HALLE DVORAK FESTIVAL Bridgewater
Hall
Sir Mark Elder
introduced the first of the Hallé’s Dvořák festival concerts on Thursday, and
chose a programme uniting the beginning and (nearly) the end of the composer’s
career.
Four of the Moravian
Duets – early two-parts-and-piano settings of folk song texts – were confidently
sung by the Hallé Youth Choir, conducted by Richard Wilberforce and accompanied
by Paul Janes, with a nicely timed touch of mystery to close the third and a
beautifully tender and restrained ending to the final one.
The real enlightenment
of the concert’s first half, however, came with Francesco Piemontesi’s playing
of the piano concerto. I heard Stephen Hough do it last season in Macclesfield,
shortly before his concert and recording with the CBSO, and that was very good,
but this was something special. It’s a long work, packed with melodic ideas and
needing a clear sense of its harmonic and structural shape to be really
satisfying.
Sir Mark brings that
awareness in abundance. There was a warm and individual sonority from the
outset (with the principal clarinet of the night, Sergio Castello Lopez, making
a distinctive contribution), a singing shape to every melody, and a keen sense
of detailed effect.
More than that, there
were dramatic contrasts as the tender, meditative episodes contrasted with the
vigorous, open-air quality that Dvořák’s music captured so effectively – a lilt
of dance and fun in the finale, particularly. Piemontesi made light of the
technical issues that daunt many soloists, introducing the lighter themes
engagingly and making the writing sound the most sparky and sparkly ever done
for piano.
One of the fascinations
of this early Dvořák comes in the characteristic details of figuration, harmonic
progression, texture and orchestration that we recognise as familiar features
from his greater, later works. The slow movement of the concerto even begins
with the same four notes as the ninth symphony’s ‘Hovis’ theme.
And the pentatonic
melody that dominates his trilogy of overtures from the 1890s – originally called
Nature, Life and Love, though we now know the middle one as Carnival – could have
been written in his youth.
Sir Mark did us a
favour in putting the three together as originally intended, because that ‘Nature’
theme, though only glimpsed in the ‘Carnival’ music, opens the first and tragically
dominates the final one. It’s as if Dvořák was trying out the idea of a
cyclical symphony before he (one of the few to do so) really got it right in
the ‘New World’.
The Hallé played all
three with great distinction, and Sir Mark’s dramatic instincts brought the
last – linked to the Othello story – to an operatic-style climax.
But I couldn’t help
thinking that Carnival is not just a mid-work scherzo but simply an inspiration
above the other two. I’ve never heard quite such an exuberant ending to it.
***
Robert Beale
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