MacMillan conducts MacMillan

       
               

The Times
Birmingham Post
The Telegraph
Classicalsource.com
The Guardian
The Observer
LocalSecrets.com
The Tab
Italian Review

The Times, Richard Morrison
Britten Sinfonia, Town Hall Birmingham ****

Wonderfully virtuosic, superbly crafted for both solo instrument and orchestra and with enough enigmas and sardonic outbursts to keep posterity guessing, James MacMillan’s new Oboe Concerto is a corker.

Whether any other oboist will be able to play it – let alone dispatch its whirligig passagework and vaulting leaps with the ferocious momentum and scarcely credible energy that Nicholas brought to this world premiere – is neither here nor there. Daniel will just have to keep on performing it until the rest of his profession catches up.

By prefacing the work with Rudolf Barshai’s chamber-orchestra version of Shostakovich’s despairing, almost nihilistic Eighth String Quartet (nobly played by the Britten Sinfonia), MacMillan the conductor was giving us warning of the torrid storm being gathered by MacMillan the composer. Yet the Oboe Concerto starts with deceptive exuberance: after a syncopated minimalist riff in the violas, the oboe is off on a wild dance that manages to veer from exotic arabesques to a lush, even romantic lyricism without breaking stride.

With the slow middle movement that jauntiness evaporates. A slow, sombre chorale underpins intricate polyphonies woven by the oboe and other woodwinds. But then there are brash intrusions, as if from a more brutish world. And the mood of the finale – brittle, even vaudeville-like, with honking barnyard calls and crazy trills and passagework – seems like an enforced rapport with that other world. The markings in the score – “ecstatic”, “joyous” – don’t quite gel with the demonic intensity of the music.

Whatever, it’s a white-knuckle ride – to be repeated on the Britten Sinfonia’s tour. But in Birmingham the orchestra made a MacMillan and Shostakovich day of it, by concocting a lunchtime concert that showed both composers in much more relaxed mood. The latter’s apparently sanguine Piano Quintet was prefaced by four MacMillan miniatures – two for piano (Huw Watkins, admirable), two for piano and strings – that treated Celtic modal material with a delectably light and beguiling touch.

Birmingham Post, Christopher Morley
Rating: 5/5

We all know how estimable a composer is James MacMillan, vouched for by so many magnificent works over the decades.

But he is also a fine conductor, and some orchestra ought to snap him up as principal guest conductor. His beat is clear and unfussy, and he imposes no look-at-me overtones upon the music he directs.

So, in the second of Friday’s two concerts centred around his work, he presided over free-flowing yet so strongly-detailed accounts of Shostakovich’s harrowing String Quartet No.8, and Beethoven’s Symphony No.2. What a joy it was to hear that piece without any clutter, whether from the muesli-eating “authentic” brigade or from those who would put the weight of the future unjustly upon it. And the Britten Sinfonia responded with airy intensity, just the qualities Beethoven would have expected.

But the major feature of the evening, recorded for broadcast tonight (Thursday) on BBC Radio 3, was obviously a MacMillan premiere, his Oboe Concerto, performed mellifluously and with empathetic understanding by Nicholas Daniel.

Nearly 25 minutes in length, this is a work which sums up so brilliantly the character of the instrument, pastoral, ruminative, satirical, and always neatly combining solo and orchestra. Within the orchestra there is an important role for the cor anglais, almost a wise alter ego to the frisky oboe soloist.

There are two great oboe concertos in this selective repertoire, those by Mozart and Richard Strauss. Perhaps we can now add this substantial and remarkable offering by James MacMillan.

The Telegraph, Ivan Hewett
Britten Sinfonia, Queen Elizabeth Hall, review
There were too many conflicting energies to make for a satisfying whole.
Rating: * * *

Scottish composer James MacMillan used to be an angry young man before he transmogrified into Britain’s best-known Catholic composer. But he often seems as angry as ever, lashing out at militant secularism, the Scottish arts establishment, anti-Catholic prejudice.

In this concert it seemed that, for once, the heated polemics would be set aside so that we could get reacquainted with MacMillan the musician. It contained his latest piece, which has no overt message. It’s entitled simply Oboe Concerto, and the programme note hinted that we were in for a genial divertimento, reflecting MacMillan’s general contentment with life, and the fact that he’s recently become a grandfather.

Nothing MacMillan does can be quite free of a spiritual message. He’d contrived the programme to create a progression from dark to light, beginning with the desolation of Shostakovich’s Chamber Symphony, and ending with the massive good humour of Beethoven’s Second Symphony.

Shostakovich’s piece is an arrangement of his Eighth Quartet, written in a blaze of inspiration after the composer visited the bombed-out ruins of Dresden in 1960. Rudolph Barshai’s arrangement introduces a telling contrast into the music between lonely, lamenting voices and a dignified collective mourning, and this performance caught that quality beautifully, with some wonderful solo playing from leader Thomas Gould and cellist Caroline Dearnley.

Beethoven’s Second Symphony we’re used to hearing in crisp, fleet “period” performances, and this one felt like a throwback to an older style. The slow introduction was spaciously grand, the slow movement relaxed, the whole thing generous and unbuttoned. 
The fulcrum between these two extremes was MacMillan’s new concerto. But, far from being a neutral “happy medium”, it seethed with just the same dramatic confrontation of ideas and feelings that one finds in MacMillan’s religious works. The galloping figure at the beginning set us up for something folk-like, but this was immediately cut across by a hectic oboe line (heroically projected by soloist Nicholas Daniel, who is the kind of player every composer dreams of, able to project the physicality and feeling behind a tangle of notes). Even the slow movement’s aspiration towards a grave, ornamented neo-classicism was disrupted by modernist pizzicato flurries.

Everything was brilliantly stage-managed, and there were some beautifully telling moments such as the gentle ambush of the first movement’s ending. But overall the conflicting energies seemed too raw to make for a satisfying whole.

The Britten Sinfonia perform this programme on Radio 3 tomorrow.

Classical Source, Andrew Morris
Southbank Centre, London – Queen Elizabeth Hall
Britten Sinfonia/MacMillan Nicholas Daniel

A new work from one of Britain’s leading composers should be something to celebrate, but the delight of James MacMillan’s Oboe Concerto could not have been anticipated. MacMillan joined Britten Sinfonia for the first London performance of the work, following its world premiere in Birmingham three days earlier.

Nicholas Daniel took the solo part composed with his substantial tone and dexterity expressly in mind. What emerges is a playful work rich in detail and colour which deserves a firm hold in the slender repertoire of its instrument. A recurring three-note figure in the violas begins and concludes the first movement, immediately playing the rhythmic tricks that characterise much of the fast music. Initially lyrical, the oboe soon careers off in a mad jazz solo, which left Daniel looking, though not sounding, exhausted. That helter-skelter energy returns for the even-more tumultuous finale, but finest of all is the vivid landscape of the second movement Largo. Its opening moments brought to mind a dull and cold dawn, its various episodes continually reverting, appropriately enough, to a Britten-like sense of brooding bass development and salty sea-air from the violins. A moment of interplay between oboe and clarinet is a particular highlight. MacMillan could not ask for a more convincing soloist than Daniel, who clearly loves this brilliant concerto.

MacMillan’s affinity for the music of Shostakovich was celebrated in the concert’s first item. This arrangement for string orchestra is the first of five chamber symphonies adapted from selected Shostakovich’s string quartets by conductor and violist Rudolf Barshai. The first one, played here, is the Eighth String Quartet, which presents many ciphers and self-quotations for those who wish to find them. Upping the numbers (in this case from four players to twenty-four) is intermittently effective, notably in the fourth movement Largo when a single expressionless drone is held by the leader (Thomas Gould in this instance) against a repeated bullying figure from the rest of the ensemble. But the overall effect is a dilution of intensity from the original, with textures becoming more corporate than confessional due to the homogeneity of string sound. MacMillan and Britten Sinfonia initially made a virtue of this, rendering Shostakovich’s miraculous fugue on his own name a vibrato-less impression of ancient polyphony, though the lack of expressive inflection made for a rather motionless introduction. The ferocious Allegro that follows was appropriately driven, but there’s safety in numbers in Barshai’s expansion which nullifies the hair-raising terror of the quartet version. Better, though, was the final Largo – full of regret and finality from an ensemble producing an extraordinary depth of tone.

Nicholas Daniel returned to his position in Britten Sinfonia’s wind section for Beethoven’s Second Symphony. The wind and brass was the finest thing about this performance, lending breadth and richness to the otherwise frenetic activity. MacMillan kept tempos swift throughout. If the second movement lacked a little unity of ensemble, it was countered in the outer movements by exciting playing that begged for more acoustical space than the Queen Elizabeth Hall allows. Strange though that while MacMillan conducted from a recent edition of the score with so many of the music’s accumulated misprints and misreadings expunged, Britten Sinfonia played from Breitkopf’s 100-year-old parts, famously full of deviations from the composer’s original.

The Guardian, Rowena Smith
Britten Sinfonia/MacMillan – review
West Road Concert Hall, Cambridge
Rating ***
 
While James MacMillan has in the past written works with programmatic titles and religious allusions, two of his most recent concertos stick to the purely abstract. Following the violin concerto premiered this year is the composer’s Oboe Concerto, written for Nicholas Daniel and the Britten Sinfonia and premiered with the composer as conductor.

The oboe isn’t the easiest of solo instruments, as its voice can be easily subsumed into the orchestral texture, but MacMillan negotiated this potential hazard extremely successfully, keeping the accompaniment transparent in the solo sections. The concerto has a lyrical character, combined with a dancing energy in the outer movements that suits the solo instrument.

Despite the lyricism, there were plenty of virtuoso flourishes to showcase Daniel’s skill. The slow movement contains some of the best music, particularly a beautifully written duet for the soloist and the orchestral clarinet. The whirlwind finale was less easy to appreciate on first hearing; MacMillan throws so many ideas into the mix. The movement starts with a bit of Shostakovich-esque grotesquerie, a witty lightness that doesn’t seem entirely genuine, and dissolves into portentous chords that are pure old-style MacMillan. Such self-quotations are difficult to reconcile with the overall mood, although the energy of the piece carries it along.

The concerto was prefaced with a reflective account of Shostakovich’s Chamber Symphony that was often rather beautiful rather than bleakly nihilistic. Concluding the concert, a ridiculously fast performance of Beethoven’s Second Symphony showcased some impressive playing from the Britten Sinfonia, but skimmed over the work’s articulation and dignity.

The Observer, Fiona Maddocks 
Sunday 24 October

The Britten Sinfonia bristles with talent, not least in its guise as a crack chamber orchestra able to play any kind of repertoire. But their conspicuous gift is in programming, which may sound as dull as praising a thatcher for his facility with straw, but is at the heart of their success. This week’s combination of Shostakovich, a James MacMillan premiere (commissioned by the Britten Sinfonia and Town Hall, Birmingham) and a less obvious symphony by Beethoven – his second, exuberantly delivered – achieved a satisfying whole, full of contrasts and echoes.

Shostakovich’s melancholy Chamber Symphony Op 110a (1960), an arrangement of his eighth quartet, enabled the group’s near flawless strings to explore an aural palette from vibrato-less cool transparency to urgent, warm emotion. Nicholas Daniel then performed MacMillan’s new oboe concerto, written for this renowned soloist who is also a player in the Britten Sinfonia.

In the opening “Marcato e ritmico”, Daniel burst forth as if detonated, with powerful chromatic flurries and a propulsive amalgam of martial and Gaelic energy, strings trilling, glissando-ing and arpeggio-ing beneath him in multiple layers. Parallel worlds of soloist and ensemble at once meet and spin off on their own, not in combat but in dialogue.

In the slow movement, the wide, almost placid and murky sostenuto writing was like a dark lake out of which the oboe rose, keening and plaintive, as if a lone water bird. There is no programme to this piece, so such a suggestion should not be taken literally, only as an attempt to convey the relationship between soloist and ensemble. The finale, harsh, joky and elegiac, had the virtuosic Daniel forcing all his power and might through that tiny reed fit to burst. MacMillan’s concerto offers a fiery addition to the solo oboe’s confined repertoire. Let’s hope there’s someone else who can play it.

LocalSecrets.com Mike Levy
Publication date: 31/10/2010
The Britten Sinfonia at West Road Concert Hall

A new work from James MacMillan is always a big event but to see him conduct it, and with the Britten Sinfonia, is an occasion with a capital O. MacMillan was in town as conductor of his new oboe concerto written for Nicholas Daniel, the cheerful virtuoso. This is a joyous work full of MacMillan’s trademark driving rhythms, audacious sharp turns of mood, lush intensity and a lack of fear to use those old fashioned cornerstones of music: melodic lines.

The piece starts with a vibrant dialogue between a very high register oboe and other instruments of the orchestra. The three-movement work goes on to explore the range and depth of the oboe: a fast first movement drawing on jazz rhythms, Stravinsky-like pulses of sound and the composer’s own unique language.

The second movement is more solemn though not without spirit. Spirit or perhaps sprite, is the right word. The movement seems to portray a magical, enchanted world.

The finale is nuts: manic paced and wacky - it reminded me of the soundtrack to a Tom and Jerry cartoon in which the orchestra was in perpetual pursuit of the oboe; the instrument playing the part of a cunning fox weaving and bobbing out of range and yet leading on its pursuers. All very good fun and the piece ends on an exciting high.

Daniel clearly revelled in the piece and the Britten were on characteristically top form with some truly beautiful sounds in the strings totally supported by woodwind, brass and percussion. We in Cambridge are so lucky to have this world class orchestra which clearly enjoys its very special relationship with the composer. 

The Tab, Joe Conway
CONCERTO CACOPHONY
Britten Sinfonia, 22nd October 8pm, West Road Concert Hall. £29/£24/£15

The world premiere of a new work involves a huge amount of preparation. Hundreds of hours go into writing the piece, scoring it and, if it’s a concerto, consulting with the soloist. Then the score and parts need to be produced and the solo part learned. All this is before rehearsals begin and the first performance takes place.

This is the kind of intense preparation that will have preceded the premiere tour of James MacMillan’s Oboe Concerto, played by Nicholas Daniel and the Britten Sinfonia, and conducted by the composer. On an occasion like this the composer will be looking not just for accuracy and virtuosity from the soloist but commitment and empathy too.

It’s good to report that Nicholas and James worked hand-in-glove to achieve an exemplary performance of this demanding work. Composer/conductor, soloist and orchestra were at one in putting the piece across with maximum impact. Which is why it is so sad to write that, for me at any rate, it was a complete waste of time and resources . . .

An extreme reaction? Maybe, but here are my reasons. Throughout the concerto’s 20-odd minutes there wasn’t one sustained lyrical solo. There was nothing one could sing, recall, or internalise. And this in a piece for oboe, an instrument which excels at penetrating, poignant melodies.

Instead the instrument was used to convey the kind of frenetic virtuosity one associates with fading jazz saxophonists. A falling third, often played as a tremolo, may have been intended to bind the work together. But in the absence of anything much else in the way of repetition, the concerto gave the impression of a string of unrelated episodes with no discernable formal scheme.

Still more unsatisfactory was the musical language. Written in an atonal-twilight manner with occasional bursts of tonal sunshine, the concerto communicated about as much to me as a lecture delivered in Mandarin. The popular success of composers like Part, Gorecki and Tavener suggests that there’s no law that says contemporary music must get more dissonant, jarring, and incomprehensible with every year that passes. Nor that brownie points are any longer dished out for obscurantism and inaccessibility.

Bizarrely the concert had begun with an electrically-charged performance of Shostakovich’s Chamber Symphony, an arrangement for string orchestra of the quartet. So that once again Shostakovich’s tortured masterpiece provided the most compelling experience of the evening.

Italian Review
There is a also a review online by Michelle Manzotti of the concert in Quotidiano, the review is in Italian.

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