Brighton Festival – RPO & BFC, Francesca Dego (violin), Ludovic Morlot (conductor)

This was a very serious programme with a very important message that was best delivered by the 99 year-old tone poem Tapiola that poignantly evokes the wondrous beauty of Finland’s primal forests. It was the last great work that Sibelius completed. The rich sound of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra’s strings was intense when playing most quietly and glorious in those stirring climaxes that are this composer’s signature. Tapiola has none of the patriotic fervour of earlier works. For all the thrilling effect, Morlot retained the work’s essential melancholy as he carefully built the long crescendos. Through all the striving these first-class players offered us a thread of optimism.

Rachel Portman’s new concerto is optimistic too, although Tipping Points imply cataclysmic points of no return. Set for violin, narrator and orchestra, it contains a message of hope. The disembodied voice of Gránne Dromgoole delivered poems by Nick Drake before each of the six sections. Francesca Dego’s performance was elegant and moving. The dispersed percussion provided some charming emphasis and the general effect was of sustained, wistful beauty.

Vespers of the Blessed Earth consists of five distinct plaints on mankind’s abuse of nature. I said this was a serious concert programme! Associating it with Monteverdi’s 1610 Vespers of the Blessed Virgin strikes me as pretentious. However, John Luther Adams’ work is innovative and atmospheric. It began with something very much like tinnitus, so high and quiet were the sounds. The Brighton Festival Chorus was then asked to pant and later contribute chimes of cow bells and other percussion. A Brief Descent into Deep Time was a repetitive cascade of falling chordal sequences with gamelan-type shimmering, not unpleasant but not brief either. The programme notes were not illuminating. The cooing sounds of the sopranos and altos gave distinction to A Weeping of Doves. Reciting the Latin names of 193 endangered species during Litanies of the Sixth Extinction was rather spoiled because we could not hear the words although I’m sure the BFC were employing their very best enunciation. The special effect in this movement was having the woodwind behind the audience in the Circle. Seeing the strings sitting silent while waiting for the list of names to complete, I wondered at this waste of an orchestra. Ironically the only name we could hear, of course, was the final. repeated Homo sapiens.

All this time a gilded harp had been prominently centre stage rather than tucked away at the back. Now, for the finale Aria of the Ghost Bird, soprano Katie Trethewey came to the platform to evoke the plangent call of the Hawaiian Kauaʻi ʻŌʻō bird which went extinct in 2000. Harpist Tamara Young was required to give a selection of emphatic chords which did not seem much of a solo part. The coda, a stark woodwind transcription of the last male calling for a mate who would never come, made a bleak end to this serious event.

Brighton Dome Concert Hall,
22 May 2025

Rating:

–

Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
Brighton Festival Chorus
Francesca Dego (violin)
Gránne Dromgoole (narrator)
Katie Trethewey (soprano)
Ludovic Morlot (conductor)

Sibelius : Tapiola Op. 112
Rachel Portman : Tipping Points – UK Premiere
John Luther Adams : Vespers of the Blessed Earth