Hallé Orchestra @ Bridgewater Hall
Heinrich Schiff
THE Hallé’s visitor for this week’s Opus One concerts is both cello soloist and conductor – Heinrich Schiff. He’s done great things in both roles with them before.
This time he opened with Saint-Saens’ little-heard first cello concerto, playing solo and directing, with his back to the band.
The playing was wonderful: the directing showed the weakness of the seating arrangement now and then.
But the lyrical beauty he caught in those brief moments where the composer allows for it was exceptional.
The overture came next. I’m not quite sure why, as it took as long to re-arrange the rostrum as it might have done the other way round, and the programme had been printed on the assumption of overture first.
But never mind, Weber’s Oberon overture is good fun and allows an orchestra to show its paces.
Mime
The Hallé’s (led by Paul Barritt) clearly warmed Heinrich Schiff’s heart, as he thanked them, in mime, for one particular figuration in the allegro.
His reading of Beethoven’s third (‘Eroica’) symphony was both brisk and graceful – a reminder of the fact that the first movement is in dancing three-time as well as the last (and in fact derives from it - the sketches show that the content of the last was settled before Beethoven wrote the first).
Schiff managed to combine this dancing grace with telling exposition of the main theme’s various changes: a masterly achievement, matched by poised gravity and sprightly boisterousness for the slow movement and scherzo.
The finale’s counterpoints were highlighted and its momentum skilfully built until the slowdown near the end, which emerged as a Pastoral-style benediction on all that had been before – a telling vision of a great work of art.
Repeated Thursday and Sunday (Nov 20/23). Call 0161 907 9000.
Published: Thu, 20 November, 2008
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