-

 

                                           CBSO

                                                          Symphony Hall *****

The roar which greeted the entry of the CBSO onto the Symphony Hall stage last Wednesday hailed the arrival for the last time as principal cellist of the orchestra Eduardo Vassallo, retiring after 36 years, the first couple of those even before this magnificent hall was opened.

Vassallo formed a close relationship with Sir Simon Rattle, who engaged him, and has since worked with a succession of illustrious principal conductors, the current one, Kazuki Yamada, shaking him warmly by the hand as he ascended the podium.

This was an all-Richard Strauss programme, two of his earliest works flanking a very late one, one of this uneven composer’s undoubted masterpieces. We began with the tone-poem Death and Transfiguration, a 24-year-old composer depicting the death-throes of an aged artist (let’s remember how Strauss at the eventual height of his powers hailed Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius), smoothly flowing, remembered incidents emerging unforcedly from the context, and all the while suffused with the wonderful motto-theme depicting eventual apotheosis.

Then came an added highlight to the evening, Jonathan Kelly returning with a huge ovation to the orchestra where he had been Simon Rattle’s principal, playing the Strauss Oboe Concerto with which he had auditioned to join the CBSO. This was a wonderfully unified reading, Kelly’s delivery seamless in its breath-control, mellifluous in its phrasing, articulation so crisp and articulate, Yamada’s players empathetic and alert in this well-balanced collaboration.

After the interval came a surprise to those, including myself, who hadn’t perused their programmes attentively: Kelly returning to his desk amid the oboe section of the CBSO for the second half of the concert. I was reminded of the story of Fritz Kreisler giving the premiere of the Elgar Violin Concerto, white as a sheet, and then sitting on the back desk for a performance of that composer’s First Symphony in order to wind down.

But before the second half began, there were tributes to Eduardo Vassallo from Kazuki Yamada, and a surprise appearance from one of his star pupils, Alpesh Chauhan, now one of the country’s most acclaimed conductors, paying tribute to his mentor.

Strauss’ Also Sprach Zarathustra was the final work, its opening ground-shaking C major fanfare sounding so stirring in this Symphony Hall acoustic which still amazes. But after that the music seems all gesture, with little substance, though the many instrumental solos were given with eloquence and distinction.

And so ended Eduardo Vassallo’s presiding over the CBSO’s superb cello section. Zarathustra is all about Nietzsche’s cult of the superman; if there was one superman tonight, it was Eduardo.

Christopher Morley

Popular posts from this blog

-
  A triumphant night for the CBSO’s ‘King Kazuki’ CBSO at Symphony Hall ★★★★★ I doubt if the forthcoming coronation of King Charles III will be greeted with such spontaneous joy or the wholehearted embrace which greeted Kazuki Yamada as he was crowned as the CBSO’s new Chief Conductor and Artistic Advisor. The packed Symphony Hall audience overflowed with warmth towards the vibrant, bouncing good humoured man whom they have held in great affection since he became Principal Guest Conductor in 2018. At the end of an exhilarating concert we were engulfed in hundreds of black and white “CBSO” embossed balloons released from the ceiling – general genial mayhem ensued. The madcap bacchanalian atmosphere was entirely fitting following a dynamic performance of Carl Orff’s choral blockbuster ‘Carmina Burana’. This was a triumph for the talented choirs and their Chorus Master Julian Wilkins. Just as a sight they were impressive – I gave up counting at around the 200 mark – with the CBSO Chor...
Read more
-
  CBSO at Symphony Hall ★★★★ Did the CBSO’s chief executive Emma Stenning attend this concert? One hopes so because she would have been able to see the early fruits of the silliest of her new innovations. The orchestra and soloist Ian Bostridge were about a quarter of the way through Britten’s ‘Les Illuminations’ when the tenor motioned to conductor Gergely Madaras, raised his hand and halted the performance. He addressed a small group in the audience who had been filming him on their mobile phones. “Their lights are shining directly in my eyes – it’s very distracting," he said. "Would you please put your phones down.” A performance by one of the finest British singers of the last fifty years, and a world-renowned interpreter of Britten, was interrupted by a handful of intellectually challenged mobile-obsessed dimwits. Their antics are positively encouraged by the orchestra’s administrators who print this in the concert programme: “We are very happy for you to take photograph...
Read more
-
  STIRRING ELGAR CONCERTO FROM THE CBSO LEADER CBSO at Symphony Hall ★★★★ Elgar’s Violin Concerto has provided almost as many opportunities for pointless speculation as his ‘Enigma’ Variations. Who is referred to in the work’s inscription, “Herein is enshrined the soul of...”? Is it someone codenamed “Windflower” after whom several of the work’s themes are named? Is it Alice Stuart-Wortley, daughter of the painter John Everett Millais? Is it Helen Weaver, or Elgar’s mother or possibly his wife? Who cares? Elgar himself told us all we need to know about the work when he said of it: “It's good! Awfully emotional! Too emotional, but I love it.” So would any unprejudiced listener after hearing this performance played with such tenderness, fierce concentration and passion by the CBSO’s leader Eugene Tzikindelean and backed to the hilt by the orchestra conducted by Kazuki Yamada. In the opening bars soloist and orchestra captured the mysterious haunting quality of the initial theme that ...
Read more