Beginning with swashbuckling romance, ending in penny dreadful horror; good times were had by all, thanks to the LSO.
📍The Usher Hall
📅 Aug 18
🕖 8:00pm
🕖 Running time (approx.): 2 hours
🎵 Conductor: Sir Simon Rattle
💰 From £8 (and well upwards)
🎂 Age undefined: parent’s discretion
🎭 Wheelchair Accessible Venue, Wheelchair Accessible Toilet, Audio Enhancement, Assistance Dogs Welcome
This shan’t be a long review, there’s no need for one. The technical excellence of the LSO is well-established, and Sir Simon Rattle remains the wunderkind of British music at age 67. Barring a series of unfortunate events, an evening in their company (presuming they’re performing, who knows how they are as conversationalists) is going be a fabulous one, assuming you like the music selections.
What shall we say then? The opening Le Corsaire Overture is a seascape soundscape inspired by Bryon’s verse. The Orchestra, in fine fettle, sizzled through the quick scales of dancing ocean breezes, leant sweetly into the slower romantic phase, before building to a tremendous crescendo fit for Errol Flynn to swash a mighty buckle to.
A stop in with Mahler’s Blumine followed, and its romantic trumpeter serenading their love across the Rhine. It has all the dramatic qualities of a piece written to accompany theatre, the heroic balladeers’ theme set against the darker tones arrayed in harmonic opposition. Though the nefarious woodwind attempts to suck hope into a melancholic pool, the trumpet soon rises to lead the orchestra to a happy conclusion. Accordingly the principal trumpet, James Vaughen received a rousing cheer when the baton fell still.
Closing out the first ‘act, Jean Sibelius’s Symphony No 7, took the LSO and their conductor deep into their wheelhouse. A symphonic life, born in the grave opening scale, and then through one, seamless movement to that famously inconclusive conclusion, No 7 is quite the experience. It’s a piece of music in a constant state of becoming, an idea unresolved through scherzo or adagio, and eschewing the need for a key beyond C. Grounded by a 7-strong troop of Double Basses, there’s a remarkable grandeur to the LSO’s rendition, brought to fullest majesty by principal Simon Cowen magnificent trombone. It’s a warm, virtuosic take on the 7th, bathed in the LSO’s famously gorgeous strings. At only 22 minutes, it’s just a pity it had to end.
The post-mini riot for the bar commenced with the premiere of Daniel Kidane’s Sun Poem, a tapestry of mixed percussion and interweaving themes from strings, woodwind, and brass. The composer compares his technique of shifting betwixt slower, and quicker passages to a murmuration of starlings. It’s an apt comparison, allowing this meditation on fatherhood to slip organically through contemplation, joy, and weighty tones of responsibility. There’s an undeniable mystery to Sun Poem, a nod to the ‘unknowables’ of life traced in punctuated chimes. There’s a surprisingly thrilling final passage wherein the various questions and idea raised by the orchestra finally make peace with each other, dancing in step to an optimistic close. Kildane came out for a very well deserved round of cheering applause.
Then Rattle and The LSO, clearly quite done with playing nice, busted out Bartók’s The Miraculous Mandarin. Quite apt to its penny dreadful horror inspiration, written by Melchior Lengyel, it’s a hard-boiled exercise in the sinister, and savage possibilities of the symphony orchestra. Opening on a raucous cityscape of harassed strings, and honking brass, the orchestra really got stuck into the tale of villainous skulduggery, and undying lascivious monsters. The infamous chase scene, brought the entire orchestra to full bodied, screaming nigh-cacophony, and when the said Mandarin was finally dead, there was palpable relief pervading player, conductor and audience alike.
It was thus a great kindness to all when Rattle acceded to the stomping demands for an encore with an, in his words ‘healing’ rendition of Gabriel Fauré’s Pavane. Flautist Gareth Davies certainly ushered in a beautiful, and calming balm to end the night.
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