
A real treat - Martha’s favourite concerto and one of my favourite symphonies and at our favourite concert hall the same night. Wonderful playing from the CBSO under the baton of Xian Zhang.
The concert started with Ravel’s Mother Goose Suite, which I’d not heard before, but is gentle and beautiful.
Michael Collins was the soloist in Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto. The music just emerged as if he was thinking it into existence, not having to coax it from a single-reed wind instrument, with interesting register issues. Seriously impressive, and no wonder his recent recording of this has been winning awards.

And then after an interval, the orchestra doubled in size and the organ added in order to tackle Saint-Saens’ great 3rd Symphony. I was hoping for a little more volume and passion in places, but the speed was just right, and the orchestra wonderfully clear and precise. I heard lots of tones and ideas that I’d not heard before, and I realised just how many great ideas Saint-Saens brought to it, particularly interesting rhythmical differences between different instruments. No wonder that he was reported to say about it “I have given all that I had to give. What I have done I shall never do again.” Which he didn’t. Fantastic.
Xian has made the “improbably journey from a small town in China to the New York Philharmonic” [NYT] and then on guest engagements with lots of other orchestras. She didn’t draw much attention to herself whilst conducting, or in the various entrances/exits in the applause at the end, but she certainly drew some great playing from the CBSO. Difficult to know how much this is down to her, as they are a fine group, but I’d certainly be keen to watch her at work again. Shame we missed “Maestro” where she was apparently one of the tutors.





The challenge of the evening was Lutosławski’s Concerto for Orchestra, completed in 1954. Tim and Ann really like it, but on my first hearing I wasn’t grabbed. Too often the percussion, for example, seemed to be playing completely incidentally to the rest of the orchestra. However, as a percussionist, at least there was an impressive range of percussion, including 4 different cymbals, 2 tenor drums, 2 side drums, gong and celeste. I must listen to it again — and it was recorded for BBC Radio 3, but I can’t find out when it will be broadcast. Alternatively the Phil have recorded it.
I like doing codewords, and we’ve got a book of them which we’re slowly doing. (If you’re not familiar with them, they contain all 26 letters of the alphabet, and each is given a number. You need to work out what letters represent which numbers.) Some are quite easy to get going with, but others much harder. Particularly when fewer than half the numbers/letters are known, it’s very easy to make false assumptions.
Welcome to my blog site -- here to help me work out what I think. Feel free to join in, and start a debate. Cheers -- Jonathan.
