CITY OF BIRMINGHAM SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
Symphony
Hall *****
Two stars new to the city illuminated Birmingham on Tuesday,
bringing a programme applauded to the
rafters by yet another well-filled house for a CBSO matinee.
The exciting young Swiss-Australian conductor Elena Schwarz
magicked us with a well-coloured, rhythmically lively Dukas Sorcerer’s
Apprentice, its ending so crestfallen that we couldn’t help but feel for
Fantasia’s Mickey Mouse.
Schwarz’ beat was mercurial, crisp yet meltingly flowing
where appropriate, but restraining itself appropriately when collaborating in thr
concerto, here Prokofiev’s Second for the Violin.
Soloist was Clara-Jumi Kang, her rich, singing tone never
hectoring in Prokofiev’s characteristically narrative opening, her bowing busy
and assertive in the composer’s mechanistic passages. The orchestra is small in
this treasurable work, but made a powerful presence under Schwarz, the slow
movement’s pizzicato strings particularly telling. This attuned accompaniment
came to its climax as the cruelly exposed bass drum beat relentlessly under the
soloist’s moto perpetuo dance of death.
Kang calmed the mood with a solo Bach encore (from the same
period as her eloquent Stradivarius). We hear such a recourse so often, when
perhaps it would be better to take the exhilaration of the concerto finale into
the interval.
Taking the Dukas harp away during the interval led to the inadvertent
staying-open of a huge door leading off the stage, but our senses were fully
engaged by a vivid, full-throated account of Dvorak’s glorious Symphony no.8.
Pastoral imagery, horns calling proudly through the sounds of nature, tender
lilts and deep emotional warmth were all conveyed so grippingly under Schwarz.
In this generous reading of what was almost a Central
European Concerto for Orchestra (preceding Bartok’s by 50 years), flute and
timpani were particularly outstanding, and the trombones in the finale stunned
us in the passages they shouldn’t really have been practising onstage
pre-concert and during the interval.
Christopher Morley