Review: "Some" rather than "The" essential Joe Hisaishi

Dream Songs: The Essential Joe Hisaishi

Decca

Decca’s double album of Joe Hisaishi film music isn’t quite as essential as is claimed on the cover, but contains enough good stuff to justify a listen. The best comes from a session Hisaishi recorded with the London Symphony Orchestra back in 2010, not previously released outside Asia. The LSO’s playing is as sumptuous and tight as you’d expect, with a selection of familiar pieces from Miyazaki Hayao’s films and some more unusual items, such as Water Traveler from an unfamiliar 1990s Japanese film about kid samurai. Leader Roman Simovic is luxary casting in the Kiki's Delivery Service violin solos. The LSO’s strings give the heft needed to do justice to Hisaishi’s trademark sound and sweeping melodies; elsewhere in the collection, which is a hodgepodge of recordings from lots of sources, the playing is less compelling. Hisaishi himself plays the piano on many of the tracks, but his hard and rhythmically rigid playing left me wondering what a more accomplished pianist might make of some of the ballades. There is, however, plenty for a Hisaishi fan to enjoy.

Music in the age of YouTube

I have a certain wariness of just recycling classical PR. The decision to make this blog contactable by email means I receive a lot of press releases, and I'm often left wondering what exactly the senders of these things imagine I'm going to do with them. But the stuff that some organisations put out as "PR" does transcend the bland norm, and some London orchestras are getting pretty good at using YouTube to spread the message and offer something genuinely interesting.

The Philharmonia is one such group whose marketing department have come up with things that are actually worth watching, including the lovely video from Pekka Kuusisto, talking about the indefatigable Vladimiar Ashkenazy. I must own up to a special fondness for both these men, who came to my local concert hall when I was sixteen and gave one of those concerts that propels you towards a life-long infatuation with this wonderful thing called music. I can also concur with Kuusisto's assessment of him, that he's "a really cool dude". It's been my pleasure to have met Ashkenazy a few times, and I can only say that, in his case, "never meet your heroes" is a piece of advice I was happy to have ignored.

There's a lot more to watch on the Philharmonia YouTube page. They're showing the way on this. 

In addition, if you can, do watch the London Symphony Orchestra's live stream on Sunday April 22nd (7.30 BST) - Simon Rattle conducting Tippett and Mahler. Free. And live. What an age we live in.

Header picture screencapped from the Philharmonia's linked video. Images used are done so in line with "fair use" and will be removed at the request of the copyright holder(s).

Those were the Proms that were

Semyon Bychkov and the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the Proms (Photo: Andrew Morris)

It's gone so quickly, especially when seen from a distance. There may be two weeks left, but my Proms are over, save the delayed TV relays and the Last Night hate-watch which, as ever, I hope none of my non-classical friends tune in for. And the distance is because I have never lived further from Prince Albert's mighty, wildly unsuitable hall, so four visits was my lot this 2017 season.

One solitary promenade in the arena meant I stood for less than any season since 2002, but that one Prom was a whopper. Rattle's Gurrelieder - effectively beginning his LSO tenure in style - was the one I'd mentally marked on P-Day (when the Proms are announced and which, now I think about it, is NOT a good name). UK people with a internets can see it on the iPlayer until the end of September, and would be advised to seek it out as, like an eclipse, it's a heavenly wonder that doesn't come around that often.

The others were all Bachtrackers - two from the BBC NOW at the start of the season (Prom 5 and Prom 6), the highlight of which was Nicola Benedetti's completely incredible performance of Shostakovich's First Violin Concerto (and you may have heard that I like him). My last visit was last week's BBCSO performance of Tchaikovsky's Manfred, which you can read about here (look out for a favorite character from Toy Story in the review. See, you want to know now.)

Stop it, James

Hopping channels last night, I stumbled across BBC2’s Artsnight, a 30 minute show dumped in the gaping hole in the schedule left by the Beeb’s bizarre decision a few years ago to jettison Newsnight Review in favour of a monthly arts roundup. Satirist Armando Iannucci took an intriguing look at the role and value of the arts in contemporary society, alighting at classical music, one of his own personal passions. He spoke to pianist James Rhodes about the allure of classical music and about the state of the art today. Unsurprisingly, Rhodes continued the narrative of alarm he’s been peddling for a while. Not without good reason, of course, as we should all be concerned about falling audiences and funding opportunities. But Rhodes seems to have defined himself in direct opposition to the orthodox, to the “scowling pianist” stuffed in a white shirt and tails, and he seemingly needs to attack and caricature the “opposition” in order to justify his own approach.

There is, of course, room for many approaches, and I’m as proud a wearer of jeans to the opera as anyone else who doesn’t believe your attire helps you hear any better. But when speaking, in the short interview in last night’s programme, about the business of classical music, he’s just plain wrong. Despite Rhodes’s claim a new multi-million pound concert hall “seems to be a condition” of Simon Rattle’s arrival at the head of the London Symphony Orchestra, Rattle and the LSO have said that no such condition is in place. He went on:

“Take that £400 million – that’s 4 [or] 5 years of the entire music education budget! We don’t need another hall, and everyone who bleats about “oh well, the acoustics at the barbican aren’t...” Come on! Really? You really care that much? It’s like... Stop it!”

He’s certainly right that this is an enormous amount of money in the face of a culture of underinvestment in music education, but yes, the acoustics at the Barbican are insufficient to showcase the brilliance of an orchestra like the LSO, and no, we are not wrong or somehow elitist for caring that much. Neither is Rattle wrong to care, on two fronts: he is used to getting the best from some of the most miraculously brilliant ensembles in the world and is quite right to ask for the best conditions in which to make music. Secondly, his track record in Birmingham shows how reinvigorating such a project can be: the building of Symphony Hall was a milestone in the city’s cultural history and is a multi-purpose venue, as any in London would surely be.

Anyone who’s ever sat in the cheap seats, at the back of the Royal Festival Hall, the Barbican or in the gods at the Royal Albert Hall can confirm that our precious, wonderful art-form can seem pretty remote and uninvolving from up there. A concern for how our music sounds is not incompatible with a desire to see more switched on to its wondrous brilliance. There are many valid arguments for and against the project, which I’ve no intention of further rehearsing here, but when it comes to the tedious ad hominem attacks on those of us who value slightly different things, please, James, stop it.

John Adams conducts Harmonielehre

John Adams

John Adams began a mini-residence with the London Symphony Orchestra this week, giving me the opportunity to indulge in a bit of nostalgia:

"One of the seminal musical experiences of my student years came at a John Adams concert, some ten years ago. He was conducting the London Symphony Orchestra in a programme entirely of his own music. His piano concerto, Century Rolls, and the punchy showpiece Lollapalooza made up the first half; a much longer one occupied the second. The title of that concluding piece I knew from browsing CDs in HMV (those were the days), but I wasn’t sure how to pronounce it and I certainly knew nothing of its connection to Arnold Schoenberg. Harmonielehre knocked me for six."

Read my full review of the concert at Classical Source.

The Queen and Maxim Vengerov

The Queen with Kathryn McDowell of the LSO and Nicholas Kenyon of the Barbican

Peter Maxwell Davies’s tenure as Master of the Queen’sMusic has produced one innovation worth celebrating: the Queen’s Medal forMusic. Rumour has it that Her Majesty’s not the biggest classical music fan, but it’s good to see her clout being lent to the music world. Previous winners have included Colin Davis, Judith Weir and Emma Kirkby. The 2012 medal was awarded to the National Youth Orchestra, the first organisation to receive the honour, at a gala concert given by the London Symphony Orchestra on Wednesday. Violin fans will have known that this marked Maxim Vengerov’s return to an orchestra he played with often before his period of retirement, but it wasn't all plain sailing for the returning king of the violin. I was at the concert and wrote areview for Classical Source.

A personal apology to Charles Dutoit

Mr Dutoit,

I’m sure you don’t keep up with the critics; why would you?  Those symphonies aren’t going to learn themselves, after all.  So here’s hoping you didn’t see what I wrote about your performance of Tchaikovsky’s 5^th Symphony with the RPO a few weeks ago.  I think I said something like “Was anything ever at stake here? Were there depths beyond Dutoit's shimmering surface? ... on this occasion, not all of the hollowness was Tchaikovsky's own.”  That was a bit much, wasn’t it.  I’ll admit it: I was disappointed with the performance, especially after I’d so much enjoyed your Rite of Spring in London a few months before; but, all considered, I’ll admit I was guilty of a little overstatement.  The performance left me rather nonplussed, but it didn’t make me angry.  It took Valery Gergiev to do that; to make a performance of this same work not so much a distortion as an act of vandalism.  So I’m sorry for being a bit mean and I’ll look forward to your next concert.  Honestly, I will; now that I know just how much worse that Tchaikovsky really could have been.

Ta,
Andrew

Grill Mutter on Facebook



Photo: Tina Tahir/DG


Want to ask Anne-Sophie Mutter a question?  She'll be taking part in a Q&A session organised by the London Symphony Orchestra, to be streamed live on Facebook tomorrow afternoon.  Come up with a good'un and fire it their way here.

Review: Midori plays Paganini and Tchaikovsky

Paganini

Violin Concerto No. 1 in D, Op. 6

Tchaikovsky

Sérénade mélancolique, Op.26

Valse-Scherzo, Op. 34 

Midori (violin)

London Symphony Orchestra/

Leonard Slatkin

Newton Classics 8802028 

 

If you've noticed a slew of red topped Newton Classics discs appearing in online catalogues and stores, the good news is that their mining of the recorded past is set to continue and will ultimately lead to new recordings of their own.  One such reissue is this early recording by Japanese-American violinist Midori, who set these pieces down on disc in 1987, at the age of just 13.  Her subsequent success has seen her avoid the pitfalls of such early precocity and forge a continuously rewarding solo career, but that first flush of talent is captured here and makes for startling listening.

From her first entry in Paganini's First Violin Concerto, Midori's playing demands no special allowances for her age.  She's extrovert and characterful and has a greater perfection of intonation than some of her prominent seniors.  If you were without prior warning, you'd never know that this super confident playing belonged to one so young. Her subtle slides are stylish and in the taxing cadenza she remains unfazed and commanding.  In this Concerto, she is certainly superior in technique to Ilya Kaler on Naxos (8550694) and though Hilary Hahn is more crisply characterful and rhythmically incisive (Deutsche Grammophon 4776232), that hardly reduces Midori's achievement. If age is at all telling, it is in the more purely melodic moments which lack the expressive shading and nuance of a more mature musician.

It's this lack of maturity that makes Midori's performances of the two Tchaikovsky items less appealing. Although she still plays with a full, attractive tone, her way with the growing melody of the Serenade Melancolique is a little one dimensional. Once set, the dynamics and weight on the bow alter little and she suggests little in the way of spontaneity.  The bounce of the Valse Scherzo is absent, and Leonard Slatkin's leaden direction in the orchestral introduction doesn't help. It may seem churlish to pick on aspects of musicianship that a 13 year old cannot yet possibly have developed, but if you're going to buy this disc for the repertoire alone, you'd be best looking for alternatives in the Tchaikovsky.  Julia Fischer's Pentatone recording (PTC5186095), coupling these two charming works with the Violin Concerto and the Souvenir d'un lieu cher, is one of the best violin records of recent years and would serve as a better first port of call.

Ultimately, this reissue works best as a document of a remarkable case of early talent, with Midori offering a very enjoyable performance of Paganini's D major concerto and a technical security far beyond her years.  The violin is consistently well recorded, though sits rather more prominently in the mix than the orchestral accompaniment.

This review originally appeared at Musicweb-International.