Adam Hickox & the Brighton Philharmonic Orchestra
© Nick Boston
Adam Hickox (conductor)
Ragnhild Hemsing (Hardanger fiddle)
Joanna MacGregor (piano/conductor)
Brighton Philharmonic Orchestra
Nicky Sweeney (leader)
2.45pm, Sunday 7 April 2024
Benjamin Britten (1913-1976): Four Sea Interludes from ‘Peter Grimes’
Geiir Tveitt (1908-1981): Violin Concerto No. 2, Op. 252 for Hardanger fiddle, ‘Three Fjords’
Ryuichi Sakamoto (1952-2023): Still Life
Bibo non Aozora
Happy End
Claude Debussy (1862-1918): La Mer
Ragnhild Hemsing, Adam Hickox & the BPO
© Nick Boston
I’ve been fortunate to catch many of the Brighton Philharmonic Orchestra’s concerts over recent seasons, and it has been a pleasure to see them go from strength to strength, with imaginative and innovative programming, and some great performances along the way. The final concert of their 99th season was no exception, and certainly sets them up well for an exciting centenary season to come.
Conductor Adam Hickox was at the helm, and his assured confidence and clear direction was key to bringing out the best from the BPO players. Their opening of the Four Sea Interludes from Britten’s opera, Peter Grimes, was full of atmosphere and evocative colour. From its pianissimo opening, Dawn had darkly ominous brass layered with the strange angular violins, and aside from one imprecise pickup, entries were secure. The horns’ bells rang out clear for Sunday Morning, with spiky seagull cries from the woodwind, against a slightly seasick dance from the violas and cellos. As the movement built, there were a couple of moments where the flutes’ birds didn’t quite knit fully into the overall orchestral texture, but Britten’s cumulative queasy effect was nevertheless achieved. Moonlight brings more unsettled atmosphere, and here the BPO’s dynamic range could have been more expansive in places, and there wasn’t total unanimity in note lengths from the strings, revealed by Britten’s use of silence and stop/start phrases. However, Storm had immediate drive and pace, with Hickox eliciting greater range in the brass surges, as well as controlling a tight transition into the briefly calmer central section.
Next came a Violin Concerto, but with a difference. Ragnhild Hemsing performed Norwegian composer Geirr Tveitt’s Violin Concerto No. 2 for Hardanger fiddle, Three Fjords. The Hardanger fiddle is a fascinating hybrid instrument, with four strings bowed as on a normal violin, but also with a second set of strings running under the fingerboard that resonate sympathetically, providing a drone-like quality to the sound produced. It goes back to the 17th century, and is thought of as Norway’s national instrument. Tveitt, whose family came from Hardangerford, was a prolific composer, and today’s concerto was his second for the instrument. As well as the fiddle, folk melodies from the Hardanger region and the traditional Norwegian modal scales were central to much of his music. The three movements of the second Concerto all contain elements of dance rhythms as well as folk-like, pentatonic melodies and harmonies, somewhat dictated by the fixed tuning of those resonating understrings. Hemsing’s fiddle was miked – a necessity in a large venue when the quieter instrument is put against a full orchestra if the resonances were to be heard. The consequent sound in the concert hall was richly resonant, and there was often a sense of Hemsing leading the orchestral violins in particular into the dance, joined in Hardangerfjord by a bright snare drum. Sognefjord had darker moments, with the fiddle opening alone, followed by mournful brass and strings. Nordfjord provided a sparky finish, with jerkier rhythms and wild virtuosity from Hemsing, with swirling and sliding building to an exciting finish. We then got to briefly hear the fiddle on its own, with Hemsing treating us to an encore of two traditional tunes, a ‘listening tune’, with strongly resonating drones and swirling bird-like figures, followed by a ‘dancing tune’, with orchestra and audience alike stomping along to the lively rhythms.
Joanna MacGregor & the BPO
© Nick Boston
Music Director Joanna MacGregor took to the stage to open the second half of the concert, performing three short pieces from Japanese composer and pianist, Ryuichi Sakamoto’s 2013 album, Playing the Orchestra. Sakamoto, who sadly died just a year ago, composed, performed, produced, and worked with many musicians and artists, including Laurie Anderson and Youssou N’Dor, as well as acting and writing film scores, such as The Last Emperor and The Sheltering Sky. MacGregor performed and conducted from the piano in these atmospheric miniatures. First, Still Life, with MacGregor conducting the muted divided violins, shifting independently within the texture, joined by soft woodwind chords. MacGregor then sat at the piano, her playing initially inaudible but then emerging from the texture into the limelight. Bibo no Aozora (Beauty of a Blue Sky) had greater rhythmic interest, with the piano opening alone, joined by pulsing violins. The jazzy harmonies build into lush, romantic expression, subsiding to leave the piano alone once more. Finally, Happy Endcontrasted repeated woodwind notes with a singing, falling cello line, then a walking bass line from the bassoons. MacGregor’s confident octaves on the piano built to a dramatic conclusion and sudden surprise end. An enjoyable start to the second half – although not quite fitting into the overall ‘Sea songs’ theme, perhaps.
Hickox returned to the podium to conduct Debussy’s magnificent impressionist masterpiece, La Mer. In his brief discussion with MacGregor whilst the stage was rearranged, he referred to it as the greatest piece for orchestra, and talked of how Debussy used the strings in particular for rhythmic interest or orchestral colour, rather than simply for melodic lines. And indeed the muted violins shimmered in the opening movement, De l’aube à midi sur la mer (From dawn to noon on the sea), and the multiply divided strings produced complex textures, against which the woodwind and brass provided the ebb and flow of the waves. In Jeux de vagues (Play of the waves), Hickox brought out the sensuous playfulness, and leader Nicky Sweeney delivered a suitably skittish solo. With ringing high harps and moments of swaying waltz (Hickox swinging to the rhythms), this had a real sense of the spray, before disappearing away to a wisp at the end. Dialogue du vent et de la mer (Dialogue of the wind and the sea) opened with ominous low strings, and the woodwind began a little tentatively here, but once the strident trumpet broke through, they rose to the challenge with the melodic line’s increasing rising intervals building relentlessly. And when the final tutti came, there was real power and a sense of stormy turmoil, with the insistent timpani driving to a spectacular conclusion.
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