Thursday, November 7, 2024
City Halls, Glasgow
The first movement of the Mozart, slightly under tempo, if thoughtful and articulate, emerged on the darker side of C-major than might be expected – maybe crisper and louder timpani would have helped – although the middle movement (of three, sometimes the Minuet, K409, is added) flowed songfully, and the Finale was bright and breezy, both halves repeated, although certain woodwind chords needed to cut through more (anyone familiar with Dean Dixon’s Prague CO/Supraphon recording will know what I mean).
The two song-cycles are linked by being written for Peter Pears, a particularly distinctive tenor. Britten’s Nocturne, setting various poets (including Shakespeare, Shelley, Tennyson, and Wordsworth; details below), celebrates the magic and mystery of night, including dream and nightmare. Although there’s no mistaking Pears’s signature in the vocal writing, Mark Padmore (pictured) made the work his own, and credit must also go to the seven “obligato” (Britten’s spelling) instrumental soloists that added variety to the strings, one per (continuous) movement – woodwind, horn, harp, timpani – that contributed much to the enchanted effect. Lutosławski’s Paroles tissées (Woven words), to French texts, uses select scoring to remarkably varied effect, to underpin phantasmagorical/dramatic contributions from the singer, Padmore once again totally identified with the individual expression.
To close, Schumann’s great Second Symphony, particularly well-judged by Ryan Wigglesworth in all particulars – quite something when Sawallisch’s Dresden recording has led the field for so long, Wigglesworth flexible, alive to details, dynamics and blend – no suggestion of the old nonsense that Schumann couldn’t orchestrate – and also the music’s energy and depth, here seemingly spontaneous as if the composer flicked his pen at the paper and everything went perfectly into place.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0024dz5
https://www.boosey.com/cr/music/Benjamin-Britten-Nocturne/6788…
Shelley – “On a Poet’s Lips I Slept” from Prometheus Unbound
Tennyson – “The Kraken“, with bassoon
Coleridge – “Encinctured with a twine of leaves” from The Wanderings of Cain, with harp
Middleton – “Midnight Bell” from Blurt, Master Constable, with French horn
Wordsworth – “But that night when on my bed I lay” from The Prelude (1805), with timpani
Owen – “The Kind Ghosts“, with cor anglais
Keats – “Sleep and Poetry“, with flute and clarinet
Shakespeare – Sonnet XLIII, with all the obbligato instruments
Pears & the composer’s Decca recording with the LSO.