Nottingham

BBC Philharmonic Orchestra

Royal Concert Hall, Nottingham

05 October, 2023

William Ruff: 4****

Anyone in Thursday’s audience on heart medication may have needed to take an extra pill when they got home. The BBC Philharmonic was in Nottingham to kick-start the new season of orchestral concerts at the Royal Concert Hall. And they did so with a bang or rather (to be more musically precise) a series of double fortissimos, including a pulse-quickening UK premiere and a turbo-charged performance of an old favourite. And the whole thing was broadcast live on Radio 3, giving the event another layer of excitement.

The new work was by Anna Clyne, composer-in-residence to the BBC Phil. It’s a concerto called Glasslands specially written for Nottingham’s (and the UK’s) favourite classical saxophonist, Jess Gillam. It’s a piece that conjures (in the composer’s own words) ‘an imaginary world of three realms governed by the banshee - a female spirit who, in Irish folklore, heralds the death of a family member, usually by wailing, shrieking, or keening in the silence of the night.’ As this description suggests there are plenty of eerie sound effects and lots of sharp changes of mood. It all requires technical wizardry from the get-go as well as a talent for drama. Jess Gillam brought both to her performance, creating a very strange sound world, evoking nightmarish images – and dazzling with her energy and sense of fun.

Ben Gernon was at the helm of the BBC Philharmonic who proved to be colourfully responsive collaborators, equally adept at reaching into the audience’s imaginations with some superb ensemble and solo playing. The solo cello and vibraphone deserve special mention, but the wild complexity of Anna Clyne’s score had everyone playing at the top of their game. The huge audience ovation coaxed Jess Gillam into an encore: something which sounded folky, tenderly simple at first before bursting into unstoppable cascades of notes created by Jess’s tireless fingers.

Elgar’s Cockaigne Overture opened the concert on more familiar ground. It was a good choice to start a new season: a kaleidoscope of memorable tunes combining to paint a vivid picture of London, its monuments, people and traditions. The opening was full of perky rhythms and lively changes of direction, immediately creating an impression of energy and bustle, as of a street scene in the late-Victorian capital. And Ben Gernon was particularly good at the sudden change of pace which follows: the altogether grander theme which came to Elgar one day as he gazed up at the roof of the Guildhall and heard ‘an echo of some noble melody’. The BBC Phil really relished the overture’s ending too, as all the themes come together amid a dazzling sonic spectacle, complete with the RCH organ playing some tummy-wobbling pedal notes.

Ravel uses a very different orchestral palette in his Mother Goose Suite: no trumpets, no trombones – but lots of percussion instruments and harp. The BBC Phil created some ravishing sounds as they conjured up fairy stories such as Sleeping Beauty, Hop o’my Thumb and Beauty and the Beast. Perhaps the highlight was the movement evoking ‘Laideronette, Empress of the Pagodes’. This is Ravel at his most exotic, inspired by the Javanese gamelan orchestra he had first heard in his youth. The BBC Phil’s woodwind together with muted strings, harp and celeste produced an intensely magical opening which continued through the grand processional theme and the highly impressive gong strokes evocative of the tolling of temple bells.

The final work is one of the most famous in the entire classical repertoire: Beethoven’s 5th Symphony. Everyone has their own idea of how the opening of this mighty work ‘goes’: should it be strictly in line with the letter of the score or should it be overwhelming and monumental? Every conductor must feel pressure to stamp his own particular mark on the work. Ben Gernon’s approach was certainly distinctive. It may have driven the audience to huge cheers at the end but it was surely too fast, especially in the outer movements. It’s an approach which would have worked better with a small ensemble on period instruments, but too much of this performance sounded rushed, with detail occasionally blurred. After the over-driven first movement, the warm, slow dance of the second came as something of a relief. The scherzo was eerily tense and its transition to the finale handled with an impressive sense of tension. The finale must have been one of the fastest ever attempted. It did, however, have an infectious confidence which, crowned with relentlessly hammered final chords, brought the concert to a decisive conclusion. Appetites will certainly have been whetted for another season of premier league music-making.

BBC Philharmonic Orchestra

Ben Gernon, conductor

Jess Gillam, saxophone