WE'LL just have to agree to disagree on the BBC SSO concert yesterday afternoon.
I take it from the big reaction from a small crowd that it all went down well; someone behind me was shouting "wonderful". I thought it far from wonderful. I'm not going to suggest that the BBC SSO did not play well: they always do. But what emerged was extremely ordinary and quite undistinguished.
There were a few non-musical blemishes with some logistical issues in furniture-shifting between the first two numbers for strings, Golijov's last Round and Britten's Simple Symphony. Different configurations were required, but it shouldn't have taken as long as it did to turn the band round. And the fixing of the interval, not where we thought it would be, and certainly not where it should have been, caused some confusion. Many of us left for a coffee, to be called back for a concerto. You see what I mean?
However the real issue for this listener was the conductor, young American Joshua Weilerstein, who didn't really have a grasp on what the band, and indeed the music, required. He drove hard and laboured. Balancing was not too good and there was little refinement. The Golijov was over-raw and the Britten felt as weighty as a tank.
As for Dvorak's Seventh Symphony, it felt as though the piece was wading up Candleriggs wearing wellies that had been filled with water. There was no nuance or shading in Weilerstein's control of the music.
Colin Matthews' reconstruction from fragments of Britten's music for a Clarinet Concerto, with very characteristic music, shiningly-played by Finnish soloist Olli Leppaniemi, was one of the more interesting elements in a disappointing event.
HH
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