Performances aside, this somewhat frenetic concert could have benefited from a sharper curatorial eye to bind together its disparate works. Fortunately, Joseph Phibbs’s cello concerto, written for Guy Johnston and here receiving its world premiere, brought its own musical cohesion, distinguishing itself in an otherwise uneven programme.
Scrupulously crafted, its five contrasting movements basked in a warm tonality and boasted a multihued orchestration with rich, fluent string writing and imaginative effects in wind, brass and percussion. Emerging from gentle double bass pizzicatos and cushioned cellos, Johnston’s solo line, pensive and unshowy throughout, was neatly framed thanks to Clemens Schuldt’s mindful control over his BBC Symphony Orchestra forces.
The shimmering, shuddering Aubade, brimming with light and dancing counterpoint, gave way to the mournful Elegy, a long cello threnody stretched out over a pulsing orchestral heartbeat. An eerie Nocturne, tense and agitated, was haunted by the cries of night-birds and perhaps something more sinister, before the wistful Vocalise brought this attractive new concerto to a radiant conclusion.
Elsewhere matters were less consistent. Tchaikovsky’s Hamlet, a prolix tone poem complete with stentorian ghost, Russian-accented Ophelia and a brusque military intervention, got a kick up the backside from Schuldt whose clipped, brittle reading was undoubtedly exciting, if low on warmth. At just five minutes, Mel Bonis’s Ophélie, one of the late-Romantic composer’s enthralling series of musical sketches of iconic women, proved that less is often more. Rippling harp, sweeping strings and melancholy oboe cocooned the hapless heroine as she drifted to her watery grave. The performance, though, was on the loud side.
The German conductor was more in his element with the anonymously cobbled together suite from Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier. His interpretation was idiomatic, with the waltz sequences nicely swung, but a tendency to micromanage robbed the music of some of its flow. No amount of arm waving could paper over the cracks in this Frankenstein’s monster of a score, however, as the music lurched from one bleeding chunk to another. Schuldt’s tendency to ramp up the volume only added to a sense of misguided bluster. A shame, as the orchestral playing, once again, was excellent.
