Photo, Mark Allan
Sunday, January 12, 2025
Barbican Hall, London
Anticipating Sir Simon’s seventieth-birthday (on the nineteenth), and including a commission from Mark-Anthony Turnage, this LSO concert was also a British music celebration, in different guises. Turnage’s half-hour concerto for electric guitar is jazzy (as befits John Scofield) building to pounding; lullaby-like and nostalgic; perky; mysterious becoming cinematic; and ‘third stream’ (Gunther Schuller came to mind) and pulsating. All in all, a likeable score, executed nonchalantly if with vibrancy by the plugged-in Scofield, with the well-prepared LSO (including saxophone and plentiful percussion, timpani omitted) contributing vividly. The behatted composer was present.
Opening, the Tippett was suffused with growth, energy and imagery, a synopsis of the opera, played with dynamic virtuosity (not a stitch dropped), rhythmic verve, clarity, heightened expression (ecstatic when required), and a momentum that took all before it. By contrast the VW, written and premiered during World War II and dedicated to Sibelius, was (as it is) spacious, serene and pastoral, also uplifting and bringing solace, with the second movement sprightly, hobgoblins at play, while the third (‘Romanza’), if not without agitation, was heartfelt and transporting, the Symphony floating above the clouds at its very end.
Michael Tippett
Ritual Dances from The Midsummer Marriage
Mark-Anthony Turnage
Sco – Guitar Concerto (world premiere)
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Symphony No 5
On BBC Radio 3, January 20:
In the hall this seemed a real event: hope it goes down ok in PARIS! Nice to see the guitarist in the stalls to hear VW 5. Your analogy with Gunther Schuller was spot on. Glad there are many outlets for live music for those not able to get to concerts; some consolation, at least.
Peter
Peter, the VW5 doesn’t travel to Paris (tonight); instead Krystian Zimerman plays Beethoven PC4.
Thank you; I forgot that: 2 concerts but no VW. Maybe Peltokowski will get some VW done in Paris as he is doing a complete cycle in Toulouse. Will get to Paris for Fridays Boulez Notations Manoury & Walkure Act I: Guggeis replacing M. Roth.
best wishes Colin
Peter
The first LSO/Rattle Paris concert (Jan 13) was Boulez, Benjamin & Brahms.