Prom 61: Walker and Beethoven, Cabell/Chineke!/Edusei, 2 September 2022

Royal Albert Hall

George Walker: Lilacs
Beethoven: Symphony no.9 in D minor, op.125

Nicole Cabell (soprano)

Raehann Bryce-Davis (mezzo-soprano)

Zwakele Tshabalala (tenor)

Ryan Speedo Green (baritone)

Chineke! Voices (chorus master: Simon Halsey)

Chineke! Orchestra

Kevin John Edusei (conductor)

Very much a concert of two (unequal) halves, I am afraid. The first Proms performance of George Walker’s 1995 Lilacs promised and delivered much. However, the following performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, though loudly acclaimed by much of the audience, exposed yet another contemporary conductor’s inability or unwillingness to do much more than skate over and harry this unluckiest of scores. 

Walker’s piece, for voice (Nicole Cabell) and orchestra offered many connections, even correspondences, with other music. What music, after all, does not? It could never, however, be reduced to those correspondences, speaking very much with its own voice and in its own way: direct yet rich, purposeful, yet (unlike poor Beethoven) with plenty of space. The opening horn solo and uneasy, gorgeous post-Romantic harmonies brought Henze to my mind. Certainly, when the voice entered in the first of the four movements, each setting a stanza from Walt Whitman, it was a post-Bergian world the grateful vocal line announced. Well-shaped, alluring, satisfyingly coherent: one might say the same for work as for performance, and for each of those four movements. Each was characterised by an arresting opening, low angular brass answered by strings at the outset of the second; a wandering flute line, then oboe, preparing the way for the voice in the third; and a clockwork, ghost-in-the-machine introduction announcing the fourth, answered by exultant vocal freedom from Cabell. ‘Sing on, sing on you gray-brown bird…’. The lingering postlude found the Chineke! Orchestra, as elsewhere, very much in its element, sensitively directed by Kevin John Edusei. 

I shall try not to linger describing the Ninth. I desperately wanted to like, to respond positively to a performance of such enthusiasm from the young players. Edusei’s conception, conducted from memory, seemed to me so perverse, though, that I can only wish I had left at the interval. The first movement I have never heard taken at such a speed; not only that, but its short-breathed quality (repeated, alas, throughout the symphony) robbed it of line, consequence, more or less any possibility of musical meaning. Such hyper-urgency worked a little better in the development, but what should have been the wildness of the return sounded far too controlled to register for much. The coda had a little more fire, yet was so brittle it might have snapped. Edusei’s approach was more suited to the scherzo, and there was no gainsaying the admirable clarity of the orchestral playing. The trio was similarly athletic, not relaxing a jot. The Adagio flowed, as they say; it was at first amiable enough. We can talk all we like about how constructed German ideas of musical ‘depth’ may be; of course they are. But really, was that it? Apparently so.

As for the finale, that must have been the most underwhelming I have heard its opening. It went on its way, finely articulated, something akin perhaps to ‘designer Beethoven’. Matters picked up with the advent of the voice, Ryan Speedo Green truly using words and music to communicate Schiller as well as Beethoven. The chorus and other soloists responded in lively fashion. It was all extremely regimented. Without space to breathe or anything much in the sense of harmonic development, though, this came across more as a musical patchwork, with various incidental pleasures to be heard in the quality of singing and playing. I could not help but think of Daniel Barenboim conducting this same work here with the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra ten years earlier. That, for me, had been air from another planet, but I should repeat that many in the hall appeared to respond with similar enthusiasm here.  

Porgy and Bess, English National Opera, 11 October 2018

Coliseum

Images: Tristam Kenton
Sporting Life (Frederick Ballantine) and ensemble

Porgy – Eric Greene

Bess – Nicole Cabell

Crown – Nmon Ford

Serena – Latonia Moore

Clara – Nadine Benjamin

Maria – Tichina Vaughn

Jake – Donovan Singletary

Sporting Life – Frederick Ballentine

Mingo – Rheinhaldt Tshepo Moagi

Robbins, Crab Man – Chaz’men Williams-Ali

Peter – Ronald Samm

Frazier – Byron Jackson

Annie – Sarah-Jane Lewis

Lily – Pumza Mxinwa

Strawberry Woman – Nozuko Teto

Jim – Njabula Madlala

Undertaker – Whitaker Mills

Nelson – Thando Mjandana

Scipio – Olufemi Alaka

Detective – Stephen Pallister

Policeman – Christian Hurst

Coroner – Neil Kelly

James Robinson (director)

Michael Yeargan (set designs)

Catherine Zuber (costumes)

Donald Holder (lighting)

Dianne McIntyre (choreography)

Luke Halls (video)

Actors, Chorus

Orchestra of the English National Opera

John Wilson (conductor)

Serena (Latonia Moore)

In a new production by James Robinson, conducted by John Wilson, ENO performs Porgy and Bess for the first time. On the opening night it was very well received, in many ways rightly so – although I had my doubts too, especially earlier on. I shall come to those later, but first let me say what a joy it was not only to hear such an array of fine vocal performances but also to see such fine, committed, sincere acting from an ensemble of singers and actors, many making their debuts with the company, brought together specifically for this purpose.

If there were occasional slight shortcomings, not least a little too much occluded diction from Nicole Cabell as Bess, they were more than made up for by that strength of ensemble. Cabell’s performance was otherwise strong – strong in portraying vulnerability, even helplessness, that is – and was well matched by the humanity of Eric Greene as the ‘cripple’, Porgy. Nmon Ford’s toxic masculinity, as we should now call it, as Bess’s former lover, Crown, proved an object lesson in the marriage of words, music, and stage presence. The drug dealer Sporting Life’s insidious, irredeemable amorality, his ‘lowlife’ quality, to borrow from the text, was memorably captured and communicated by Frederick Ballentine. Tichina Vaughn and Latonia Moore sang their hearts out and wore their not uncomplicated consciences on their sleeves as Maria and Serena. I could doubtless continue down the cast list, but should end up merely replicating it.

Porgy (Eric Greene) and Bess (Nicole Cabell)

There was no gainsaying, moreover, the excellence of the ENO Orchestra, which was surely enjoying itself greatly. Likewise no one could argue with the results obtained from them by John Wilson: a film-score sheen second to none, and certainly not just from the strings. At least no one could in terms of getting what he wanted, something I have little doubt would and should be considered ‘authentic’ by those who care about such matters. For me, however, there were times when something a little more variegated would have been welcome. It is a lengthy opera, too lengthy for its material; generally slow tempi, married to almost unrelievedly opulent sound, exacerbated rather than relieved. There were, of course, passages of great incisiveness too. A few more gradations in between would have done no harm. Or would that actually have been possible? I cannot, I am afraid, hear this to be the masterpiece some claim it to be. Even if it were cut considerably, that still leaves something of a problem in a ‘symphonic’, better connective, ambition on Gershwin’s part that is at best intermittently realised. He is surely more a composer of songs than a symphonist, or indeed a post-Wagnerian musical dramatist, whatever apologists might claim to the contrary. Moreover, musical characterisation is often weak, at least earlier on. By the second act, the composer seems to have progressed considerably. Earlier on, he seems far better at communicative atmosphere, at dramatising events. 

There are many opera scores, however, that fall short of Figaro, Parsifal or Wozzeck. We tend for the most part to take them for what they are, rather than exercising ourselves unduly about what they are not. (Or if we do not, it tends to be indicative of some other problem we have with them, whether intrinsic or of taste.) More of a difficulty, I think, lies in the libretto and, more generally, in the (doubtless well-intentioned) racial and gender stereotyping – one might well put it considerably more strongly than that – of the work as a whole. It is there that a production should come into its own, offering a critical stance or at least an awareness of the problems. Robinson’s blithe production, however, almost screams ‘Made for the Met’. (This is a co-production not only with New York but Amsterdam too.) It is well executed, not least on account of Dianne McIntyre’s choreography, but appears either stuck in a time warp or better suited to expectations geared towards a ‘West End spectacular’. Following the ineptitude of ENO’s current Salome, there is something, indeed much, to be said for basic, wholesale competence. That is surely, though, no excuse for flattering an audience into thinking this a matter of harmless ‘entertainment’.

Crown (Nmon Ford) and Bess

Mine will, I am sure, be a minority report – and I repeat that there is much in a straightforward fashion to enjoy, should enjoyment be one’s sole or principal criterion. As the opera is what it is, so am I who I am. I increasingly find it difficult to take theatrical performances that might well have looked splendid half a century ago and might even do so on film now, yet which claim to be of the here and now. Too much dramatic water has passed under the bridge. Moreover, whilst I try to keep an open mind, my ears are not the same as everyone, or indeed anyone, else’s. When, for instance, I hear the banjo song, ‘I got Plenty o’Nuttin’,’ I think, doubtless idiosyncratically, of Blaze’s ballad from Peter Maxwell Davies’s The Lighthouse. That says nothing about either, if a little about me. Why mention it, then? Only as a banal illustration of our coming to artworks – not only to artworks - from different standpoints and situations.

Perhaps, knowing as I do of Schoenberg’s admiration for Gershwin – more circumscribed than some would allow, yet no less genuine for that – I wanted too much to listen with (post-)Schoenbergian ears and found myself a little disappointed. It has real virtues and certainly stands several notches above the fashionable bloated nonsense of Korngold and friends. Any reservations I entertain are unlikely to prevail over someone who finds more in the work than I do, nor am I seeking to persuade, merely to try to account for my own more equivocal reaction. Perhaps I should find more in a subsequent performance; perhaps it is simply not for me. If it is for you, and if you do not mind what is to my mind an absurdly ‘traditional’ style of staging, then you will find much to enjoy. I cannot help but wish, however, that the production had shown the courage to adopt so much as a point of view or to interrogate the work, to ask what it might fundamentally be about. That, surely, would have been to take it as seriously as Gershwin’s ambition demands.

BBC SO/Davis - Wood and Tippett, 23 March 2012

Barbican Hall

Hugh Wood – Violin Concerto no.2, op.50 (London premiere)
Tippett – A Child of Our Time

Anthony Marwood (violin)
Nicole Cabell (soprano)
Karen Cargill (mezzo-soprano)
John Mark Ainsley (tenor)
Matthew Rose (bass)

BBC Symphony Chorus (chorus-master: Stephen Jackson)
BBC Symphony Orchestra
Sir Andrew Davis (conductor)


The Barbican’s English oratorio series now reaches the twentieth century, with Tippett’s A Child of Our Time, though it will step back to The Dream of Gerontius next month. At a little more than an hour long, Tippett’s 1939-41 oratorio might have been thought to make for short measure by itself, though I for one should much prefer to leave wanting more rather than to regret the inclusion of padding. In any case, the companion piece was certainly not padding on this occasion; we were treated to the London premiere of Hugh Wood’s delightful second violin concerto, written between 2002 and 2004, and reviewed in 2008 (premiered by Alexandra Wood, the Milton Keynes City Orchestra, and Sian Edwards in 2009). Cast in the ‘traditional’ three movements, ‘marked ‘Allegro appassionata e energico’, ‘Larghetto, calmo,’ and ‘Vivacissimo’, this proved to be a concerto worthy of any soloist’s – and orchestra’s – attention, and received committed performances from all concerned. Sir Andrew Davis is an old Wood hand, having recorded the composer’s Symphony and Scenes from Comus for NMC. His direction of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, also featured on that recording, seemed authoritative, rhythms tight and colours boldly portrayed. Likewise the contribution of Anthony Marwood impressed. His is not a ‘big’ violin tone, or at least it was not on this occasion, but his shaping of Wood’s lines and his irreproachable intonation – there are a lot of tricky yet always idiomatic double-stopping passages here – served the composer well. What struck me most forcefully about the work were the powerful echoes of Berg: to have as a kinsman, if not a model, the composer of the greatest of all twentieth-century violin concertos is not necessarily a bad thing. I assume that the harmonic relationship between the two works must be deliberate. Certainly the way Wood’s themes construct themselves – at least quasi-serially, by the sound of it – has strong parallels in the work of his august predecessor. Even the solo violin theme which enters in the second bar (a rising figure of semiquavers, G-B-E-flat-F-sharp-B-flat-D-F-A, which then continues to soar above the orchestra in lyrical crotchet triplets) seems to harness the spirit if not the letter of Berg’s example. The transformative technique to which the themes are subjected, and through which they are developed, may ultimately have its roots in Liszt, even Beethoven, but it sounds very much Wood’s own. I wondered also whether , especially in the rondo-like finale, there was something of a homage to Prokofiev, though this may have been nothing more than unwitting correspondence; whatever the truth of that, the woodblocks and other lively, rhythmic untuned percussion gave a hint of the Russian composer’s second concerto. (Wood in his programme note pointed to a ‘Spanish’ tinge, ‘prompted by Alexandra Wood’s playing of Sarasate).

A Child of Our Time had the second half to itself. Davis and the BBC SO again have a good track-record in the composer’s music, if not quite so extensive as the conductor’s namesake, Sir Colin. Marking both the increasingly traumatic turn of events in the 1930s – in particular, Kristallnacht and the 1938 assassination of a Nazi diplomat by a Jewish boy, composition beginning the day after war was declared – and the composer’s undertaking of Jungian analysis, this oratorio attempts to address the political by virtue of a turn to the psychoanalytical. That ultimately remains for me a problematical turn, though there can be no doubting the composer’s sincerity. Is it really enough in the Part Two scena – there are three parts, echoing Handel’s Messiah – for the Narrator’s ‘He shoots the official’ to be responded to with the mezzo’s ‘But he shoots only his dark brother’? It might well be the case that the fate of the boy whose tale is told obliquely can provide no answers, but do political atrocities really permit of a solution in which all we need to do is to master our dark unconscious?

At any rate, the oratorio received a fine performance. Its opening orchestral bars evoked a melancholy as ‘English’, if distinctively so, as the music of many of Tippett’s countrymen, up to and including Birtwistle, yet with its own harmonic and melodic inspiration. Are there in the music and the storytelling hints of Weill too, or does that merely reflect common influences? The BBC SO’s contribution impressed greatly, whether in the instrumental interludes – Tippett’s inspiration here Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis – or the more grandly orchestral passages, the opening to the Third Part rhythmically tight and implacable, not least thanks to Davis’s direction. The first interlude, with its trio of two solo flutes and solo viola against a softly singing cello section was powerfully matched by the third part ‘Preludium’, almost neo-Baroque, in which two flutes and solo oboe prepared us for the final peroration, chaste yet without Stravinskian coldness. Choral singing was excellent throughout, the BBC Symphony Chorus as ever well trained by Stephen Jackson, yet with an emotional as well as a musical weight necessary to convey Tippett’s pain and transformation. Strength in anger – ‘A Spiritual of Anger’ – was powerfully conveyed in ‘Go down Moses’, though the intonation of Matthew Rose’s bass contributions was not always spot on. Nicole Cabell and the chorus provided what is perhaps the most magical moment. An exquisitely floated and shaded – with fulsome, though never excessive vibrato – soprano solo, ‘How can I cherish my man in such days…?’ persisted whilst the chorus movingly ‘stole in’ beneath, with the spiritual ‘Steal away’. The use of five spirituals, clearly echoing Bach’s Passion chorales, seems to me not without its problems; simplification of harmonic language at times sounds a little abrupt. Yet again, compositional sincerity tends to win out over such doubts. Karen Cargill, whilst definitely a mezzo, brought a welcome hint of the traditional oratorio contralto too to numbers such as ‘Man has measured the heavens with a telescope’. I was less sure about John Mark Ainsley’s contributions, sometimes both lachrymose and underpowered, struggling to be heard above the orchestra. (It should however be noted that he was a late replacement for an indisposed Toby Spence.) This may be a problematic work, then, but it received for the most part powerful, enlightened advocacy.