Friday, November 1, 2024
Amaryllis Fleming Concert Hall, Royal College of Music, London
Michael Tippett’s A Child of Our Time is as relevant today, maybe even more so, than when composed at the time of World War II. It benefitted here from the Tippett-experienced Martyn Brabbins (recordings on Hyperion, link below) who brought out all the music’s darkness, intensity and confrontation, yet faith in the future. With the four singers all inhabiting a sense of characterisation and theatre, the chorus secure and commanding – the text is Tippett’s own – and the orchestra just as well prepared, whether in tuttis or solos, the work’s technical difficulties all but disappeared, allowing circumstances and emotions full rein, with Tippett’s genius use of Spirituals (equivalent to the Chorales in Bach’s Passions) to contrast and complement the work as a whole, the final one overwhelming, to complete a profoundly moving and thought-provoking experience, which from the off had been shaped and expressed for impassioned impact and powerful universal humanity.
In the first half, Deniz Sensoy gave an impressive account of the First of Max Bruch’s three Violin Concertos. She may have been a little untidy at times, but her confident, fiery and tender playing amply compensated, especially her confiding and heartfelt address to the slow movement. With a detailed and dynamic accompaniment secured by Brabbins (he’s recorded all of Bruch’s violin-and-orchestra music with Jack Liebeck for Hyperion), this was an engaging, freshly-wrought rendition of a piece all-too-easy to take for granted.
Deniz Sensoy violin
Pumeza Matshikiza soprano
Lily Mo Browne mezzo-soprano
Zwakele Tshabalala tenor
Jonathan Lemalu bass
RCM Symphony Orchestra & Chorus/Martyn Brabbins (Prince Consort Professor of Conducting, Royal College of Music; conductor designate Malmo SO and the Symphony Orchestra of India)
Thank you for this review. I was at the concert last night and the performance of the Tippett was electrifying. It was a phenomenal combination of immense power and beautiful sensitivity. I was intensely moved.
And as you say, Tippett’s masterpiece remains as relevant as ever.
I was at the first concert the day before and it was indeed an especially moving performance: Brabbins is a true master and his early background belies the nonsense about classical music being elitist. Sad for us that he will be heard more often in Sweden and India now than the UK. His repertoire is phenomenal: who else does Havergal Brian AND Boulez?