The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic are featuring Britten’s music throughout the current season but compiled a full concert of five of his works on the eve of the centenary on Thursday evening, repeating two of them in a mixed programme on Sunday afternoon.
Britten’s birthday fell on St Cecilia’s day and so the concert opener was appropriately the Hymn to St Cecilia – a setting of three poems by W H Auden for unaccompanied choir, which found Vasily Petrenko going back to his Capella School roots of choral conducting. The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Choir made a fine sound featuring some good individual performances by soloists from the choir. The work itself remains something of an oddity, with text that sits awkwardly with the setting at times but it provided a fitting opportunity for the choir to take part in the tribute.
With the orchestra installed on the platform, the concert moved into more familiar territory with one of Britten’s most enduringly popular concert works, the Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes. Although Billy Budd just tips the balance for me, Peter Grimes is widely regarded as the best of his operas. The four orchestral passages that Britten arranged into a suite manage to capture the range of atmospheres in this turbulent and troubled tale, and Petrenko held the RLPO taut and controlled throughout, with wonderful tension in Dawn and Moonlight while Sunday Morning was as crisply played as I’ve heard it and the closing Storm stunning. Henry Baldwin’s climb to the gallows of the tubular bell added a note of visual drama and the stillness in the wordless “What harbour shelters peace?” before the whirlwind ending was beautifully measured.
Norwegian violinist Vilde Frang, making her Phil debut, then joined the orchestra for the Violin Concerto. Infrequently played, this is a beautiful piece that deserves more exposure. From the lyricism of the opening through its central frenzied scherzo to the enigmatic almost wistful close, Frang gave a fresh and deeply committed performance. The rawness of some of her eerie harmonics eschewed beauty in favour of atmosphere and sent shivers down the spine. With dazzling accompaniment from the RLPO and Petrenko, it was a disappointment that this was not one of the works to be repeated on Sunday.
Next up was another piece that was sadly not repeated on Sunday – the Sinfonia da Requiem. Its shattering opening had the lady two seats away from me jump out of her seat. This work for me was the emotional heart of the concert. In between the terrifying outbursts of grief and anger in the lacrymosa and Dies Irae the taut, slow-marching rhythms kept the audience on the edge of the seat until the gradual, slow release at the close of the Requiem aeternam. This was stirring and memorable stuff with some notably wonderful playing from some of the winds and timpani and the strings and brass drawing out passages of garment-rending anguish at times.
No concert celebrating Britten in Liverpool would be complete without the Young Person’s Guide to the orchestra, as Malcolm Sargent gave the work its first public performance in Philharmonic Hall in 1946 shortly prior to the first screening of the film for which it was written, so this orchestra can reasonably claim it as its own.
The work is popular for good reason and makes a triumphant close to any concert, as it did on this occasion. Providing an opportunity for every section of the RLPO to shine as the orchestra is gradually dismantled, the extended fugue in which it is reassembled began at greater speed than I can recall hearing and reached a thrilling climax, bringing to an end one of the most memorable evenings at the Phil in the season so far.
On Sunday the orchestra repeated the Four Sea Interludes and a quite possibly more exuberant Young Person’s Guide after the interval. On this occasion the first half of the concert contained two contrasting works by Mahler and Korngold.
Totenfeier was the name Mahler gave to the first movement of his second symphony. In the long creative period for the full symphony, Mahler suggested that his early version of the movement could stand alone as a sort of tone poem. It is a little strange to hear the familiar music diverge occasionally into unfamiliar territory, but it is for the most part the same. Where it differs most in this version is in its ability to be played with more speed and drive, as it no longer has to serve as the solid foundation of a huge symphonic structure. Petrenko and the Phil demonstrated once again the mastery of Mahler’s music that we have come to expect and even the quite young children sitting nearby me were riveted to it throughout.
Vilde Frang then returned to the stage, this time to play the lush and opulent concerto by Korngold. Another piece that doesn’t often get an outing, it has echoes of a Rachmaninov of the American years, and betrays Korngold’s skill with music for the screen. The addition of a vibraphone to the score gives an extra glow to the texture and the whole concerto is as indulgent as a box of truffles, but it manages not to wallow, and the dance-like final movement has a real spring in its step. In this concerto, offering Frang an opportunity to show more of her colour palette, there was beautiful playing both from soloist and orchestra.
Playing the same Norwegian folk tune arrangement as an encore that we heard on Thursday, she added an inadvertent twist when a broken string caused her to do a rapid and seamless swap, handing her 1709 Strad to orchestra leader Jim Clark while she finished the piece on his instrument. Needless to say the audience gave her an even more enthusiastic response than the first time round.
It remains a mystery to me why British audiences seem to shy away from Britten’s music and hopefully this year of showcasing it so prominently might re-ignite interest.
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