Available from today, “the final streamed concert of the Hallé’s Summer Season and the digital concert programme” – Bridgewater Hall; undated if very recent; no audience – is hopefully not the end of these “screeners” (which is what us lucky press bods get sent, otherwise it’s pay-to-view) as we move into a new Season of with-audience presentations.
Anyway, Sir Mark and his spaced-out orchestra open with a superb outing of the Suite from Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera, The Tale of Tsar Saltan (Pushkin), judiciously paced and full of theatrical atmosphere: forests certainly murmured; Rimsky’s textbook scoring glinted and militarised; lyricism touched the heart as romance blossomed. As for The Rock by Rachmaninov, an early score (dedicated to Rimsky), a sign of stylistic things to come from him, painterly and impressionistic, is given a deft, colourful and darkly dramatic reading in Manchester. Finally the third Suite (1945) from (pupil of Rimsky) Stravinsky’s Firebird (1910) – with more music than in either 1911 or 1919, with changes of orchestration (leaner than the original) – in a performance full of infernally good things, very danceable, and expressive, showcasing a vivid fairy-tale narrative.
Then keep watching for a flighty and potentially stinging encore.