CityLife

The Hallé: Beethoven, Brahms, Mussorgsky

Halle Orchestra
Bridgewater Hall
January 13, 2010

JOHN LILL is back on the Hallé platform this week, playing Brahms’s second piano concerto, a perennial favourite, and was rewarded with a rapturous reception from January 13's Opus One audience.

It’s a piece the Hallé should feel is a little special for them, too, as their founder played the solo in its British premiere (not in Manchester, but earlier than the Crystal Palace performance often thought to be its UK first).

With Cristian Mandéal on the podium and Lyn Fletcher leading, the concert began with a stylish, vivid and tension-filled account of Beethoven’s Coriolan overture. It was full-orchestra Beethoven, but taut and open-textured, with the cellos’ insistent figures scything through the whole time.

Intense colour

There was a change for the Brahms – full bowing, warm phrasing and a richer sound to complement John Lill’s straight-from-the-shoulder, clear and ringing tone.

The second movement was compelling, shifting from vehemence to tenderness to heroic anthem and back again, and Nicholas Trygstad’s entrancing cello solo set the mood of serenity for the Andante. Mandéal was completely at home in the varied, folksy tunes of the finale, and ensured idiomatic ‘gipsy’ style and springing rhythms.

The second half was Ravel’s orchestration of Mussorgsky’s Pictures At An Exhibition. The originals may have been mainly watercolours and drawings, but these were glowing with intense colour (in Gnomus), mixed with delicate and sensitive pastels (The Old Castle), sometimes almost pointilliste (Tuileries) and occasionally laid on with a palette knife (the climax of Bydlo).

In other words, brilliantly played. Cristian Mandéal even gave us his own impersonation for the Ballet Of The Chicks, and made the most of Ravel’s added dynamic contrasts in The Great Gate Of Kiev – the most glistening canvas of all.

Repeated on January 17, 2010.