CBSO at Symphony Hall ★★★★
Alice Sara Ott’s Symphony Hall concert in 2019 was a sombre occasion: a solo recital promoting her new album ‘Nightfall’, with the platform swathed in black drapes illuminated by pinpricks of light. Unintentionally the setting matched the mood, for Ott had just been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Her playing, unsurprisingly, was muted and the concert cut short. Here though, all was effervescence and brilliance. Grieg’s Piano Concerto was performed by a very different Ott – refreshed, revitalised and raring to go.
A sylph-like figure she pattered onto the platform bare-footed and then tore through Grieg’s titanic opening bars, with its tumbling cascade of notes, like a muscular giant. Nothing was routine in the virtuoso cadenza; Ott gave the impression of creating it spontaneously. The Adagio was gorgeous, Ott musing dreamily before bursting into an episode of romantic fervour. The CBSO, under Kazuki Yamada, gave excellent support right from the famous opening timpani roll, with Elspeth Dutch’s romantically distanced horn playing and Marie-Christine Zupancic’s delicate twittering flute both notable. Even an idiot with a mobile phone ringing-tone didn’t phase Ott. When he (or she) ruined her first attempt at playing John Field’s beautiful Nocturne No.9 in E minor as an encore, she just laughed, shook her head and began again. Such poise, such cool. I’d have throttled the offender.
Composers have always been inspired by the sea and Yamada and the CBSO performed three such works. Arnold Bax’s tone poem ‘Tintagel’ was composed in Cornwall, a cliff view of the Atlantic ocean, the landscape suffused with the myths and legends of King Arthur. The gentle opening soon bursts into a noble brass-laden theme that could come from a Hollywood epic, and its return gives the piece a rousing finish. In between Bax wanders and ruminates but always pleasantly.
From the awe-inspiring Atlantic to the sedate seaside resort of Eastbourne where Debussy finished his three movement musical seascape ‘La mer’: but there’s nothing prim and proper about his music. The CBSO produced shimmering, wispy and diaphanous playing in the opening dawn-to-noon movement; the wind section revelled in the succeeding ‘Play of the waves’; and Yamada unleashed the brass for a roaring ‘Dialogue of the wind and the sea’ – splendid. Anna Clyne’s ‘Restless Oceans’ (2019) is a fun five minute derivative squib: Stravinksy-style jagged rhythms, with players stamping their feet, some minimalist motoring and an uproarious end with the orchestra on its feet.
Norman Stinchcombe