REVIEW: Martin Dreyer’s verdict on York Guildhall Orchestra, York Barbican, May 18

Martin Roscoe: Stepped in as late replacement. “The orchestra was fortunate to secure him”

YORK Guildhall Orchestra observed two anniversaries at this entertaining Sunday matinee conducted by Simon Wright.

Shostakovich died a century after Ravel was born, in 1975 (he had visited York three years earlier). So 2025 conveniently marks both the sesquicentenary of the former’s birth and 50 years since the latter’s death. Before we heard from them, there were bonbons from Kabalevsky and Khachaturian. It was good family fare, with a sizeable audience to match.

The centrepiece was Shostakovich’s Second Piano Concerto, Op 102 in F, which dates from 1957. The composer was beginning his operetta Moscow, Cheryomushki at the same time and the concerto is in similarly light-hearted vein. That was certainly the line taken by Martin Roscoe, the doughty soloist; he had stepped in as replacement: the orchestra was fortunate to secure him.

Gone from the first movement are the grandiose gestures that other Russians, say Tchaikovsky or Rakhmaninov, might have given us. Roscoe penetrated its sense of humour immediately. He took its light, capricious textures in his stride, sustaining a sparkling staccato.

There was a lovely restraint just before the piano’s thunderous quadruple octaves, after which the orchestra briefly drowned him. But his accelerating cadenza made ample amends.

The introspective slow movement, almost a single line melody in the piano, was profoundly elegiac here and all the more effective for its simplicity. Almost as telling as the piano’s aggressive dance in the finale was the way Wright kept the pizzicato strings in such close attendance. It added brio to the excitement and seemed to inspire Roscoe through his virtuoso passages.

The overture to the first of Kabalevsky’s five operas, Colas Breugnon – he also wrote an operetta –was notable for the slickness in the orchestra’s handling of its syncopation. Listeners of an older generation will recall the Adagio from Khachaturian’s ballet Spartacus as the signature tune of that rollicking sea series, The Onedin Line.

 More aptly, perhaps, it was heard here the day before the ballet’s great choreographer Yuri Gregorovich died, at the age of 98. Wright built up the sweeping theme to a juicy climax.

After the interval it was all Ravel. The reduced orchestra gave a tender account of the Pavane Pour Une Infante Défunte. His colourful orchestration in the second Daphnis et Chloé suite – where we had one player, David Hammond, unusually doubling on double bass and celesta – was fully demonstrated by the huge percussion section.

The opening heat-haze was delicately drawn and the closing Bacchanale properly rumbustious. Ravel threw the kitchen sink at it – all we lacked here was the (optional) wordless chorus.

Bolero conjured Torvill & Dean – and much more. It calls for three saxophones, but Rachel Green played all those roles single-handed. Such is the versatility of this orchestra. These afternoon sessions are proving ever more successful, judging by the growing audiences, and the players are clearly revelling in it.

Review by Martin Dreyer

REVIEW: Martin Dreyer’s verdict on University of York Symphony Orchestra, 26/11/2022

Conductor John Stringer

University of York Symphony Orchestra (USO) Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall, University of York, November 26

TICKETS were like gold dust for the USO’s latest foray under its permanent conductor John Stringer.

This is a popular group and its standards are high. The programme encompassed London as painted by Elgar and Paris as seen by Delius and Gershwin, with a couple of brief side-trips from Grainger in between.

Elgar’s concert overture Cockaigne (In London Town) is a series of vignettes of London life. He wanted to lift his spirits in 1901 after the disastrous initial response to The Dream Of Gerontius the previous year. As an establishment outsider, he also needed a way back into the musical mainstream. Cockaigne did the trick.

The violins were immediately bold in the vivacious opening melody but the change of mood to the more serious side of the Londoner was fluently done, even if things only quietened down fully when we glimpsed the lovers in the park. The military march rang out with majestic bravado underpinned by an especially zealous timpanist.

Although premiered the same year as Cockaigne, Delius’s Paris: The Song Of A Great City is quite a different animal, much more personal, indeed almost autobiographical. It started a little uncertainly here, before finding its way into a more shapely impressionism; the sinuous phrasing of the bass clarinet led the way.

The night air was warmed by the saltarello rhythm suggesting distant revels. But after the frenzy of bacchanalia leading to the march we reached an immense climax, which suited the orchestra’s mood perfectly. Thereafter the encompassing lull before the last great chord was serenely controlled.

Percy Grainger struck up a lasting friendship with Delius, so there was a personal link in his Dreamery, which – contrary to the Grainger image of relentless jollity – is a quiet daydream for strings alone. It dates from immediately after the First World War  and is clearly nostalgic for calmer times. The orchestra’s fine body of violins were right at home here and all the strings enjoyed the composer’s delicate tapestry.

Equally brief but no less effective was Grainger’s arrangement of Ravel’s La Vallée des Cloches, from his piano suite ‘Miroirs’. Ravel had originally intended to orchestrate it himself. The opening section for tuned percussion was hypnotic. When the strings finally joined them, the violas made succulent use of their time in the spotlight.

We stayed in France for An American In Paris, Gershwin’s jocular parody of the archetypal Yank abroad, bold, brazen, and more than a little loud. He got off to a jaunty start, courtesy of the woodwinds, and the syncopation that followed was nicely edgy.

The sleaze quotient lifted with blues trumpet and tuba. Tempo changes were smoothly negotiated, as this American began to look and listen rather than impose himself. The ending was triumphant. It had all been a tasty travelogue.

Review by Martin Dreyer