A strong sea-inspired finish to Brighton Philharmonic Orchestra's 99th Season

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

Brighton Dome

★★★★

 

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 99^th 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 17^th 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. 

 

All in all, this was a suitably impressive finish to the BPO’s season, and I look forward to hearing where they go next for their 100^th season. 

Positive energy and spirit bring the Brighton Philharmonic Orchestra's season to a close

Joanna MacGregor (piano/director)

Ruth Rogers (violin)

Peter Adams (cello)

Brighton Philharmonic Orchestra

2.45pm, Sunday 26 March 2023

Brighton Dome

★★★★

Samuel Barber (1910-1981): Adagio for Strings

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827): 

Triple Concerto in C major, Op. 56

Piano Concerto No. 5 in E flat major, Op. 73, 'Emperor'

The Brighton Philharmonic, under their Music Director Joanna MacGregor, brought their season to a highly successful close before an almost full house at the Brighton Dome. Their performances, full of energy and spirit, were warmly received, and it was great to see the Dome so full on a Sunday afternoon. It would appear that, having recently managed to sell out on a Saturday night, they are managing to add some newly acquired audience members to the faithful regulars in their traditional slot, and long may this continue. 

The repertoire was perhaps less adventurous than in their Glass/Rautavaara Saturday night programme (my review here), although including not one but two Beethoven Concerti was a brave choice. The Triple Concerto (for violin, cello and piano) is less performed than the Piano Concerto No. 5, ‘Emperor’, however, and was more likely to be new to listeners. It is a challenging work, not least in terms of achieving the right balance between the three solo instruments, and with the orchestra. The two string soloists were Ruth Rogers on violin, completing her first season as BPO Leader, Peter Adams on cello, Prinicipal Cello with the BPO for many years now, and Joanna MacGregor directed proceedings from the piano. She also directed the Piano Concerto from the keyboard. This is certainly doable, but a brave choice – the benefits were certainly a greater level of engagement and energy with her fellow soloists and with the orchestra, but it is a tall order to maintain focus on the solo role whilst quickly shifting into conducting mode, and occasionally the joins were visible. In both concerti, the leaders (Co-leader Nicky Sweeney in the Triple, Ruth Rogers in the Emperor) took on some conducting too whilst MacGregor was otherwise engaged in solo passages – again, this led to a few untidy joins as the baton was figuratively passed to and fro.

 

But they began with a more reflective opener for strings alone – Barber’s Adagio for Strings, directed by the concert’s first-half leader Nicky Sweeney. Chosen as a contemplative reflection on the BPO’s journey, post-Covid, ‘Towards the Light’, it certainly provided a contrast to the lively, more triumphant Beethoven works that followed. Sweeney directed with a steady, even tempo, certainly not on the slow side, and they opened with some beautifully pianissimo playing. It is a difficult piece to coordinate, as the phrases are long and entries by one instrument at a time need to be precise, so a solid tempo helped here. As the piece developed and became more expressive, it was harder to maintain quite such a regular tempo, and occasionally entries became a little less tight, particularly as they built towards the searing climax. The string blend took a while to settle in, with the violas faring better than the violins initially. But altogether, they gave an atmospheric reading, leading up well to the explosions of energy to follow that the Beethoven would deliver.

 

Ruth Rogers, Peter Adams, Joanna MacGregor
and the BPO
© Nick Boston

In the Triple Concerto, Peter Adams managed well the challenges of the cello part, the most virtuosic of the three solo parts. In order to ensure the cello cuts through the balance, Beethoven writes a lot in the instrument’s highest registers, and apart from perhaps at the join between the second and third movements, Adams was secure, and the warmth of his tone was a delight in the more lyrical moments, particularly in the slow movement. Rogers matched Adams well in response, with a singing tone, and injecting much-needed additional energy into the Rondo, which otherwise occasionally lost momentum. MacGregor did a great job of keeping the orchestra at bay to allow the soloists to come through, and delivered energy as well as warmth in the piano part. The woodwind players from the BPO were particularly nimble in the finale, and the orchestral martial cadences in the first movement had a lively bite.

The orchestra delivered some of their finest playing of the afternoon in the 'Emperor' Concerto, with tight orchestral ensemble in the opening movement, and again lithe woodwind playing, especially from the bassoons. The strings produced their warmest sound in the slow movement, definitely the highlight of the performance, with some beautifully quiet yet fluid playing from MacGregor too. Despite some inaccuracies, the finale had spirit, and brought the afternoon to a rousing finish. 

All in all, this was a joyfully positive afternoon of music making, and a sign of great things to come, as the BPO under Joanna MacGregor’s direction build towards their centenary in 2025.