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Scotsman
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
EIF music reviews: Holst's The Planets Mark Simpson & Richard Uttley
Sign up to our Arts and Culture newsletter, get the latest news and reviews from our specialist arts writers Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... MUSIC Holst's The Planets Usher Hall ★★★★★ Put on a big, popular programme and listeners will come. That was the lesson from the London Philharmonic Orchestra's bold and blazing concert of Rachmaninov's Paganini Rhapsody and Holst's The Planets, for which the Usher Hall was gratifyingly packed to the rafters with an enthusiastic and appreciative crowd. Not that these were simply crowd-pleasing performances. Conductor Edward Gardner gave bracing, brisk accounts that showed off the LPO as the towering juggernaut of sonic marvels that it is with hall-shaking bass, gleaming brass and golden, velvety strings. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Pianist Beatrice Rana and conductor Edward Gardner with the London Philharmonic Orchestra | Contributed Italian Beatrice Rana was an explosive soloist in Rachmaninov's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, occasionally striking the keys so forcefully that she was heard above even the densest orchestral texture, but never compromising on gracefulness and elegance. The famous central slow variation, for example, was tender but crisp, alive with movement and emotion rather than simply a sentimental wallow. And Gardner's LPO responded with equally brittle, strongly etched playing, sliding organically between variations as the conductor's sure-headed overall architecture emerged. Their account of The Planets was generally on the brisk side, but all the more urgent and characterful for that. Mars erupted in noises of terrifying cataclysm, though Gardner kept things carefully controlled, while Mercury scampered nimbly and Jupiter was a tad more athletic than many conductors find him. It was Gardner's clear-headed, no-nonsense perspective on Holst's more visionary movements, though, that brought a sense of sharp focus and vivid meaning, in the inexorable tread of a mighty Saturn, or the wisps of sound coalescing in the closing Neptune. And it wasn't all well-known warhorses: Gardner and the LPO brought a sense of freshness and new life to Judith Weir's opening Forest, all tendrils of melody spiralling out across the orchestra's musicians. It was a concert of immense power and no less subtlety. DAVID KETTLE MUSIC Roby Lakatos & Ensemble The Hub ★★★★☆ They opened with a flourish of violin and the wire-strung clamour of cimbalom and ended with a high-velocity jazz jam. Hungarian violin virtuoso Roby Lakatos led his sextet through a near-continuous flow of repertoire that ranged from the frenetic to the unashamedly romantic. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad With two violins, piano, guitar, double bass and cimbalom – the big Hungarian hammer dulcimer – the ensemble proved powerful in full flight, yet able to change tempo on a sixpence, while Lakatos, an amiable, moustachioed figure who can boast distinguished Romani musical lineage, peregrinated around the stage, virtually serenading the beanbaggers in the front row. He's a master of the extravagant flourish, whether deploying rich-toned bowing or a formidable pizzicato technique that made his instrument ring like a mandolin. When not in full exhilarating flight, twin violins flickering, his ensemble had their schmaltzy way with Broadway material such as Yentl and Fiddler on the Roof, while a snappy-swingy Deux Gitare tipped the hat to Reinhardt and Grappelli. Show-stoppers were the csárdás, rhapsodic preludes giving way to alternating high-stepping slow passages and all-out attack. Excitement intensified when they were joined unexpectedly by Wynton Marsalis, whose rapid-fire trumpet sparred with Lakatos's violin in a heady Hungarian take on Cherokee. JIM GILCHRIST Make sure you keep up to date with Arts and Culture news from across Scotland by signing up to our free newsletter here. MUSIC Mark Simpson & Richard Uttley Queen's Hall ★★★★☆ Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad 'It's about four minutes long, and it's really hard,' quipped clarinettist/composer Mark Simpson about his own piece Lov(escape), which opened the second half of his blazing EIF recital with pianist Richard Uttley. He wasn't wrong: it was an unapologetic showpiece that he wrote for his own semi-final recital as part of the 2006 BBC Young Musicians contest. And its characteristic mix of frenzied, breathless energy, screaming intensity and heart-on-sleeve emotion just about summed up the overall tone of Simpson's concert. He's a larger-than-life figure in his sometimes over-the-top music, and he carried over his search for emotional extremes into the brief pieces by contemporary composers that opened both parts of his recital. Among them, Sir James MacMillan's classic After the Tryst got a deeply passionate account, and Zoë Martlew's fire purification ritual of a classical piece Pyrrhos surged with appropriately incandescent energy. Ayrshire-born Jay Capperauld packed weighty emotions into his brief So My Tears Flow, and Simpson and Uttley responded with an account in which every note was deeply felt, every gesture meant. Simpson closed both halves of his concert with one of Brahms's two clarinet sonatas, in which he toned down his exuberant, forcefully projected playing, but not by much. An exhilarating recital, but an exhausting one too. DAVID KETTLE
Bangkok Post
22-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Bangkok Post
A night of titans
Decidedly heroic music was the order of the day earlier this month at the Thailand Cultural Centre as the Royal Bangkok Symphony Orchestra marked the auspicious occasion of Her Royal Highness Princess Chulabhorn Krom Phra Srisavangavadhana's birthday. There is arguably no symphony mightier than Beethoven's third, the Eroica, and this most fitting choice of programming welcomed a fresh new maestro to the RBSO podium -- charismatic Polish conductor Slawomir Grenda, who has also been principal bassist of the great Munich Philharmonic since 1996. Balanced in the first half by an exceptionally impressive showcase of two of Thailand's master musicians, pianist Jayanat Wisaijorn and double bassist Nattawut Sungkasaro performed Rachmaninoff's famous Rhapsody On A Theme Of Paganini and a slightly lesser known treat -- the Double Bass Concerto In F-sharp Minor by Serge Koussevitsky. That composer premiered this challenging staple of the bass repertoire himself in 1905, and it is notable for the raised scordatura tuning by a whole tone, with the extra tension facilitating projection in venues as large as the Thailand Cultural Centre. Of all his phenomenal piano creations, Rachmaninoff's iconic Paganini Rhapsody is perhaps captures the imagination more than any other and Jayanat's superlative rendition of it certainly reaffirmed this perception, as it thrilled an enthusiastically engaged audience. He possesses a consummate mastery at the keyboard, which is the result of arduous studies with the great virtuoso and pedagogue Emile Naoumoff -- the last disciple of none other than the legendary Nadia Boulanger. An alumnus of the prestigious Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University, Jayanat has the rounded personality of an exceptional artist who can certainly hold his own on the international stage. This warhorse is one of those perennial favourites which never becomes any easier for soloists or indeed an orchestra and conductor -- the score is as filigree as it is multifaceted and the 24 variations demand intense levels of concentration and focus. Indeed, Rachmaninoff himself acknowledged having occasional problems with some of the variations of his own spectacular masterpiece, despite famously having perhaps the largest hand-span of any pianist in history. However, from the word go Jayanat assumed absolute control of the knotty material, reassuring the attentive patrons that a musically profound and technically assured interpretation was just about to unfold, and indeed it did. The theme and 24 variations are of course based on Paganini's instantly recognisable 24th Caprice In A Minor for solo violin, and the combined violin sections introduced the legendary 1st position theme neatly and without fuss, setting on their course variations 1-10, which effectively constitute an extended 1st section. Grenda kept the soloist and RBSO rhythmically tight in expert fashion, attentive to all details in the score with all orchestral interjections precise and clear, whilst Jayanat himself was note-perfect. Delicate pianistic touch is the essence of the next, much slower and reflective eight variations, which as a group constitute the 2nd section of the piece. Variation 18, of course, is one of those irresistible melodies which, when heard, strikes one as surely among the most iconic in all music history. A slowed-down melodic inversion of the Paganini theme, both soloist and orchestra were obviously full of emotion at this crucial moment. Variations 19-24 correspondingly constitute what can be thought of as the finale of this work, increasingly frenetic and furiously active as the masterpiece builds to its almighty statement of the "Dies Irae" -- an entertaining demonic nod to the devilish Paganini himself! RBSO double bass principal Nattawut Sungkasaro is a genuinely incredible young virtuoso of his instrument, and as a highly privileged beneficiary of a Princess Sirivannavari Cultivated Arts Foundation Scholarship has received the best education at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. One of his many esteemed tutors is Slawomir Grenda himself -- hence their pairing in this programme -- and their partnership produced a beautifully etched interpretation. Nattawut's awe-inspiring technical facility is married to the deepest levels of musicality and the RBSO is most fortunate to count him among their ranks. Also, Claudio Abbado's hand-picked choice as principal bassist for the top-notch Lucerne Festival Orchestra since 2006, Grenda like his Thai disciple is a formidable musical personality. Returning to the podium after the interval to conduct the Eroica from memory (like Karajan and indeed Abbado, without the need for stand or score) he certainly brought many of those familiar tropes from the Central European tradition to his energetic interpretation. This was a powerful and gripping performance from first to last, with some delightful touches of subtlety. For example, amid the predominance of thick, heavy textures and long sustained fortissimos, near the start of the Finale, it was perfectly charming to hear as a counterbalance that brief string quartet variation as stipulated by the genius creator himself.
