.2023. (PRB)
Christopher Churcher – Breakwater (2022)
Beethoven – Piano Concerto No.4 in G main, Op. 58
Beethoven – Symphony No.7 in A significant, Op. 92
This was the third live performance within the Musica Viva collection held on the metropolis’s latest live performance venue, Levinsky Hall on the University of Plymouth campus. The first two occasions had featured a solo piano recital and a piano-and-violin duo. There was, subsequently, an additional frisson of pleasure for the current live performance: how will the venue deal with a fully-fledged chamber orchestra, and what concerning the Steinway Grand that had lately been moved from its authentic dwelling within the close by Sherwell Centre?
Either all this had made a big distinction, or phrase had merely unfold concerning the top-quality performances in these two recitals, however the occasion was bought out a number of days prematurely. That was a very encouraging tribute to Bob Taub and his staff on the Arts Institute, and to the unstinting help of the University and its Vice-Chancellor Professor Judith Petts.
The London-based Southbank Sinfonia, based in 2002, welcomes annually thirty-three of essentially the most promising graduate orchestral gamers from all over the world. They full the Southbank Fellowship earlier than occurring to hitch among the main worldwide orchestras and ensembles.
The Sinfonia and its conductor Mark Forkgen opened the programme with the premiere efficiency of Breakwater, winner of the inaugural Musica Viva Composition Competition. Its nineteen-year-old composer, Christopher Churcher, wrote the work – which he describes as ‘a short overture for Symphony Orchestra’ – on the finish of 2022, and his first time period as a music undergraduate at Lady Margaret Hall, University of Oxford. The title refers to Plymouth’s iconic Breakwater, a 1560-metre (1710-yard) offshore stone barrier begun in 1812, which protects Plymouth Sound.
Breakwater drew an impressed efficiency from the younger instrumentalists. It was notable for its spectacular vary of dynamics, from the merest whisper at first to daring tutti moments from the complete ensemble, distinguished by stirring utterances by the brass. With the work’s somewhat abrupt denouement, it was fortuitous that the gamers opted to speak this to the viewers with a bit of stamping of the toes.
The Sinfonia was now joined by Arts Institute Director of Music, Robert Taub, in a efficiency of Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto. Taub had already briefly outlined the work’s construction within the pre-concert discuss – extra of which later – however, within the guarded method of the most effective soap-spoiler, left his viewers questioning simply how the composer selected to open the fourth of his 5 piano concertos.
The first three concertos start in response to the well-established Classical system of Mozart and his contemporaries. During a brief orchestral exposition, the soloist principally sits and waits their flip, normally earlier than getting into with a considerably extra dramatic model of the opening theme, precisely, the truth is, as does the Third Concerto. But within the Fourth, Beethoven has the piano enter fully by itself, with what quantities to a mere quasi-improvisatory five-bar passage of easy chords within the dwelling key, coming to relaxation on the dominant chord.
And but, to explain the piano’s opening gambit as a easy chordal passage is to do Beethoven’s distinctive conception an actual injustice. Agreed, these 5 bars usually are not particularly difficult to play, however to carry them off in efficiency calls for mental and sympathetic therapy that may take a lifetime’s expertise to amass.
When Taub started this most poetic of concerto openings, not solely did he have his listeners spellbound from the beginning, nevertheless it very a lot set the tone wherein the remainder of the work can be performed out. Beethoven marked the primary motion Allegro moderato. This successfully means reasonably energetic, however sadly some performers place too nice an emphasis on Allegro. The precise tempo ought to certainly be a shade slower than that, to outcome within the extra elegiac and unhurried taking part in. Even so, there was virtuosic hearth aplenty when wanted; the extremely charged cadenzas within the first and final actions actually attest to that.
The Andante con moto gradual motion has been related to the imagery of Orpheus taming the Furies – represented, respectively, by the piano and unison strings – on the gates to Hades, a suggestion of Beethoven’s 1859 biographer, Adolph Bernhard Marx. This brief however particularly poignant little strings-only motion, which leads with out pause into begin of the finale, proved an absolute gem within the sympathetic fingers of Taub, the Sinfonia, and Forkgen’s impressed but by no means intrusive route. The closing second, when the piano slowly arpeggiates the house chord, over a hushed string background, was really magical, but so intrinsically unassuming.
In distinction, the Vivace finale is in conventional rondo kind, far easier in building, and characterised by a really rhythmic, but initially jaunty little theme. Clearly the composer’s intention was to jot down an uplifting, enjoyable conclusion to what has gone on earlier than. In the efficiency there was a palpable chemistry between soloist, conductor and orchestra. It resulted in lots of fast exchanges the place the precision proved impeccable, and the last word realisation that everybody was having a ball.
It was as soon as extra left to Beethoven to offer a suitably high-spirited work to make sure the viewers left with a determined spring of their step. The Seventh Symphony proved the best selection, particularly since, in response to the composer, it was ‘one of his best works’. The Seventh just isn’t usually recognized by a title, just like the Eroica (Third) and Pastoral (Sixth). But no much less a personage than Richard Wagner, referring to the energetic rhythms which permeate the work, referred to as it the ‘Apotheosis of the Dance’. Mark Forkgen talked about it within the pre-concert discuss, when he described his specific idea of the symphony.
Perhaps as a result of the piano was now not on the stage, the orchestral sound radiated further pizazz and immediacy. The Southbank Sinfonia’s fairly excellent efficiency captured each nuance of Beethoven’s rating, notably by way of dynamics, phrasing and articulation. While every of the 4 actions was a gem by itself, the sensible choice to play just about and not using a break helped preserve the momentum all through.
The listener could discover it laborious to understand that the Allegro con brio finale is, on paper at the very least, slower than the previous Scherzo motion marked Presto, with its slower Trio, allegedly primarily based on an Austrian pilgrims’ hymn. Forkgen’s eminently expert tempo administration ensured that there was by no means a uninteresting second. It was rewarding to see how visibly enthusiastic his younger instrumentalists had been in following him to the letter, although with by no means any lack of textural readability or general management.
The strings, led by Portuguese violinist José Matias (not named within the programme as such), produced a splendidly homogenous sound at both finish of the dynamic vary, whether or not in a supporting function, or main the entire ensemble. The woodwind contribution was notably spectacular, and it could be invidious to pick only one soloist for particular point out. The trumpet part proved yet one more asset, as did the horns, who coped with the customarily excessive tessitura of the writing largely unblemished. Last, however not at all least, timpanist Aaron Townsend made a sturdy contribution to the ensemble, because the finale rushed headlong to its whirlwind conclusion.
Concerts within the Levinsky Hall are nonetheless one thing of a studying course of by way of finely honing the venue’s acoustic to go well with any quantity and mixture of gamers and devices. But this third occasion was positively one other step in the best route, even when a number of of the remaining drapes and padding may have to be sacrificed, as a way to obtain essentially the most pure acoustic, notably by way of reverberation time.
Pre-concert talks have turn into an integral, and extremely pleasing, a part of the Musica Viva expertise. They at the moment are aided by microphones, so their effectiveness has been completely reworked. But one may now want to provide some thought to the (comparatively few) patrons who arrive after the discuss has began, but nonetheless endeavour to seek out the most effective seats obtainable, to the detriment of the audio system and of the viewers members already comfortably settled.
To shut, I want to recall what one programme-note creator wrote concerning the Seventh Symphony: ‘the final movement zips along at an irrepressible pace that threatens to sweep the entire orchestra off its feet and around the theater [sic], caught up in the sheer joy of performing one of the most perfect symphonies ever written’. Had the creator been at tonight’s live performance, he might have written precisely the identical phrases – however this time by the use of a evaluation.
Philip R Buttall