Ryan Wigglesworth, Laura van der Heijden & BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra in Britten, Cheryl Frances Hoad & Elgar

After a pointy orchestral gesture, Laura van der Heijden launched into an intense rhapsodic solo and the opening part alternated these two concepts, earlier than creating a hovering, rhapsodic cello line over orchestral gestures, stuffed with color and motion. The main target was very a lot on the soloist, although there have been extra explosive passages the place van der Heijden’s taking part in was inaudible however Frances Hoad appeared to relish the way in which the solo line would emerge alone from noisy demonstrations. Maybe a way of the lone traveller towards the would possibly of the volcano. The second motion featured a considerate solo line over quiet however wealthy orchestral harmonies with numerous shifting elements, stuffed with color and texture. An eerie passage the place van der Heijden performed over sustained strings and tuned percussion was pure magic, however the ending featured a rise in depth and virtuosity. The solo line within the third motion, Air, began out as slightly winsome, contrasting with slightly jazzy components within the orchestra, with tuned percussion to the fore once more. A busy and vivid solo line developed over an orchestra stuffed with color and motion, resulting in a strikingly sudden ending.

The work offers three extremely contrasting actions, making for a satisfying piece which includes a vivid solo half. Laura van der Heijden was tireless in her taking part in of a solo line that was close to fixed, strenuous at occasions, extremely virtuosic and hovering, she encapsulated every thing. A really full Albert Corridor gave an enthusiastic reception to the work and we have been rewarded with an encore, Casals’ Music of the Birds.

After the interval we turned again the clock to 1909-11 for Elgar’s Symphony No. 2, a extremely private work that has little of the swagger and confidence of his earlier symphony and which commentators have mentioned endlessly. That the work is likely to be an elegy for the Edwardian age is actually doable, however in Wigglesworth’s fingers the work’s sense of phantasmagoria was excessive, and I considered RVW, when discussing the ultimate motion of his Symphony No. 6 quoting Shakespeare, ‘We’re such stuff as desires are made on’.

We started with confidence, the impetuous nature of the primary motion’s first theme to the fore, the phrases nearly operating over one another and with Wigglesworth conserving the work in fixed movement, but the second theme was poised and flowing with moments of actual intimacy. The central growth moved from the vivid and vigorous in direction of the intimate and tender, and there was an actual liquid high quality to even the slower moments. Effectively earlier than the return of the primary theme, Wigglesworth and the gamers developed an actual sense of anticipation. The return of the fabric was maybe steadier. The lengthy Larghetto is seen as one thing of a funeral march. Right here the opening was pure magic, resulting in music that was sombre, but nonetheless fluid and flowing, There was a flexibility and transparency to the phrasing, however the onward motion felt questing. There have been moments of nice tenderness, but additionally that sense of phantasmagoria, was this a funeral march or a farewell to ghosts of the previous? The Rondo felt loads lest scherzo-ish than standard, starting gentle and characterful, but slightly pointed, this alternated with extra sturdy and impulsive actions, but the center was mysterious and extremely cellular, when the extra vigorous materials returned it rapidly evaporated, the music appeared haunted by the identical ghosts as the primary motion. The ultimate motion started with the wonderful horn melody over orchestral textures that have been stuffed with impulsive particulars, but because the motion developed there was the sensation that the fabric was composed of fragments that by no means fairly got here collectively. The exhilaration of the return of the opening materials was brief lived, evaporating into phantasmagoria once more because the music moved to nearly nothing.

Promenade 10 – BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Ryan Wigglesworth (Picture: BBC / Andy Paradise)

This was a outstanding efficiency, one which stored the work flowing but by no means felt rushed and which introduced out the outstanding element of Elgar’s orchestral writing, but by no means acquired slowed down. I liked Wigglesworth’s willingness to current the music as he sees. This was a considerate and poetic conclusion to a remarkably stability and imaginative programme.