CityLife

Czech Philharmonic / Halle

Czech Philharmonic / Halle
Bridgewater Hall
October 28 and 29, 2009

TWO glamorous star soloists in two days brightened life at the Bridgewater Hall.

Both were former BBC Young Musician competition winners, both at the age of 16.

Czech Philharmonic

First was Nicola Benedetti, the Scottish violinist, playing Tchaikovsky’s concerto with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra. Her technique is astounding – even extending to a quick on-the-hoof retuning of a slipped string in the slow movement.

Maybe she felt she still had to prove her mettle in the finale because she tore into that at a furious pace.

Her technique kept up the machine-gun fire of super-fast staccato, though, to an extent I’ve seldom heard before.

The orchestra was as much the star of the show.

Martinù’s Estampes demonstrated the vivid colours of its wind section, and Dvorák’s seventh symphony was music that flowed from their souls.

The conductor Jakub Hrùša could be proud of them.

Halle

At the Hallé’s Thursday concert, cellist Natalie Clein played Walton’s concerto.

Its laid-back bitter-sweetness may be an acquired taste, but she gave it all the passion and nobility of tone which are her hallmarks.

The concert was conducted by Cristian Mandeal who gave Vaughan Williams’s Fantasia On A Theme Of Thomas Tallis a inquisitive reading.

His approach to Ravel’s La Valse was equally iconoclastic, with a first part every bit as sinister in its bump-and-grind and hard-edged glitz as the second is in other hands.

There was Boléro to end with. But it sounded almost epic in Mandeal’s hands, and the crowd loved it.

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