Britten & Tchaikovsky, CBSO, Symphony Hall, Birmingham, 17 April 2024. 4✩✩✩✩ Review: David Gray & Paul Gray.

Photo Credit: Damiano Rosa (Image of Ian Bostridge)

Britten & Tchaikovsky, CBSO, Symphony Hall, Birmingham, 17 April 2024.

4✩✩✩✩ Review: David Gray & Paul Gray.

“Overall: a dreamy concert about dreaming.”

Thorvaldsdottir – Dreaming Britten – Les Illuminations Tchaikovsky – Symphony No 1 (Winter Daydreams)

The theme of the evening was ‘dreams’, with three works in some way linked to the dream state. Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s ‘Dreaming’ starts as a slow-moving wash of sound, decorated with woodwind, percussion and brass details. In its second part there is a bit of a free-for-all involving scurrying string writing. Conductor, Gergely Madaras, referred to is as ’experimental’ in his explanatory speech. I am never sure what the object of the ‘experiment’ is with this kind of music, or what it is trying to demonstrate.

Benjamin Britten’s ‘Les Illumination’ is not, strictly speaking, about dreaming, but the poetry of Rimbaud, which Britten sets, does seem to have come from some kind of hallucinogenic, altered mental space. Tenor, Ian Bostridge gave an introspective performance which required the audience to lean in and listen, rather than going out and meeting up in the auditorium. His performance persona was suave and urbane, with an undercurrent of neurosis never far from the surface. His tone was, as always, beautifully burnished, and his control miraculous. There were moments at the very top and bottom of the voice where the colouration felt a bit mannered. The CBSO strings delivered a crisp, clear and incisive accompaniment.

It is a shame that Bostridge felt the need to break off from the performance after a couple of songs and admonish members of the audience for using cameras. This broke the atmosphere he had so skilfully created hitherto, and I am not sure the performance ever recovered. The programme notes do explicitly state that audience members can take photographs and/or short video clips, so one had to feel for those on the receiving end of the dressing down. The lesson here is for venues to make sure that artists and audience have the same understanding of performance protocols.

Tchaikovsky’s ‘Symphony No 1’, entitled ‘Winter Daydreams’, is a lesser performed work, and it is often interesting to hear an orchestra approaching a piece by an established composer with which they themselves might not be that familiar. This was a reading characterised by a wide-eyed freshness; full of vivacity and colour and a certain excitement. Madaras and the band clearly enjoy a strong rapport. The playing was responsive and packed with detail. Tchaikovsky delivers a gift of an orchestral show piece in the final movement, which the players seized on, bringing the concert to a spine-tingling conclusion.

Gergely Madaras – Conductor

Ian Bostridge – Tenor

City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra