Let's start the new year in style. Let's try to forget all the problems and hardships of the last 22 months. Let's be transported to another era, another place, and let's let music transcend the mundane and quotidien grind, even if it is only for a couple of hours!
This was The Halle Orchestra's traditional New Year's concert at The Bridgewater Hall, on a Sunday afternoon, in central Manchester. And conducted by the wonderful Stephen Bell, this was the perfect way to lighten the spirits and put one in the correct frame of mind for a brighter and better year ahead.
Stephen Bell, who has a long and glorious association with The Halle Orchestra, is always a delight. His enthusiasm, knowledge, and indeed energy seem limitless. He aimiably comperes the concert, showering us with little nuggets of historical information about the pieces being played, as well as entertaining us in his own inimitable style. His conducting is punctilious and powerful, ensuring he brings out the very best of every section of the orchestra. His love for the music and his role within the whole omnipresent.
The orchestra this afternoon though looked very different from what I remembered. Not only was the configuration rather strange - and I have no idea why it was changed - but there were many new faces amongst the instrumentalists too.
As you would expect from a Viennese concert, the emphasis was most definitely on Fin De Siecle Austria with particular attention to, quite obviously, the Waltz King himself, Johann Strauss II. However, the concert also included some lesser known pieces, and a few that I had never heard before too. My favourites in these categories were most certainly Eduard Strauss's 'Mit Dampf', played with a lightness and wittiness rarely experienced outside of the Vienna Philharmonic, and was wonderful to hear; Ronald Binge's (a composer I had never even heard of), 'Faire Frou-Frou'; and atop of my list, 'Romance no 1 in D Minor' by Johann Strauss II. A piece of music written for harp, cello, and orchestra, which was so atypical of Strauss that that in itself was noteworthy and interesting, but even more so when the melody was hauntingly beautiful, and had a rather unconventional and surprise ending of two cadential pizzicato chords.
Intertwined with orchestral music, the concert featured songs from the era too, with music by Lehar, Robert Stolz, Johann Strauss II, Kalman, Carl Milloecker, and a surprise entry of George Gerschwin with his lovely parody, 'By Strauss'. The soloist in each case was soprano Sky Ingram. Seated where I was I most certainly needed her to be louder on the lower registers and quieter passages. Perhaps a microphone would have been the answer here. I enjoyed her ablility to characterise and 'perform' the songs although I felt she was much more at home with the lighter repertoire than the more classical heavy operetta style.
Favourites of a concert of this nature were of course included too. We started with the overture, 'Morning, Noon And Night In Vienna' by Franz Von Suppe, finished the first half of the concert with Strauss's 'Roses From The South', and opened the second half with his famous march from 'The Gypsy Baron'. And of course no Viennese New Year concert would be complete without the 'Trisch-Trasch Polka', and 'The Blue Danube Waltz'. For a rehearsed encore, and to lift our spirits even further, putting us firmly into 'Last Night Of The Proms' mood, we were treated to 'The Radetzky March'.
Cheers Halle! Here's to a fantastic 2022!
Reviewer - Matthew Dougall
on - 2.1.22
No comments:
Post a Comment