Alexandra Dariescu: The Nutcracker and I

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Alexandra Dariescu: The Nutcracker and I, Desiree Ballantyne, Tchaikovsky

Alexandra Dariescu: The Nutcracker and I

RNCM Theatre, 24 January 2019

This was a late, post-Christmas treat for children of all ages.

There was a lot going on in the show, which was altogether rather splendid, an enchanting blend of music, dance, animation and storytelling. Right from the start you were smitten: the music (all from Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker, naturally) swept you away to the heavens, as the stage showed a winter night with stars. The stars fell, becoming snowflakes which then dissolved. You were sold – hook, line and sinker.

Desiree Ballantyne, an accomplished ballerina, danced with myriad characters from The Nutcracker – a toy soldier, a prince, a pair of cossacks – all miraculously brought to life through animation. It was magical how the movements of the digital characters (aglitter with all those pulses of light) meshed with that of the carbon-based one (if I can describe the elegant Desiree Ballantyne thus); it was seamlessly synchronised throughout.

Mind, magic was everywhere here. In the excitement of a winter’s night and the delirious anticipation of gifts and life to come. In the bountiful dreams of childhood – for the moment joyously alive, with no suggestion of the possibility of loss or disappointment. In the belief in an eternal future. And also in the steadfast loyalty and devotion of beloved pets (not to mention parents).

Francesca Dego and the Halle Orchestra

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Abraham Moss Memorial Concert, Bridgewater Hall, Francesca Dego, Glinka, Overture to Ruslan and Ludmilla, Rachmaninov, Symphony No.3 in A Minor, Tchaikovsky, the Halle Orchestra, Violin Concerto in D major

Francesca Dego and the Halle Orchestra

The Bridgewater Hall, 17 January 2019

Manchester loves its orchestras: the Camerata, the BBC Philharmonic and, most venerable of all, the Halle.

It is astounding to realise that the Halle are now in their 161st season, and this year’s Abraham Moss Memorial Concert – a younger tradition, but well nurtured – was an all-Russian affair. This evening we heard performances of these great works:

• Glinka’s Overture to Ruslan and Ludmilla
• Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D Major
• Rachmaninov’s Symphony No.3 in A Minor

Each work built upon the other. With Glinka’s Overture to Ruslan and Ludmilla we heard and felt the influence of Russian folk song. It was like a thrilling ride in a speeding carriage, the Russian countryside coming continually into view. A day of brilliant, fiery sunshine ending with, at eventide, a dark sky pregnant with storm.

Glinka was Tchaikovsky’s second favourite composer (after Mozart, naturally) and the Violin Concerto in D Major showed his influence. A mountain range of high emotion here, as always with Tchaikovsky; profound abysses too. Francesca Dego played wonderfully on violin here.

We then had the interval and Rachmaninov’s Symphony No.3 in A Minor in the second half, the Halle and the conductor Daniele Rustioni doing full justice to this lush masterpiece. Rustioni was energetic and animated right from the off, looking at moments like a waltzing sculptor. He jumped and danced as well as making shapes with his hands.  Throughout, and at the end, he looked for all the world like an exuberant child who, on this particular birthday, had got everything he ever wanted.

And so had we, the audience.

Details of future Halle concerts can be found here.

BBC Philharmonic with students from the RNCM

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Bach, BBC Philharmonic with RNCM students, István Várdai, Ning Feng, Paganini, Simone Young

BBC Philharmonic with students from the RNCM

RNCM Concert Hall, 13 January 2019

This fine, final concert brought the 2019 RNCM Strings Festival to a fitting close.

The BBC Philharmonic – each and every one of the players – were paired with students from the RNCM to perform three great works:

• Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet
• Edward Elgar’s Cello Concerto in E minor
• Jean Sibelius’s Violin Concerto in D minor

There were two outstanding soloists on show an’ all. István Várdai played cello for the Elgar, while Ning Feng played violin in Sibelius’s work. They performed encores too, with Ning Feng doing double honours in this department: Paganini and Bach. You felt like issuing a warning: Danger: beauty overload.

Simone Young is an amazing conductor, and she really brought the music to life. She danced as the soloists played, or seemed to. She fenced with the orchestra, wielding her baton like a rapier.

An exhilarating evening of great music.

Johannes Berauer’s Hourglass

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Brahms, Gwilym Simcock, Indian Rhythms, Johannes Berauer’s Hourglass, Messiaen, Mike Walker, RNCM, The Impossible Gentlemen

Johannes Berauer’s Hourglass

RNCM Concert Hall, 6 December 2018

Here the Austrian composer Johannes Berauer compered a concert that showcased the music from his latest album Hourglass.

On show also was music by The Impossible Gentlemen – Mike Walker on guitar and Gwilym Simcock on piano, two of the players here, hail from that combo – and some RNCM students joined the professional musicians on stage for these performances.

Altogether it was up-tempo and exhilarating (you could not help nodding your head along with the music), eclectic and intriguing (Berauer cited Messiaen and Indian Rhythms as two main influences and there was, as well, an embrace of melody that made me think of none other than Brahms). As a concert it nourished the heart and the head, being both rigorous – yes, it was certainly that – yet generous too. Each player, whether on guitar, piano, violin or drums, took flight with a solo or two as the night rolled on. And Berauer duly spoke at one point of the thrill of seeing his music recreated afresh each night: you get that with jazz brethren, less so where classical recitals are concerned. Lively improvisation, the life not eternal but fragile: like, well, life. The music daring, gorgeous darlings, ending up sometimes bruised and scarred.

It is rare to see classical music and jazz enmeshed as finely, welded together as completely, as in this beautiful, memorable concert.

RNCM Big Band with Eric Marienthal

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Eric Marienthal, Gordon Goodwin, Joshua Savage, RNCM, RNCM Big Band, RNCM Big Band with Eric Marienthal

RNCM Big Band with Eric Marienthal

RNCM Theatre, 3 November 2018

It was perhaps the best RNCM Big Band concert ever.

There was the precious pleasure of seeing someone – Eric Marienthal, saxophonist – do something supremely well. Nor did the RNCM Big Band disappoint: there was much urgency, a constant forward propulsion always, the pace brisk and always accelerating, to all of the twelve tracks, many of them composed and arranged by Eric’s colleague Gordon Goodwin.

We heard the brazen confidence of a sweetly blaring city, mellow and spacious, swarming with colour and sound. Resplendent solos on piano, guitar, trumpet and (naturally) saxophone softly ruffled the ear; and, on drums, Joshua Savage took part in a kind of dialogue with Eric’s saxophone. It was much more than a pair of solos, with these two; more of a beck and call.

Now the only question is: how will the RNCM Big Band top this?

RNCM Piano Day

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Chopin, Fantasy in F minor, Mendelssohn, Mozart, RNCM, RNCM Piano Day, Schubert, Schumann

RNCM Piano Day

RNCM, 16 June 2018

Another wonderful and eventful day!

While it was a pity that the masterclass with Murray Perahia was cancelled (and what an extraordinary experience that would have been, to see the great pianist teaching close up), there was still plenty going on during this year’s Piano Day at the RNCM.

In the afternoon and early evening we heard lyric works by Chopin, Mendelssohn and Schumann, which was followed by two Mozart sonatas and a trio of Schubert works in the closing concert. The final performance of Schubert’s ‘Fantasy in F minor’, a work full of tenderness yet also with feral outbursts of bombastic passion, was glorious.

He felt things deeply, did that Schubert bloke. No doubt about it.

RNCM Session Orchestra

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Andy Stott, Crazy in Love, Dancing Queen, Handbags and Gladrags, I’m So Excited!, RNCM, RNCM Session Orchestra, The Pointer Sisters

RNCM Session Orchestra

RNCM Theatre, 9 June 2018

This was yet another fiery concert from the RNCM Session Orchestra, with an incendiary chain of songs following fleet as wildfire.

On a rough count, we heard twenty four songs, all told. Some were ballads (‘Handbags and Gladrags’), some were pop (‘Dancing Queen’), some were joyous R’n’B (‘Crazy in Love’), some were Disco (‘I’m so Excited’). Though, in truth, The Pointer Sisters were always superior disco fare. Terrific singing, outstanding musicianship with Andy Stott, fire-starter extraordinaire, at the centre of it all, conducting.

The brisk tempo that has become a characteristic of these concerts was very much in evidence throughout. It is song after song after song, relentlessly. Maximum bang for your buck. Once one song ends then, hey up, there is another one right after. We are off again. And here is another. Next.

Entertainment reloaded.

RNCM Jazz Collective

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RNCM Jazz Collective

RNCM Jazz Collective

RNCM Theatre, 12 May 2018

A concert of many colours.

We were taken all around the world, as Mike Hall and his talented collective played jazz from all four corners of the globe. Duke Ellington featured a few times, there was a tango suite by Astor Piazzolla, and a wonderfully atmospheric street tapestry of sound (conjure the noise of a boisterous Arabian bazaar) by a Lebanese composer whose name I cannot now recall.

Of the countries represented, vivid impressions of Africa (particularly South Africa) and the Carribean (a joyous calypso number), Norway and Egypt, occupy a firm foothold in my memory still.

There were brilliant solo performances on saxophone, trumpet, piano, guitar… And as a collective, the musicians were storming. Global warming? Nah, full-on global roasting.

RNCM Symphony Orchestra

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Bartók, Brahms, RNCM Symphony Orchestra, Saint-Saëns, Wyn Chan

RNCM Symphony Orchestra

RNCM Concert Hall, 3 May 2018

Listen now.

Attentively, mind. To this grand, ebullient orchestra.

The concert hall is cool and they are playing works by Saint-Saëns, Bartók and Brahms. Several musicians reinforce the orchestra’s number after each performance. Wyn Chan plays piano for Bartók’s Piano Concerto No 1.

Brahms’ sonority is so sumptuous in his Symphony No 2 that it calms the heart, soothes and uplifts the soul. Somehow you loosen, feel the warmth of sunlight. Your breath flows freely, even though you are ascending some sort of hill. A phalanx of strings evokes a verdant Wienerwald landscape. Careful as you go, don’t stumble. You are at he peak

Listen now.

RNCM Big Band and Chamber Orchestra with Markus Stockhausen

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Felice, Miniatur einer Seelenreise, RNCM, RNCM Big Band and Chamber Orchestra with Markus Stockhausen, Tanzendes Licht

RNCM Big Band and Chamber Orchestra with Markus Stockhausen

RNCM Theatre, 24 March 2018

Markus Stockhausen joyfully flung open the floodgates.

That allowed a deluge of fine musical composition and freefall improvisation to engulf the stage, wave following upon viral wave.

We began with Miniatur einer Seelenreise, a stirring work foregrounding trumpet (which Stockhausen played) and strings (the Chamber Orchestra, primarily). This duly segued into a riot of avant-garde improvisation (‘intuitive music’, so-called) that intrigued and somehow kept your attention. ‘Well, you tell me,’ was the perplexed judgement of the man who sat behind me. Being momentarily speechless myself, I instead smiled and left for the interval where I chomped on some Ritter chocolate.

The second half saw Tanzendes Licht, apparently a homage to Paul Klee but, anyway, magnificent and flowing and (come to think of it) as elegant as the artist’s line. Altogether wonderful, a supremely graceful use of time: you didn’t want it to ever end, which is one (defining?) quality of beautiful music.

In the next work (alas, Tanzendes Licht did end), Felice, the jazz musicians got to really kick out and a roaring spate of solos occurred: we heard terrific flights of fancy on guitar, drums, trumpet and trombone, saxophone… you name it. Their playing was phenomenal and rightly garnered applause, not least from the man who was sat behind me. For an encore, the musicians played Felice again – well, not exactly: like all fine jazz players, they could not repeat themselves anymore than Heraclitus’ warrior could step into the same river twice. Anyway, the encore made the man behind me even happier.

I was happy too.