Archive for Baiba Skride

Britten & Mahler at the National Concert Hall

Posted in Music with tags , , , , , , on May 30, 2026 by telescoper

Having finished my exam marking the previous day and with a Bank Holiday weekend ahead, I had a spring in my step as I walked through a sunny Dublin yesterday evening for the season finale of concerts by National Symphony Orchestra Ireland of 2026. The guest conductor for the evening was Jonas Alber. As usual for the closing concert of the season there was a very full house. There were only two items on the menu, but it was a substantial feast, so much so that I only just made it back to Pearse after the concert for the train home!

The first piece was new to me – the Violin Concerto by Benjamin Britten. This was written in 1939 just after Britten moved to the United States. It’s an unusual piece that reminded me very much of Prokofiev, especially the second movement which is a very long scherzo. The third movement involves a Passacaglia (thematic variations played over a repeated bass pattern), rather reminiscent that deployed in the Opera Peter Grimes. Overall its atmosphere is tonally ambiguous, brooding and restless, with uneasy introspection sometimes giving way to sudden outbursts. It’s an absorbing piece which places strong demands on the soloist. Latvian violist Baiba Skride played superbly throughout, taking the feverishly virtuosic cadenzas in her stride.

After the wine break, much needed because of the warm weather we had Mahler’s Fifth Symphony. This work is best known for the 4th movement Adagietto but I’ve always felt that section fits rather uncomfortably with the rest of the composition. That’s not to say that I dislike the Adagietto, which I think is one of the most beautiful movements in all music, and regularly makes me shed a tear. I just think it’s a bit of a detour from the rest of the work. I suppose one should think of it as a sort of intermezzo, a restful interlude before the journey reaches its climax in the 5th movement Rondo which was played with electrifying passion last night.

Mahler’s Fifth Symphony veers across a vast emotional landscape. The conductor Bruno Walter described it as “passionate, wild, pathetic, buoyant, solemn, tender, full of the sentiments of which the human heat is capable, but still ‘only’ music”. Although by no means an atonal work, there isn’t really a clear tonal signature: at least five different keys are used and there are passages in which the key is ambiguous.

The first movement begins with a funeral march, introduced with a solo trumpet statement like a fanfare, followed by lyrical passages from the strings. The second movement is extremely tempestuous, contrasting moods of melancholy and frenzy, with the trumpet theme from the first movement returning. The third movement, a long Scherzo, is unexpectedly playful, with two thematic forms bouncing off each other. Then there’s the soulful longing of the Adagietto, beautifully played last night to a rapt audience and the joyful finale in an unambiguously major key. The Fifth is by no means Mahler’s longest symphonic work but it still lasts well over an hour. So gripping was the performance, however, that I didn’t look at my watch once.

This was a superb concert, with the large orchestral forces marshalled superbly by Jonas Alber. I have to mention the brass section and especially the trumpet of Darren Moore, who was brilliant.

That may be the last concert of the 25/6 season, but the brochure for thr 26/7 season arrived through my letterbox on Friday morning.

There will be other music at the NCH over the summer, but the first of the regular series of Friday concerts will be on September 11th, when it will be Mahler again. Appropriately enough it will be a performance of his Symphony No. 2 “Resurrection”…

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BBC NOW: Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich at St David’s Hall

Posted in Biographical, Music with tags , , , , , on June 8, 2018 by telescoper

Last night I took my seat in St David’s Hall for a concert by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales under the direction of Principal Conductor Thomas Søndergård. It was an all-Russian menu, and very enjoyable it was.

The first course was the Violin Concerto by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. It’s a familiar work but it was ravishingly played by Latvian soloist Baiba Skride, who seemed to revel in the virtuosic elements of this work, as well as bringing out the lyricism in the more romantic passages. The Orchestra were on top form too. I particularly enjoyed the way they dealt with the introduction of the famous `big tune’ in the first movement: brisker and with less of the tendency to wallow in it than you find in many performances.

Then, after the wine break, we had the main dish for the evening, the Symphony No. 5 by Dmitri Shostakovich. This is a very famous work and is perhaps the most accessible of all the Shostakovich symphonies. It was an immediate success with Soviet critics and public alike when it was first performed in 1937, and though it marked Shostakovich’s return to favour with the authorities after his denunciation by Stalin, this work has the composer’s very characteristic sense of things not being quite as they seem on the surface. Indeed, in this and many other of his compositions, he seems to manage to say one thing at the same time as saying the exact opposite of that thing; nowadays this might be called `constructive ambiguity’. This is especially in the finale, in which the sense of triumph is almost a parody of itself. Overall the Fifth Symphony is a sombre work, the dark undertone established right at the start with an imposing theme on the cellos and double basses, but it has passages of great beauty too, especially in the slow third movement. Like all great symphonies – and this is one of the greatest – it takes you on a journey full of of excitement and interest. The 45 minutes or so of this performance seemed to fly by, and its ending was greeted with rapturous applause and a standing ovation from many in the audience.

It’s interesting to consider that only 60 years had elapsed between the composition of these two pieces, but what different worlds they represent!

Anyway, the full strength National Orchestra of Wales, produced a gripping performance of this tremendous work with every section playing at the top of its form and the finale really brought the house down. But you don’t have to take my word for it – the whole concert will be broadcast on BBC Radio 3 next Tuesday, 12th June.

This concert is the last of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales season at St David’s Hall and indeed the last of at St David’s with Thomas Søndergård as Principal Conductor (though he will be conducting the Orchestra a couple of times at the Proms this summer). I wish him all the very best for his future musical adventures. It’s also the last concert by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales I’ll be attending before departing for Ireland. I don’t think I’ll get much chance to hear them after I’ve relocated, so let me take this opportunity to thank every single member of the Orchestra for the many performances I’ve enjoyed over the years, and to wish them well for the future.

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