Wanting to like: a personal (sustained) note on classical music criticism…

Generally, I have a lousy memory. Yet, held in my head is a bank of hundreds of concerts (both as audience member and performer): some in great, specific detail; some encapsulated in one particular element or work – the majority just as broader experiences. However, these still contribute to the fuel that is my intense, fathomless love of music in its manifold varieties; and which, pieced together, form the backbone of my spiritual existence.

I wondered if the depth and significance of each such ‘episode’ was related to its emotional impact: and that does seem – on the whole – to be the case. (Technique, novelty and location also play their parts – although only with a few walk-on words halfway through Act IV.) Take this random, disorderly sample (of ten – and excluding the likes of Springsteen, U2, The Who, Rush and even AC/DC) that suddenly tumbles into view:

• Maurizio Pollini playing Schoenberg’s Five Piano Pieces as an encore at the Edinburgh Festival. I have no idea what was on the main programme! This was so beautiful, though. I was on the front row, trying not to cry. Having just learned to play them, this felt like the most personal of messages.
• Gennady Rozhdestvensky conducting Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring – again in Edinburgh. Again, I cannot remember what else was performed; or whether this came before or after the interval. It was truly electric – although ragged as heck!
• Accompanying two more-talented friends on the piano as their instruments sang the Bach Double Violin Concerto, in Wesley Hall, Blackburn; sharing a programme with duettists Peter Donohoe and Martin Roscoe. I must have been sixteen or seventeen. We all turned pages for each other – although if I’d known how famous these two would become (although very funny, ordinary blokes in the flesh, they are also, of course, extraordinarily accomplished), I would have probably hidden under the piano, instead!
• The wonderful, rich-voiced, marvellously expressive – and sometimes bloody hilarious – Michael Rippon, singing the baritone rôle in Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast at the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall. Glorious. “Slain!”
• Mitsuko Ochida playing three Mozart sonatas, quietly, immersed in reverential silence, in the Chicago Symphony Center, on a bitterly cold Sunday afternoon. Warmth of the most human kind.
• Singing Past Three A Clock, solo, in the fabulous Raadhuis Hilversum – only finding later that it was a live broadcast on the local radio station! I was eleven: and was simultaneously discovering the power of great architecture.
• Janet Baker in Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius. No idea of venue – probably the Free Trade Hall in Manchester. Sometime around a thousand years ago…. No voice before or since has been this perfect. Nor ever will be.
• The Orchestra of the Swan (who else) at the Pittville Pump Room, in Cheltenham, slamming gleefully through Adams’ Shaker Loops. Not really my cup of tea… – but the enthusiasm and clarity (two of the many positive properties that still grip me) were astonishing (and have not waned one jot): and therefore fluently quashed my cynicism. The Guardian drily referred to this as “suitably spirited playing”. (Bloody journalists.)
• John Lill accompanying a string quartet (whose name will not emerge from the fog) in Elgar’s haunting Piano Quintet, at Malvern. Sent the shivers continually up and down my spine: like a paternoster on speed.
• Conducting Messiah at the very last moment, due to illness, in King George’s Hall, Blackburn – when I only had a bit of fluff on my top lip. I had never directed anything bigger than a church choir; had only ever sung the treble and bass lines, and played piano for rehearsals. It scared the pants off me – but I understood immediately the addiction of shaping a performance (although I must have barely achieved this). It was just unnerving to have so many people staring at me all the time…! (When you’re playing an instrument, you can usually ignore any audience.) Hallelujah!

¶

I started pondering on this subject during the interval at Tuesday night’s splendiferous A Scandinavian Serenade – after someone very generously said that my review of the truly-memorable-in-all-its-heartbreaking-glory Cheltenham Symphony Orchestra concert on Saturday was “just like being there”. (They hadn’t been: so I took this as great praise… of course!) And, although it would be easy for me to be glib about such approbation – although I have no desire (or ability) to be “the best music critic who ever lived” – it actually, accidentally, is one of my main aims (retrospectively) in producing these things: aspiring to capture the moment; create a written snapshot (JB Priestley-style), an aide-mémoire for myself and others; and to crystallize the ephemeral for eternity, as well as those who could not be there.

Some performances are recorded in sound and vision (for that posterity, of course); but, however wonderful, these have been subjected to an engineer’s cleansing touch in some way; are from impossible multiple viewpoints; and cannot, and do not, replicate the immersive involvement of simply being part of it. Who cares about the odd cough or sneeze (like the pops on vinyl); habitual programme fiddlers; or fidgety children? There is something ineffable about the atmosphere; as well as the sounds and sights, that are filtered through your own subjectivity and singular perspective. Yes, there are the musical details to be listed (and I apologize if I sometimes become overly technical – “you can tell that you are a musician”, I was told – more adulation… I think) – but it is that strange umpteenth dimension; that dangerous Boojum… that I am trying to ensnare.

Cardus gave me two tips… One was: don’t write anything you wouldn’t say to someone’s face, and the second was: never write out of a bad mood. I’ve tried to stick to those principles.

– Michael Kennedy

Theatre reviews – especially commercial ones – have a different purpose. (Professional writers – the few that seem to be left – are also often limited in word count. (I make no comment. Just don’t expect my critiques to be as succinct – or as Twitter-short as the ones I catalogued above.)) Unquestionably – although not necessarily when I write them… – they are to put seats on seats.

But, with a musical event – even when the same programme is repeated at a later date (often in a different venue) – I think there is so much variation, all a write-up can do is say “look, this set of musicians is good/indifferent/stupendous; you may not like the music they play, next time; but at least you know the quality of performance you should be in for”. Hopefully, it will also “make you want to hear that music” – or even regret not being there – as the great Neville Cardus, and his successor (and my hero), Michael Kennedy (“one of Britain’s most distinguished voices on classical music”), often did. A concert review therefore points you in only a general direction; not to a specific place: although, in effect – in also rendering the abstract concrete (for want of a better phrase) – it can make tangible a particular moment in time; at a particular place; from a very particular (and partial) standpoint.

¶

Music was my first love

And it will be my last.

Music of the future

And music of the past.

To live without my music

Would be impossible to do.

In this world of troubles,

My music pulls me through.

– John Miles: Music

There is – although it may be hard to spot… – a leitmotif of explicit emotion running through my appraisals: which is often absent from those in the mainstream media. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, that, however intellectual or technical a basis there may be for its creation, I believe the essential communication (between players and listeners) that the act of performance represents must provoke such a response to be valid. (If art only engages you at the objective level, I am not convinced that it has fulfilled its aim, or its potential.) Secondly: music is just so damn’ important to me. It is fundamental, integral to who I am.

After being ‘in the wilderness’ for so many years, waiting for technology to catch up with my hearing loss (which it has now, thankfully, overtaken), it is wonderful to be once more involved in something that is entrenched within my soul – and always has been. Music was once the major motivation in my life; and it is rapidly resuming that core meaning again. My only fear is that, one day, my hearing may fail completely. Until such time, I will be writing my reviews under the guidance of Robert Herrick; and will therefore also be producing immensely personal interpretations!

And, although I find it easier to listen to music I know well, I will do my best to seek out new works, when I can. In many cases, this will mean studying the scores (as with Tuesday’s Sibelius): as this is an easier way for me to absorb the structure, layer, texture, and all those tiny details that are so fundamental to interpretation and enjoyment. (It’s difficult to explain: but I have always fuzzily ‘seen’ the music as it is played; and having ‘absorbed’ the score – as you might (and I do) with a Shakespeare text – this foundation heightens my enjoyment, and reinforces my dulled ears, adding new layers, new dimensions. (It is also why, I’m afraid, a few too many of “those tiny details” – so important to my understanding – leak through into my reviews. I am simply rendering the music through my ears and eyes: describing what I hear and see as important and relevant.))

¶

After writing to this point in one huge antejentacular burst, I then ground to a halt: and thus struggled to come up with an ending. But then, having digested my coffee and toast, I had an epiphany for dessert, and remembered this – from one of my favourite (and I think one of the greatest, most searingly honest) speeches ever given on the subject:

Listening to classical music is a journey, not a state, an activity, not a meditation. Music is not a background noise. It’s something you bring into the foreground of your experience, by engaging with it, by doing some work. Only recently have I come to listen properly to Schumann, Haydn and, especially, Bach, and begun to get that sense of rich, deep satisfaction that I first encountered more immediately as an adolescent in Mahler. I’m aware that it’s easy to fall back on quasi-mystical, pretentious language when trying to talk about one’s experience of classical music, but that shouldn’t stop us trying. We don’t talk about music enough. As someone who’s never felt he’s had the technical language at his fingertips, I feel all I can do is talk about it in whatever English I have at my command. I want to emote about how I feel. After a concert, I want to grab people by the lapels and tell them how lucky we are as a species that, out of all the hundreds of billions of us who ever lived, one of us managed to come up with the Goldberg Variations. But I don’t, because that's not the done thing. So instead I mention that the café downstairs does some fabulous chocolate éclairs.

– Armando Iannucci: Classical music, the love of my life

Just think of my reviews as my way of grabbing you by your lapels. I hope it doesn’t hurt too much.

Hark, hark, I hear the minstrels play…

My lord, he is but even now gone hence;

Here was he merry, hearing of a song.

– William Shakespeare: As You Like It

I think ‘perturbation’ is the word I’m looking for – although maybe that’s a little strong…. However, out of five works at last night’s Orchestra of the Swan A Scandinavian Serenade concert at Stratford ArtsHouse, I knew one really, really well – the ecstatic opening Holberg Suite, by Grieg – two, just a tad: Grieg’s Watchman’s Song, after Macbeth and his Two Elegiac Melodies – one, not at all: Sibelius’ Suite for Violin and String Orchestra in D minor – oh: and the last one, I’d never really got on with. (In fact, I’d always considered it a bit trite; and listening to it like overdosing on a trifle of neatness. Not a good start….)

So, I was a little concerned. Has “this journey (nay, this pilgrimage) back to live music that I am on” hit the buffers already? Or will my new hearing aids – combined with a little light score-reading – put me back on the right track? (Sorry: my metaphors appear to be running out of steam….) Read on to discover the answer (and to see if I can put the awful railway puns to one siding…). These questions – and many others – will be answered in this very exciting episode of The Bard Goes to Town (and Listens to a Bit of Classical Music).

Merry and tragical? Tedious and brief?

That is hot ice and wondrous strange snow.

How shall we find the concord of this discord?

– William Shakespeare: A Midsummer Night’s Dream

In the end, I needn’t have worried. Of course…! A concert that, on the surface, seemed devoted to warm sun (I’m always wary of too much happiness) – and yet, in the end, wasn’t afraid to probe what hid in the resultant shadows (much more to my taste); or stay outside when it clouded over and threatened to rain (even better) – surely melted my concerns away.

However, after Saturday night’s “huge review for three huge performances” at Cheltenham Town Hall – which were still singing monumentally in my head as I arrived for the pre-concert chat… – I promise to try and cut down on the verbiage. (I think I’ve used most of it up, anyway.) So: let’s just say that all of the Grieg pieces were sensational and full of life (replete with its ups and downs…) – as you would expect – and demonstrated (yet again, for me) that here is a composer who wrote a lot more wonderful (and sometimes darker) stuff than just his famed piano concerto; and that, the more intimate the setting, the greater his power. In other words: music perfectly suited to David Curtis and his merry band of minstrels. (I do not think I have ever seen or heard any ensemble quite so happy, relaxed – and yet so deeply immersed – in their expert, collegiate, cohesive music-making.) Playing Grieg therefore plays to their innate strengths – inspiring a luminous, resonant clarity that only comes from such chamber-compactness: each line, each texture, audible; each dynamic, each measure, “tight and yare”.

Special mention, though, must go to their rendition of The Last Spring – the second of Grieg’s Two Elegiac Melodies:

The poet see the winter snows melting, and nature burgeoning in the new season. But will this be the last spring he will ever see? In which case there is immense gratitude for the life he has lived, but a greater sadness for it passing.

– Christopher Morley (programme notes)

As David Le Page, the orchestra’s leader, related before the concert: there are some eerie, yet thrilling, icy sul ponticello moments – with unusual long, drawn-out bowing – that chill the heart, at the centre of this. And, although officially a ‘miniature’, the piece was treated with the same reverence and import as any great slow movement of any great symphony. I found all of the Grieg beautiful (I used to spend whole days repeatedly playing his piano pieces and arrangements) – “movements that… range from the tender to the jaunty”, as Curtis writes – and in many different ways: but this elegy was earth-shattering, tear-inducing, nails-dug-into-the-palms-of-your-hands grief writ large; played by an ensemble that suddenly seemed so much larger than its twelve members – in sound, and in effect. Mesmerising, gripping, stuff. And all in slow-motion. Whew.

Here’s my fiddlestick, here’s that shall make you dance.

– William Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet

However, the Sibelius was the revelation of the night: probably because my prejudiced (and somewhat superficial) impression (at least from the symphonies) is of someone who orchestrated in discrete chunks of sound – wodges of woodwind; blocks of brass; slabs of strings – without much layering, much interweaving. (Give me Nielsen’s bruising symphonies, any day!)

Scoring for strings, though, is an uncompromising (I was going to write ‘stringent’) art – with very little room for carelessness – everything is highly visible. Maybe it’s just my maturing love for smaller musical groupings: but Sibelius pulls it off neatly and superbly – this is so much less ‘lush’ than his other music that I’ve heard. In fact, it’s a rare little capsule of rapture – as crisp and fresh as a newly-harvested iceberg lettuce!

It turns out that, although it was written in 1929 – “his last opus numbered work” – this supposedly “non consequential” piece wasn’t first performed until 1990 (and “not discovered until 25 years after the composer’s death”): so finding much information on it (apart from last night’s programme notes) seems quite impossible. I did find this, however – which sums it up very nicely (almost)!

The Suite is in three movements…. Its gentle intent is proclaimed by the pastoral movement titles: Country Scenery; Evening in Spring; In the Summer. These are unassumingly warm mezzotints with a gentle inclination…. Little echoes of other works (often written later) do intrude. After the first two movements in which you can imagine a blend of Rakastava, The Lark Ascending and Finzi’s Introit comes a perpetuum mobile flying along like an ingratiating wasp…. The whole suite plays less than eight minutes.

Although I had the word ‘neoclassical’ on the tip of my tongue, my more detailed take on it was… First movement: ‘folksy’ – but in a good way; and definitely my kind of music! (I know!) The second ‘rhapsodic’ movement has echoes not only of Vaughan Williams; but, melodically, Elgar’s Introduction and Allegro; with a tiny hint of Tippett (the Fantasia Concertante on a Theme of Corelli) right at the very end. This is the only movement – in its central section – that actually reminded me (as in the quotation above) of Sibelius himself – but, for me, the violin concerto! The final Vivace movement looks incredibly virtuosic on paper – yet Le Page, here the violin soloist, made it look oh-so simple. Fantastic, energetic, elbow-knackering bowing; but with a beaming smile on his face throughout! This was no “wasp”, though. Taken at a slower pace than I had expected – which opened up the piece wonderfully, without losing one jot of momentum – this was the most charming honey-bee, instead: enjoying a hot day in the glowing light of the late afternoon; flitting seamlessly; searching for the most perfect flowers! (I had expected to blub at the second movement: but… well, just “but”….) And, wow, that ending. Just as the bee found nectar. (Gulp.)

Why this is not a more famous work, I have no clue. It will make me revisit my obviously-deluded opinion of Sibelius; and pay more attention to his more well-known works. But, even if this was the only thing he had written – and it is a very late piece – it should have left him listed with all the other great names of his era. Startlingly sublime. (Off to find a copy. Back in a mo….) You could almost say that it blew my socks off…

This is a merry ballad, but a very pretty one.

– William Shakespeare: A Winter’s Tale

And so to that last problematical piece: Dvořák’s Serenade for Strings. To digress (and avoid the subject), for a moment: Google informs me that a ‘serenade’ is “a piece of music sung or played in the open air, typically by a man at night under the window of his beloved”. To ‘serenade’ is to “entertain (someone) with a serenade”. And, against my will (somewhat), I have to report that I was truly “entertained” by what Curtis described as “intimate music for friends”.

Although usage of the word ‘serenade’ peaked in the 1940s (in English, anyway), I always think of the late nineteenth century as its golden age: with not only Dvořák (op.22; 1875), but Tchaikovsky (op.48; 1880) and Elgar (op.20; 1892), all rapidly producing melodious, welcoming (yet heartfelt) works for string orchestra – the apotheosis of Gemütlichkeit (bless you!) – which still form the foundations of its repertoire. (Add the 1884 Holberg Suite – opus 40 – into the mix: and there’s your proof!)

Yes, I admit it: as you can tell, I was won over… – although I was listening even harder than usual! And a later thorough read-through of the pages of the score revealed much more complexity and authority than I had initially assumed. Admittedly, this is not in any way a mature work: Dvořák wrote it when he was only 33, with a young family – and, supposedly, in less than a fortnight! (Gosh.) But it does contain the seeds of the greatness that was to follow.

“One of his most idyllic works”, it contains some wonderful melodies, cleverly constructed harmonies and rhythms… – and yet, the reliance on an A‑B‑A structure for each movement does mean that I still find it a little episodic in nature. (Although Curtis smoothed out the joins with aplomb. He was obviously a skilled plasterer in a previous life!)

The first movement took me back to the Grieg, emotionally (therefore forming wonderful, tuneful bookends for the evening) – with a most wonderful peak climbed effortlessly just before it ended. Although no fan of waltzes, the second movement – a little Chopin-like? – felt as if it advanced in torrents of joy (and the first subject is what still echoes round my hollow head): and I felt Curtis’ handling and variation of the repeats (and final Da capo) was shrewd and subtle: with more rubato. (These “friends” have made time for each other – happy and relaxed in each other’s company.) And there was a moment in the central Trio where the violins played sul G, and the cellos built beneath them, which was eye-popping. (The advantage of such a small ensemble is the clarity of every single line; every single instrument.) The orchestration here is masterful: creating lucid structures from split parts; and building to something angry, rather than ecstatic (again, with little bits of Elgar in the light).

The Scherzo that followed reminded me, again, fleetingly, of the Grieg – especially in its migration from light to dark (here come the thunderclouds): although the middle section was about as “playful” as the same movement in Saturday’s Brahms. (Had conducting the Shostakovich Fifth at the weekend injected a little Soviet plangency, here?) There was also some wonderful, cross-threading counterpoint; along with a handful of wonderful, organic tempo changes; and the ppp at the end of the ritenuto was so quiet – as Curtis held his finger to his lips – I wondered if I was imagining it….

This was followed by typically exquisite, expressive playing from the two cellos – although my performer of the night has to be Stacey Watton on bass. Such a treat to see this instrument so loved – as well as its sound cherished by the conductor (who knows when each section needs eye-contact and direction; as well as when to leave well alone… – I could have sworn that he actually stopped moving at several times, tonight: these are relationships that are built on trust; mutual admiration; and knowledge of each individual’s super-capabilities – which is why it just plain works).

And then another beautiful ‘hold’ before the cellos resume with a quietly confident pizzicato figure. Charm with a capital ‘C’. Then moving into mixed periods of mournful cogitation and exultant joy; before an explosion as the movement ends. With some extremely deft handling, hope is regained!

The following Larghetto carried with it an air of resignation – and was far too short, for me, as a slow movement. (I do so love to be maudlin.) There are echoes of one of the waltz themes woven throughout: somehow amplifying the expressiveness of the main descending melody. I suspect that conducting the slow movement of the Shostakovich at the weekend has been good for the Curtis soul: and this was almost as piercing – just gentler; more caressing; less despairing. As the pace gathered, though, it became characteristically Dvořák – his gift for melody (not unlike Brahms’) shining through. Here comes the sun again!

And yet the clouds returned with the recapitulation of that falling cry, before yet another build; before fading to silence. Another touch of the lips; and a perfect harmonic in the first violins that resonated almost beyond hearing. (Take a breath.)

The Finale: Allegro vivace went by in a tuneful blur. Suggestions of Bohemian folksong; touches of Elgar and maybe Tippett, again; but an urgency that hadn’t seemed present, before. A hint in the cellos (so warm; so much concentration) of the previous movement; and the orchestra unified in some of its greatest, widest sound. So much joy; such writing of such high class… – and therefore perfectly suited to this wonderful group of wonderful musicians. Somehow, yet, there is a hesitation: the opening theme of the first movement returns, gently, urgently; but then confidence is renewed. And there is one perfectly-controlled last rush to the emphatic end. This felt highly therapeutic – and the audience responded in kind. What a perfect finish! I think I may have been converted….

Thou mak’st me merry; I am full of pleasure,

Let us be jocund.

– William Shakespeare: The Tempest

This above all: to thine own self be three…

The unabashed melodiousness of Brahms is without apology.

– Steve Spice

I like to imagine Brahms wandering around Europe – or even just the Red Hedgehog Tavern – almost permanently singing. Strangely enough, his gruff baritone sounds exactly like mine! (Probably because his figure is not dissimilar.) Seriously, though: I can think of no other composer who wrote such gorgeous, memorable, all-encompassing melodies – not even my beloved Elgar (who, it could be argued, is Brahms’ natural successor).

All week, therefore, in anticipation of last night’s Cheltenham Symphony Orchestra concert in the Town Hall, the opening horn call (delicately wafted into the air by Laura Morris – and subsequently recapitulated perfectly by Kelly Haines) of his Second Piano Concerto – and all its ensuing high-contrast, explosive variations and developments – has been echoing through my head (as well as bouncing off the walls of the Bardic halls). This tune is, essentially, a short, simple thing (appearing as a rising tilde in the score) – which is where its power indubitably lies. But what the aging (‘mature’) composer does with it is nothing short of miraculous: not least the initial arpeggiated, ascending response from the piano (played warmly by the inimitable Peter Donohoe).

However easily lulled you may be by that gentle beginning, you are soon awoken by a cadenza (already! at bar 11!) manufactured from some of the most turbulent, breathtaking Sturm und Drang I can think of. (All those octaves in the right hand I think explain Donohoe’s comment, below.) Although this detonation soon recapitulates the main theme as a short-lived ground bass – and the orchestra then takes over – it is not long before the thumb-bashing returns: albeit after a few fortunate pages’ rest!

So – believe me: I tried and failed to learn to play it; and it nearly killed my hands (and the rest of me) – even though the work has been described as “really a symphony with principal piano” – this is, I think, one of the most outrageously challenging pieces in the solo pianist’s repertoire: “the perfect fusion of inspirational fire with… encompassing technique” – which, thankfully, of course, Donohoe, genial genius, has in abundance. He makes it look (relatively) easy – even those infernal, eternal trills. (Although I suspect he is actually the owner of an extra pair of hands – which may well really belong to Martin Roscoe – such is his wizardry.)

It was the last work Brahms added to his repertory as a pianist, and for someone who had long given up regular practicing to get through it at all is amazing.

– Michael Steinberg

Some of the orchestral tutti chord sequences in this first movement even foreshadow those of Shostakovich (see below) with their impudent might – although this may just be a trick of consistent orchestra-scape and canny programming – and yet this is truly beautiful music: albeit with a heart of sharpest diamond. And there is nothing playful at all, either, about the second movement (which tonight featured a breathtaking stop-on-a-sixpence moment from the violins…). “It is a tiny, tiny little concerto with a tiny, tiny little scherzo” wrote Brahms. (Ha‑ha.)

But the work never stops punching you in the guts with its emotional impact, aided by Donohoe’s majestic, ringing, virtuousic keyboard playing. His partnership (which it truly was) with conductor David Curtis and the CSO rendered it a monumental spiritual assault. And, like the Shostakovich that followed – after the well-needed interval – it features a killer third movement: “the slow movement that Rachmaninoff tried all his life to write” – where, temporarily, the cello (beautifully, hauntingly bowed by Andrea Harries: who received rapt, delighted attention from the generous Donohoe) takes the limelight: with what would later become the song Immer leiser wird mein Schlummer (‘Ever gentler grows my slumber’). Personally, I think Brahms constructed this movement so that the pianist would at least have a few moments in which to plunge their hands into a bucket of ice; or for the trainer to come on to the pitch with a magic spray and a few plasters. (Donohoe is too noble and gifted to require such things.)

[By the way, if you want to know just what a “challenge” this work really is (and not just for my clumsy paws): then I would suggest that you read this tremendous account by Stephen Hough – one of the greatest (and most modest) performers I have been lucky to witness – as well as this marvellous interview with French pianist Philippe Bianconi.]

The last movement – regardless of what anyone-else may tell you; and despite the hint of Hungarian dance rhythm and final march (again heading towards Shostakovich territory) – superbly controlled by maestro Curtis – completes the concerto perfectly. It is what the preceding three movements insistently lead to – it is what is needed… – a romantic, rhapsodic meditation on all that has gone before. It may not contain quite the huge number of previous fireworks: but there are moments where the piano’s bass pulses through the soles of your feet, before the treble gives your heart and head a damn’ good work-out. You have to cheer – especially with a performer as subtle and powerful as Donohoe… – as you really, really wanted to do at the end of the Allegro non troppo and Allegro appassionato, of course. You simply have no option.

And here he rewarded our enthusiasm – demonstrating his finely-tuned prowess once more – with a highly intelligent, but deeply soulful, engrossing encore: exhibiting what I know to be a rare (and valuable) combination of insight and fluid technique. [For the life of me, although I recognized it, I cannot dig deep enough into my fading brain to retrieve its composer or title. If you know, please get in touch! Thank you. (I have now been informed – by a certain Peter Donohoe… – that “The encore was Mozart's Fantasia in D Minor K397”. Many thanks! This was genuinely beautiful playing….)] He also crept into the audience after the interval – a rare and thoughtful act….

The B-flat Concerto dates from the start of Brahms’ ripest maturity, the period when his fame had reached a peak throughout Europe and his physical image as we know it best was fixed: bearded and corpulent.

– The Los Angeles Philharmonic

Whilst the Brahms – one of the greatest Late Romantic ‘symphonies’, by last night’s reckoning – can prove hazardous for the piano soloist; Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony provokes and questions the abilities of each and every member of any orchestra that dares confront it. Here, though, these readily-tarnishing challenges were transformed into golden opportunities – and the CSO explored the very heights of proficiency, authority and exultancy – giving rise to one of the greatest orchestral performances I have experienced. (And I write this – humblebrag alert… – having been around the world; and having witnessed many of the greatest musicians of the last fifty years….)

This is no extravagance; no overstatement. The music breathed. And therefore every single person who contributed to tonight’s astonishing achievement should be immensely proud of themselves. This was musicianship of the very highest order – from the conductor to the clarinets; the brass to the bass drum; the piccolo to the piano. (It is just so sad that the hall was only half-full. I am pretty sure we all knew how utterly blessed we were, though….)

From the symphony’s opening battle between the lower and the upper strings and its soaring melodies, to the sounds of hopeless oppression and finally to the triumph of the human spirit, Shostakovich brilliantly captures the conflicting moods of a time, place and people.

– Marin Alsop: Power And Struggle In A Soviet Symphony

It would be all too easy, at least on the surface – especially considering the (parodic) startling re-entry of the triumphal (but threatening) brass in the last movement (with a rising three-note motif that echoes Brahms’ welcoming call – although this time in the minor: depressing that final note…) – to believe that, in writing his Fifth Symphony, Shostakovich had capitulated to Stalin’s directives in producing grandiose music to support his evil dictatorship: demonstrating the supposed superiority of the mighty Russian Bear during the godawful ‘Great Terror’. However, there is – right from the warlike get-go; its call to arms – and at its deep, deep, lyrical, tortured heart – what Peter Gutmann describes as “the clash between stifling ideology and irrepressible creative impulse”:

According to Stalin, music had to inspire and unite the Soviet people with uplifting messages. His taste was simplistic, but his power absolute. The Pravda party newspaper… branded Shostakovich an enemy of the people and condemned his work as chaotic, vulgar and perverted…. He was snubbed, performances of his works were cancelled and his career seemed over. Yet, he soon found a constructive cure for his pain…. He plunged into work on a new, more traditional symphony. There would be no mistaking its purpose. Shostakovich titled it “An Artist’s Creative Response to Just Criticism” and announced its program as “the stabilization of a personality of a man with all his experiences”. He proclaimed: “There can be no greater joy for a composer than… having assisted by his works in the elevation of Soviet musical culture… to contribute to the growth of our country”. When presented in celebration of the 20th anniversary of the Revolution, it was acclaimed a masterpiece, embracing the soul of the Russian people.

The composer initially described the finale as “resolving the tragically tense impulses of the earlier movements into optimism and the joy of living”. But, later, he rechristened it “a false optimism created under a threat” – akin to the “sadistic torture of being forced to smile while being beaten” – and implied that Stalin was “too dense to see through [his] parody and satire”: not realizing the “deeper and sardonic musical truth” (which, surely, to modern audiences – with the symphony’s industrial, weaponized brass section; satirical marches; and pleading, lyrical melodies – is so blatant that it cannot be ignored…).

I think it is clear to everyone what happens in the Fifth. The rejoicing is forced, created under threat, as in [Modest Mussorgsky’s opera] Boris Godunov. It’s as if someone were beating you with a stick and saying, “Your business is rejoicing, your business is rejoicing”, and you rise, shaky and go marching off, muttering, “Our business is rejoicing, our business is rejoicing”. What kind of apotheosis is that? You have to be a complete oaf not to hear that. People who came to the premiere of the Fifth in the best of moods wept.

– Solomon Volkov: Testimony: The Memoirs of Dmitri Shostakovich

The crux of that weeping, for me (and, I suspect, for many others), is the brass-less Largo, which “is the work’s emotional core” – “one of the most despairing pieces of music ever written, a memorial for Mother Russia and all those sent to the labour camps”. And, although this exquisitely-scored lament uses themes from the preceding two movements, I think it is as close to the surface, and as close as you can get, to reading Shostakovich’s true intent: his fear and agonized despondency – even his hatred.

I agree: “there are no words” for last night’s rendering of this. All I need write is that I closed my eyes; and let the music immerse me in the inevitable purity of sorrow; the inescapable sobs gently washing and wracking my face…. The pace was perfect; as were the dynamics. I will jump to the end, therefore, and just say that those concluding ethereal harmonics from the harp are tough enough – for both audience and orchestra – without the following building Blitzkrieg chord from the full forces of the brass, woodwind and timpani which set off that last, knife-twisting lurch toward death. Thankfully, Curtis paused.

Here, in the coda, he then once more showed his shrewdness – and fulfilled his desire to “always tell a story” with the music – in finding a middle way between the ‘traditional’ fast and triumphal European dash to glory; and the more Russian, slow, tragic and disintegrating weariness. What we experienced was therefore no victory parade – hollow or otherwise. On the weekend of the Stop the War protests and the Climate Change March, these hammered, screaming, repeated chords felt like a forced procession to the scaffold for the whole of humanity.

Like the Brahms concerto that preceded it, this confrontational, testing symphony could be by no other composer. (The works share an expertise in orchestral technique and exploitation – for want of a better word – that is almost unsurpassable. And yet they are Germanic chalk and Soviet cheese in their differences: despite their parallel, emotive appearances and similar dynamic oscillations.)

Pardon my Cyrillic: but Shostakovich’s Fifth, with its gradual, initially deceptive, relentless urge – especially in this performance – builds to such a ball-kicking climax that it is sometimes hard to breathe. (The Brahms achieves such damage in a markedly discreet and more riverlike way.) As it progresses, the symphony swings from gentle massage to such exquisitely-timed assault that you may also find yourself – as I did – almost panting with the inflicted pain. It is tragedy of the most heart-piercing kind – a “long arc… of a bittersweet, aching intensity” – and I do not envy those who have to perform it – although the CSO, under the tight helmsmanship of an obviously emotionally-wrought Curtis – were sensational in their pure and sure commitment.

At least we in the audience had the release of tears, and the comfort of our handkerchiefs. All these poor musicians could do was play on through the terrifying, harrowing, inferno. (Even when Shostakovich appears to be lightening up a little – or even taking the mickey – he is nothing less than intensely serious in his aims and methods. And it shows. (I think the same can be said of Curtis, below, by the way.))

Earlier in the week, Curtis had said to me that “after the Shostakovich, I’ll need a stiff drink”. (Only one…?!) And so did I. This was music that really, really hurt – but in a good, masochistic, cleansing sort of way. (Oh, the power of a good tune…!) But, although he headed homeward for “a stiff gin and tonic” (there must be a musician’s punchline in there, somewhere…!), a thick, dark coffee had to suffice for me (albeit tinged with brandy) – otherwise this review would simply have been one very sharp, climactic expletive.

By the way (just to lighten things up a little): the concert began with a warm-up overture – again, as the programme notes told us, “Three arresting brass chords open the piece… they symbolize a vow of vengeance” – by some obscure ‘Joe Green’ bloke. (Thank you, Dad!) I’ve never really liked Verdi – apart from the heavenly Requiem (it’s great to sing; and features some muscular timpani and bass drum parts…) – but this was entertaining enough!

What it did achieve – seriously and melodiously – was to set the stage for the themes of agonizing tragedy and false triumphalism – the magnificent and dramatic “forces of destiny” – which followed. If Brahms paints paradise, Shostakovich hollows out for us the horrors of hell on earth. Both of which have left me utterly wrecked. Wow.

The moon emerged from behind the earlier storm-clouds to guide me home. I did not want the glow of my iPhone to compete; nor the sound of anything to disturb the now-Russian melodies entangling themselves in my overwhelmed brain. This music of “thought-provoking programming” and formidable skill will stay with me for a very long time. And yet I still must luxuriate in its vigorous freshness. For as long as I possibly can. Thank you; and good night….

All the leaves are brown and the sky is grey…

…I’ve been for a walk on a winter’s day: well, autumn’s – but that breeze, “after summer evermore succeeds”, truly felt like “Barren winter, with his wrathful nipping cold” puckering at my face and fingertips. Certainly: “Life’s autumn past, I stand on winter’s verge”. And with meteorologists marking the season’s change on the first of December; last weekend’s bitter frosts; and only just over eight hours between dawn and dusk; it really does feel like “dead-cold winter must inhabit here still”.

When clouds are seen, wise men put on their cloaks;

When great leaves fall, then winter is at hand;

When the sun sets, who doth not look for night?

Untimely storms makes men expect a dearth.

All may be well; but if God sort it so,

’Tis more than we deserve or I expect.

– Shakespeare: Richard III

Our young oak discarded almost all of its leaves abruptly and unceremoniously in the recent gales: scattering them far and wide – and only a small handful of hardy, corroded bracts still flicker tenaciously but tenuously in its stark silhouette. However, wandering around the area between Baddesley Clinton and Packwood House, on Wednesday, I noticed that most of the oak trees there – albeit more full-grown; and huddled together, in damp, deep, fecund ground (some of which still clings to my poor boots) – yet hoard their marcescent foliate treasures: with glowing, backlit hints of jade amongst the gold and bronze; vivid under the gelid sun, against the sapphire sky. (Who needs a rainbow…?)

These more-developed specimens stand in the precise line of a hedgerow (above) that had not long been flailed, military‑style, within an inch of its life – if not just beyond. Cropped so short that I could easily see over it; and transparent as chicken wire – despite a large uncultivated strip between crop and boundary – this act of agricultural barbarity has left no shelter for any overwintering flocks; and therefore no chance of sustenance from within its boughs. The deep marshy tyre-tracks also showed how very recently this savaging had taken place – the footpath churned into a series of treacherous ankle-snapping, puddled diagonal ridges.

If this compulsive cut had been set against a major thoroughfare, I would have had a little sympathy, perhaps. But this was well-removed from civilization, between two extensive arable fields; and seemed to represent an over-attentive brutal addiction to unnecessary neatness for which I can conjure up no justification. As Nicola Chester – one of my favourite observers of the natural world – recently opined: “It’s the hedges way off the roadside that get me; tractor tracks slewing all over the verges and for why?” And she described my recent encounter with a decapitated waymarker as “Ridiculous, extreme unnecessary hedge cutting!”

I would hope, as the warmth returns – bringing with it our summer flocks – that these torn branches – already “too short and thin”; and just as they begin to recover, with their emanating buds – are not subjected to the same repeat indignity: leaving no space for nests, huddles of sparrows, retreating small mammals or endangered moths and butterflies. (Although, with a rule change effectively banning such trimming after the first of March, each year – unless in exceptional circumstances – I am starting to feel a tad more confident….) Such an action, then, would reduce the availability of food for any emerging chicks: and it is no wonder, therefore, that the RSPB is concerned about the future of agricultural wildlife – especially when you learn that “over 40 years the long term decline in farmland birds is 50 per cent”.

I do understand why hedges are trimmed. [Although, in my day – nearly forty years ago – this was a more intensive, manual undertaking: and the small mixed farm I worked on was run by a family who cherished the brambles and the resultant, eager wildlife. (If you truly want to see how much has changed in a few generations, the Ladybird book, above – What to look for in autumn – from 1960, reads like ancient history.)] What I don’t grasp is the seemingly modern trend of too-frequent, over-enthusiastic, reiterative cutting: especially where – as here – such wide field margins exist: which surely negate most of the reasons for this intrusive (and expensive) form of land management in the first place.

If farmers want to reinforce their credentials as custodians of our natural environment (not that there are many – if any – places truly wild, or “natural”, anymore, on this small island); and keep the respect of those who also use and enjoy the land, then perhaps they – although accepting that many already do… – need to apply a little more thought (along with the Government, of course), and balance the social issues with the economic. Just imagine the outcry if our mature oak trees were all trimmed so severely every year.

Let me the knowledge of my fault bear with me…

The Ballad of Windmill Hill
For Keith…

The man clambered to the windmill, blunt pencil in his hand;

Head empty as his notebook: as nothing yet was planned.

But he sat down on his jacket: spine cold against the stone

Where the bread had once been moulded; the seed had once been blown;

Where the stooped-back miller once had toiled for hour upon hour

To turn the labour of the harvest into finest golden flour;

And he soon began to scribble, as the wind began to call

From the houses far below him; from cottage, church and hall.

And this is what he registered – inspired by what he learned –

Never passing any judgment on what his neighbours clearly yearned.

All we want is something simple, that we all can understand:

Nothing complex or beyond us; notions rooted in the land;

A village with a future; where each to each is known;

A place which folk find welcoming; that is everybody’s own;

Where, gradually, in union, with corresponding power,

We spread this presence evenly, and remember well that our

Stay upon this well-tilled soil means little to time’s sprawl;

Though man is one of many visitors whose impact may be small

Next to heaven’s mighty globes and the voyages they’ve turned;

But that yet we must be wary of the furrows that we’ve churned.

What wisdom can we manifest; who amongst us will take stand

To garner our agreement; stop our wishes turn to sand?

How will we ever vanquish those who want to reign alone:

Whose voices shout much harsher, whose only word is sown

On fallow ground, whose every thought is selfish, sharp and sour;

With no empathy or sympathy: their lust set on the tower

Of ruling over everyone; of leering over all;

Of meeting our petitions with an egoistic bawl?

Are there those amongst us brave enough – whose regard we know is earned –

Who will help us stand together; guarantee such fools are spurned?

And then the breeze veered westerly; and light glowed on the hand

Of one, then two, then several more, until a mighty band

Of villagers of every class who all had always shown

Great steadfastness and loyalty to the place in which they’d grown

Stood strong and straight in unity – no longer would they cower:

This was the land they loved – each tree, each bird, each flower –

And they would hold forever, brought together by that call,

To ensure that all three Tysoes could never ever fall;

Would from here deal right and fairly with each resident concerned;

Would from here shine bright with passion that in every heart now burned.

Upon the hill, the man awoke; his blank pad on the grass;

Yet sure that all he’d seen and heard would shortly come to pass.