Brighton Festival 2013: Music

Classical and contemporary music shine at this year’s festival

BBC SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
With so many excellent events in this year’s Festival diary, what catches your eye when you plan your cultural calendar? Do you go for the programme or the performers? With this concert I can safely say I go for both.

The main attraction is always the soloist and we couldn’t be more lucky than to have Veronika Eberle. At 24 she is already an acclaimed international star who performs with many of the world’s greatest orchestras and finest conductors. In this country she is known through her status as a BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist. This scheme offers prestigious performing fixtures to the best up-and-coming musicians, and they have endorsed a very special artist here. She sounds splendid enough on the radio but I’m really looking forward to hearing her magic live.

We can thank the BBC again, this time for the orchestra. The musical heart of the London Proms, the BBC Symphony Orchestra is a world-class ensemble that can play just about anything, perfectly. With their crammed schedule this is a wonderful chance to hear them in Brighton and under the baton of a truly inspiring conductor. Swiss-based New Yorker James Gaffigan is already well known in Sussex for his successes at Glyndebourne. He feels at home here, which is very much to our good fortune. His list of credits around the world is most impressive. I’m going to try to get to his (free but ticketed) pre-concert talk because if he speaks as well as his blog reads then it should be very amusing, interesting and not-to-be-missed! For this concert he is giving us a rich slice of the German repertoire:

Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto was his last orchestral work and, for all its lovely melodies and joie-de-vivre, it was almost shockingly modern when it was first performed. Violinists have treasured it ever since, other composers adopted his innovations, and audiences just love it. Do I prefer the passionate charms of the first movement (Molto Appassionato) with its brilliant cadenza, the yearning melancholy of the slow movement, or the exhilarating finale (music faster than I can turn the pages of the score!)?

Brahms’ 4th, which he called his ‘new tragic symphony’, came 40 years after the Mendelssohn, when Brahms was at the height of his powers. It too is suffused with a beautiful yearning and a majesty which is most uplifting and triumphant. It is certainly one of his greatest works, scholarly in its design, magisterial in its scope and emotionally very imposing.

Unlike the Mendelssohn or the Brahms, Gaffigan’s third offering, which opens the concert, is not well known here and it really should be. Hartmann’s Symphony No.2 ‘Adagio’ was composed 60 years after the Brahms, between 1940-46. In just 15 minutes, it reflects many of the complex emotions of that era. As a German who rejected the Nazi regime Hartmann was out in the cold, bravely composing against the current trends and putting his passion into the music. It will catch you with its enigmatic opening and take you on a scintillating journey through hazardous times, until it reaches its climax, or crisis, and then… fade out. This fascinating and beautiful work is rarely performed outside Germany, perhaps because it requires a superlative orchestra and thorough rehearsal with an inspiring conductor. It may be difficult to play but it will make fabulous listening and a thrilling start to the concert. I can’t wait!
Andrew Connal
Tue 14 May, 7.30pm, Concert Hall, Brighton Dome

CLASSICAL HIGHLIGHTS

by Latest 7’s Andrew Connal

Britten: The Canticles
I opened the Festival brochure and this event just jumped out at me. What names: Ian Bostridge, Iestyn Davies, Benedict Nelson! I drew a big red circle around who was playing alongside, Richard Watkins (horn), Julius Drake (piano), Sally Pryce (harp). It was already in my diary when I read that it is to be staged by Neil Bartlett, Brighton’s magical stage-master, directing – amongst others – Frantic Assembly. What a show!
Thu 9 May, 7.30pm
Theatre Royal Brighton

Nash Ensemble – Terezín-Theresienstadt 1941–45
The title of this concert might seem bleak, but don’t be fooled. Sandwiched between Smetana and Dvorák is some glorious music that kept three other Czech composers (Gideon Klein, Pavel Haas & Hans Krasa) feeling alive as long as possible in dire circumstances. They did not survive the Holocaust but what a beautiful legacy they gave us all!
Fri 10 May, 8pm
Music Room, Royal Pavilion

Les Chansons Instrumentales: part 1
Who could forget the joy as Ailish Tynan, a most enchanting soprano, won the 2003 song Prize in the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World. I can’t wait to hear her in the generous acoustic of All Saints’, She’s singing songs by Poulenc and Hahn, accompanied by the charismatic James Baillieu (piano) who put the programme together. I heard him live last summer and I want to hear him again, making the piano sing too.
Wed 15 May, 7.30pm
All Saints Church, Hove

Les Chansons Instrumentales: part 2
More glorious music by Poulenc and Hahn, this time a delightful instrumental cocktail with James Baillieu again at the piano and his colleagues: Philip Higham (cello), Adam Newman (viola), Adam Walker (flute) and Bartosz Woroch (violin) – all well versed in this repertoire together. They appear again in part 3 on Saturday 18 April with baritone Jonathan McGovern – a musical feast. There’s also a ‘Morning After’ meeting with James Baillieu, 16 May.
Wed 17 May, 7.30pm
All Saints Church, Hove

Elias String Quartet,
The Beethoven Project (3 concerts)
This much Beethoven, like any amount of Bach, is just never a problem. In two years we will hear all Beethoven’s string quartets in two of the city’s best classical acoustics. This brilliant ensemble starts off with some of my favourites. It’s a really bold piece of programming and I hope that every young string player in the area is making sure they don’t miss out.
7, 11 & 20 May, 8pm
Music Room, Royal Pavilion & St George’s Church