James Lowe, conductor and music director of the Spokane Symphony, strode onstage Saturday night to begin the first concert of the orchestra’s 80th season as one of the most beloved and highly valued members of the Spokane Arts community.
Nodding briefly to acknowledge the storm of applause, Lowe turned to his orchestra, asking them to rise and giving the downbeat to begin the national anthem. Was it just this listener’s emotional projection, or was there an added measure of intensity – both in Lowe’s direction and the players’ response – to the familiar tune? To be sure, a new season was beginning, but might the higher emotional pitch not also have been a response to the fraught and anxious times in which the concert was taking place? There was at least one member of the audience who felt an outreach by this dedicated group of artists, inviting us to find strength and solace in the power of music to heal, unite and inspire. Surely, feelings of this kind moved Joan Degerstrom to underwrite the substantial cost of the concert we were about to hear, just as a belief in the foundational importance of the Spokane Symphony to our community moved the Avista Foundation to underwrite the 2025-26 season.
Much of the expense of the program was down to the composition that dominated it – the Symphony No. 1 in D (1888) by Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) – which required a greatly augmented orchestra and the rental of a library of pricey sheet music. Degerstrom’s generosity also allowed Lowe the luxury of engaging mezzo-soprano Ashley Dixon to perform a little-known but immensely interesting and enjoyable secondary work: a suite of Sieben Lieder (Seven Songs) by a fascinating young woman, Alma Schindler, who became Mahler’s wife and a commanding figure in the social history of 20th century music.
Schindler also provided a link to the composer of the opening item on the program, the Intermezzo from “Es War Einmal” (“Once Upon a Time” – 1899) by Alexander Zemlinsky (1871-1942), a younger contemporary whose career as a composer was promoted by Mahler, who, by the mid-1880s, had become known as a conductor, though not yet a composer of genius. As suggested by the Intermezzo we heard, Zemlinsky was a highly skilled composer who lacked the ability to communicate to an audience anything beyond a very generalized sort of emotion. He belonged to a school of composition popular in central Europe at the end of the 19th century that was so in love with Wagner’s opera “Tristan und Isolde,” which goes on for four hours before finally reaching a cadence, or point of harmonic resolution, that they swore allegiance to the piece, dedicating their careers to creating nothing but works in its image. The Intermezzo is taken from a work intended as a lighthearted comedy, and so is more conservative and formal in its approach; it shares with Zemlinsky’s other works, such as his “Lyric Symphony” (1923), the trait of being – while plainly serious and carefully crafted – resolutely unmemorable.
What shall remain in memory, however, is the lively, committed performance accorded the piece by the Spokane Symphony. The pointed phrasing in the strings; the heartfelt attempt by oboist Keith Thomas; oboe, flutist Julia Pyke; flute and bassoonist Lynn Feller-Marshall to impart character to Zemlinsky’s faceless writing was very welcome. These and other members of the orchestra, who could not manage to be uninteresting if they tried, found a welcoming object for their artistry in the works to follow.
Though Alma Mahler was barely out of her teens when she was compelled by Gustav Mahler to abandon her work as a composer to focus on his needs, the suite of seven songs we heard gives evidence of a distinct and attractive voice, along with mastery of an advanced harmonic vocabulary. The texts, all by contemporary poets, occupy the fairly narrow range of emotion favored by artists of the period. The scenes described, even when bathed in sunlight, evoke a twilight world of emotion poised between hope and fear, erotic rapture and despair. As a composer sensitive to linguistic nuance, Alma Mahler employs harmonies that suggest delicate shadings, not bold strokes of color and melodies that shift ambiguously between keys, rather than ever being so blatant as to commit themselves to one or another.
It was Dixon’s singing that provided the emotional force and poignancy that is only suggested in the music. The arresting beauty of her voice , the flexibility with which she moves throughout her considerable range and her artfulness in verbal shading resulted in a performance that suggested these little-known songs should become staples of the repertory.
The arrangements of Alma Mahler’s original piano accompaniments for full orchestra were carried out by Colin and David Matthews. Their skill and artistry in emphasizing verbal values by applying instrumental color are evident in every bar. There were several passages in which an overuse of instrumental shifts and touches distracted the listener’s attention from Dixon’s unified projection of text and music, creating a sense more of competition than collaboration. With a musical presence as commanding as Dixon’s to contend with, though, the outcome of the competition was never in doubt.
When experienced in the context of contemporaneous composers like Zemlinsky and Alma Mahler, a performance of Gustav Mahler’s First Symphony gains stature from our ability to see not only what he did, but what he chose not to do. Not for him, the sense of aimless transition or emotional ambivalence that stunted the career of the talented Zemlinsky or kept the brilliant Schoenberg permanently ensconced in the third tier of significant composers. Gustav Mahler’s work never leaves us wondering where the music is headed. It never asks us to exchange powerful emotions for muted ones, or to settle for ambivalence rather than fulfillment. No composer in history is more capable of delivering both emotional and intellectual excitement in measure after measure over lengthy spans of musical argument than Gustav Mahler. That is why he must be included in any consideration of symphonic music along with Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert and Brahms.
Never have all of these outstanding attributes of Gustav Mahler’s music been more thrillingly displayed than they were in this performance of his First Symphony by James Lowe and the Spokane Symphony. Gustav Mahler calls for very large orchestral forces in this work (eight horns!), not only to provide the excitement of continual fortissimo playing, but to provide the widest possible quality of what we would now call “dynamic range”: the experience of extreme stillness or delicacy depends on our also being able to experience extreme vehemence, complexity and power. This axiom could serve pretty well as a thumbnail description of Gustav Mahler’s D major Symphony, which attempts, as he once told Sibelius every symphony should do, to embrace the whole world.
Along with his commitment to tonality and symphonic structure, Gustav Mahler never abandoned melody. This may account for the neglect his music received for the 50 years following his death of heart disease at 51. It also accounts for the relative obscurity in which Zemlinsky, Schoenberg and other of Gustav Mahler’s contemporaries now languish.
Lowe’s unflagging mastery in clarifying the linkage between Gusta Mahler’s stream of melody, his ability to manage the composer’s juxtaposition of contrasting moods and styles, and his ability to reveal an unbroken arc of coherence validated his credentials as a Mahlerian of the first class. Our appetite to hear more was not satisfied, but enflamed. Seeing Lowe and the Spokane Symphony again joined by Dixon in more Gustav Mahler – perhaps “Das Lied von der Erde” (The Song of the Earth) or “Kindertotenlieder” (Songs on the Death of Children) – now there’s a consummation devoutly to be wished.
Larry Lapidus - The Spokesman-Review
The past weekend saw the Spokane Symphony and Music Director James Lowe return to the Martin Woldson Theater at the Fox for the ninth and final pair of concerts of the 2024-25 season – the 79th consecutive year in the Masterworks series. Though not billed as a “gala concert,” it certainly would have qualified. The featured soloist was not only an internationally celebrated, but also a local celebrity: Zuill Bailey, who 10 years ago took the reins of the Northwest Bach Festival and transformed it into NW Bachfest – one of the country’s most admired chamber music festivals.
Adding further glamour to the occasion was the presence of Michael Dougherty, one of today’s leading composers. He came to town to attend Masterworks 9, the centerpiece of which was his concerto for cello and orchestra, “Tales from Hemingway,” which he composed 10 years ago specifically for Bailey, and a recording of which went on in 2017 to win an unprecedented three Grammys in the classical section: Best New Composition, Best Instrumental Solo and Best Album.
If that were not enough to ensure that everyone leave the concert feeling that they had been present at something unique and memorable, Maestro Lowe filled out the program with three works that displayed the brilliance of his orchestra and the acoustics of the hall at their best: Sir Edward Elgar’s (1857-1934) masterly symphonic postcard “From the South” (1904), Camille Pepin’s (b. 1990) display of orchestral wizardry “Les Eaux Céleste (Heavenly Waters)” (2022) and, to conclude, the perennial showpiece “The Pines of Rome” of 1924 by Ottorino Respighi (1879-1936).
At Saturday’s preconcert lecture, Lowe brought with him onstage both Bailey and Dougherty to provide some background to the performance of “Tales of Hemingway.” With characteristic modesty, Bailey credited the unique tonal qualities of his Gofriller cello as the reason for Dougherty’s determination that Bailey be his soloist for “Tales of Hemingway.” Yes, it is certainly a great instrument, but others have played it without attracting the acclaim that Bailey excites wherever he goes. There is no doubt that the composer heard in Bailey’s artistry the ability to convey joy tinged with sadness, hope melded with fear, love and loneliness combined. This is life, and this is also art at its greatest.
It is certainly central to the genius of earnest Hemingway. “Tales from Hemingway” comprises four movements, each portraying the central characters in four famous Hemingway works: “The Big Two-Hearted River,” “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” “The Old Man and the Sea” and “The Sun Also Rises,” each of which is seeking to regain the sense of wholeness that earlier traumas have taken from him, and succeeding, if at all, only partially. One can assume that Daugherty, with his penetrating, hyper-sensitive ear and daring aural imagination, heard in Bailey’s playing the ideal voice for each of his four wounded Hemingway anti-heroes. We certainly did.
We also witnessed a display of instrumental virtuosity that few, if any, could equal . If your notion of challenging music for the cello is based on works by Saint Saens, Schumann and Dvorak, rest assured, you ain’t heard nothin’ yet. Daugherty asks his soloist to perform feats of agility and stamina both with the bow and on the fingerboard of which earlier composers never dreamed. He places great demands, also, on the orchestra’s discipline and skill, not only to impress, but to extend and amplify the listener’s awareness of Hemingway’s emotional range, from the haunted lyricism of the woodlands of Michigan, to the battlefields and bullrings of fascist Spain, to a lonely confrontation with death on the Caribbean Sea.
The ability of Daugherty’s concerto to transport us to places and times remote from our own was to be found in the other pieces on the program, as well. In her tone-poem, “Les Eaux Céleste,” Camille Pepin employs some highly original instrumental techniques to evoke the sound-world of an antique Chinese myth in which two illicit lovers are punished by the gods to spend eternity as heavenly bodies separated by the whole of the milky way, except for one day each year, during which they can rejoin one another by means of a bridge of cloud. Pepin asks percussionists to bow rather than strike their instruments producing a shimmering lyricism of uncertain pitch. She combines this with gentle, repetitive murmurings in the strings and irregular interjections from winds and brass, all of which conveys to the audience an experience of celestial energy, surging and receding over time.
The orchestral means employed by Elgar to evoke his own robust pleasure at escaping the pressures of stratified English society for the sensual joys of the Italian Riviera could hardly been more different from Pepin’s diaphanous sound-world, yet it is no less compelling. The orchestra employed by Elgar was essentially Wagner’s orchestra, which means it was strongly colored by the chorales of brass and low strings. Shortly before composing In the South, Elgar had shown his mastery of this orchestra in his “Enigma” Variations, which we heard earlier this year as part of the Masterworks 5 program. While In the South shows the same skill at mixing colors and generating compelling rhythmic energy, the flame of melodic invention burns at a much lower level, with one notable exception. Midway through the work, the bustling urgency of the opening section subsides, and Elgar evokes a calm, pastoral scene over which floats the voice of a shepherd intoning a “Canto Popolare (Popular Song)” of Elgar’s own devising.
This song, which Elgar later extracted and published as a separate piece for viola and piano, is also voiced by the viola in “In the South.” It gave us a welcome and too infrequent opportunity to enjoy the immaculate artistry of Nick Carper, principal viola of the orchestra. As always, Carper’s playing was radiantly beautiful, produced by expressing beguiling lyricism with a technique that may serve as a model for anyone attempting to capture the viola’s elusive resources. One was left with an urgent desire to hear more from this wonderful musician. For a few, treasurable measures, Elgar combines the viola in duet with the horn, which was played for us by Principal Clinton Webb, providing us with yet another occasion to feel grateful for his presence in our orchestra.
In other hands, the ingenuity with which Respighi uses the orchestra to evoke a sense of place and its atmosphere can sometimes drown out the music itself, creating an impression of vulgarity. Fortunately, this performance, which closed the program of Masterpiece 9, was safely in the hands of James Lowe, who always managed such attention-grabbing devices as an offstage trumpet or the recorded call of a nightingale (remember, this was premiered in 1924!) with a light hand. Even in the final movement, in which Respighi’s contemplation of the Pines of the Appian Way leads to a depiction of the legions of antiquity marching in triumph into Rome, one had the sense of power being held in reserve until the very climax, allowing the flute of Julia Pyke to retain its sweetness and the oboe of Keith Thomas its roundness, while the very large brass chorale sounded, as it should, not strident, but commanding.
The wild enthusiasm with which the audience greeted the conclusion of Respighi’s “Pines of Rome” was gratifying, but no surprise, given the brilliance of the performance. What was less expected, but no less justified, was the standing ovation that preceded the performance. It was the unsolicited but wholly irresistible response of the audience to Lowe’s announcement from the stage of the impending retirement, after 42 years in the orchestra, of cellist Helen Byrne. As assistant-principal cello of the orchestra, cellist of the Spokane String Quartet, organist at Manito Presbyterian Church and calm but determined spokesperson for musicians’ rights, Byrne epitomizes the strength of character, commitment to community service and devotion to the ennobling power of music that James Lowe listed as the ultimate goals of musical study. Despite Byrne’s determined gestures that we remain seated, we rose as one to express our gratitude for all this extraordinary woman has given to our community.
Larry Lapidus - The Spokesman-Review
As stormtroopers, Chewbacca and Darth Vader entertained the crowd in the lobby of the Fox Theater half an hour past starting time for the Spokane Symphony’s “Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back” show Saturday evening, Music Director James Lowe was backstage opening the score of the movie for the first time.
Conductor Morihiko Nakahara had a fall on his way back to his hotel earlier in the day and was in the emergency room getting stitches, so an uncertain Lowe stepped in to help.
“As we were having frantic phone calls, I went to the hall and opened the score for the first time to see if I could conduct this,” Lowe said Sunday. “I had no idea if I was going to have to sight read the whole of the movie or what was happening.”
Conducting a full symphony through the score of a movie live is no small feat, Lowe said.
The original score for “The Empire Strikes Back” by John Williams is timed exactly to what’s occurring on screen.
“Conducting a movie is an incredibly complicated thing, because obviously the movie doesn’t adjust,” Lowe said. “There’s no room for error at all.”
But as the saying goes, the show must go on.
Lowe took to the stage, apologized for the delay and explained to the audience that he would likely be sight reading most of the score after a medical emergency made Nakahara unavailable.
“May the fourth be with us,” Lowe said before the performance began, alluding to the May 4 date and iconic “Star Wars” pun.
For Blue Stiley, nestled into his seat eagerly awaiting the start of the performance, the impromptu change added to his anticipation.
“Immediately everyone was excited for it,” said Stiley, who was joined by his daughter Haiden, 9.
That enthusiasm was bolstered both by Stiley’s love for “Star Wars,” especially “The Empire Strikes Back,” and his anticipation for the performance. He was unsure what to expect with a live score to one of his favorite movies.
“The movie starts, and every time that there’s any score, the symphony is playing,” Stiley said, noting the actors could be heard loud and clear. “I forgot the symphony was playing 95%. It was that good. It was that down pat.”
Then about 40 minutes in, Lowe saw Nakahara sneaking up beside him in the dark.
“He came and he absolutely nailed it from beginning to end,” Lowe said. “I don’t know how to describe him, what a hero and a trooper.”
‘An impossible task’
Nakahara, who conducts a handful of times a year for the Spokane Symphony, left rehearsal at about 4:30 p.m. to head back to the Davenport Grand where he was staying.
He was excited for the show, he said, in part because “The Empire Strikes Back” is his wife’s favorite “Star Wars” movie, and she had come to watch him conduct.
“I get out of the car, and somehow I manage to trip over the curb,” he said. “I should have just fallen, but I think I can somehow save myself.”
Like a slow-motion scene in a movie, Nakahara said he fell forward, walking as he went, trying to stay upright, before finally losing his balance into a jagged stone flower bed.
Hotel employees rushed over. Both his wife and an ambulance were quickly called as blood gushed from Nakahara’s forehead.
“At this point, I’m just kind of freaking out because I’m panicking,” he said. “I have a show.”
Nakahara was taken to Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center, where as he waited for the doctor, he began calling people at the symphony.
They decided to delay the show, and Lowe offered to step in to conduct. Someone rushed up to the emergency room to get Nakahara’s score and deliver it to Lowe.
Nakahara got six stitches in his forehead and rushed out of the hospital to swoop in and finish the show. He joked that he looked like a bad cosplay of “Star Wars” villain Kylo Ren with the scars on the wrong side of his face.
“I knew I was going to be late, but it was never, like, in my mind to miss it,” Nakahara said.
Mateusz Wolski, concert master and first violinist, was sitting at the Fox an hour before the show when he got an email about Nakahara’s accident.
He tried not to panic, but Wolski knew such a big change would be hard to overcome in an already difficult performance.
“It’s a monumental challenge for the orchestra, because this music was not really written to be played straight through for the movie,” Wolski said. “The conductors are sort of like the glue that holds it together.”
Wolski was amazed that Lowe was game to take on the impromptu role.
“It’s just kind of an impossible task,” Wolski said.
But no one wanted to cancel the show, and the musicians had faith that they could pull it off.
“I don’t know how many people would be gutsy enough to even try something like this,” Wolski said of Lowe. “In the first part of the movie has probably the hardest score for us to play.”
As the symphony began playing the “Battle of Hoth,” Wolski said, he felt like the symphony was fighting, too.
“We feel like we are battling ourselves,” he said. “Everybody is just pulling together. We get through the dang snow battle, and we finish together.”
Then Wolski saw Nakahara sneaking by him. In a 45-second break, Nakahara took over for Lowe. Nakahara conducted the next three-minute piece with one hand, holding his earpiece in the other, Wolski said.
The audience witnessed the switch, Wolski said, bringing a new energy to the moment.
Meredith and Carol Jobe flew up from Sacramento to take their grandson, Nathan, 5, to the performance.
The boy was so inspired by the ordeal he spent a couple minutes conducting in his seat, Carol Jobe said.
His grandparents were impressed not only by the performance, but by the perseverance of the two conductors.
“I was just very impressed by both the courage and the grace of the director,” Meredith Jobe said. “I just thought, wow, that was pretty impressive.”
The whole ordeal, Wolski said, reminded him of why live music is so important.
“In the era of perfect movies and ChatGPT and artificial intelligence, this kind of thing can only actually transpire when you have live music and the show is on the line and there’s no really second chances,” he said. “Everybody pulled together and created magic.”
Small-scale, consoling, with a touch of escapism – that’s been the tone of a number of online orchestral concerts I’ve heard lately. You can see why orchestras would want to strike that tone during a lockdown, when we could all do with some soothing.
Still, it was good to hear a big-boned ambitious concert from the RSNO which was consoling only in the sense that it was perfectly “normal”, i.e. a programme one might hear in normal times. It launched off with a recent piece by 60-something British composer Errollyn Wallen that was substantial rather than a mere curtain-raiser, which the contemporary piece in an orchestral programme so often is. Titled Mighty River, it’s a piece from 2007 honouring the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade, and the composer’s great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother, who was probably a slave herself. That might have inspired an angry or stubbornly defiant piece, but Wallen never responds to a challenge in the way you’d expect. Instead she seized on the image of a river, as irresistible in its striving to reach the sea as the human urge to find freedom.
The opening was a surprise – the hymn Amazing Grace, intoned by a single horn. We heard much of that redemptive song, woven almost imperceptible with other scraps of hymns and spirituals into the music’s fabric. Around a steady, harmonically still rhythmic pulsation these tendrils of melody unfolded, like eddies in the water’s flow. Wallen very subtly evoked the sense of a river that is never in a hurry, in fact it often seemed to dawdle and digress on its course, but a sudden shift back to the opening harmony would restore a sense of purpose. As always, Wallen’s brilliantly clear orchestration and willingness to use simple, even naive, things was captivating. Did the river digress a bit too much? Possibly. But the piece was winning nonetheless.
After the uncomplicated brightness of Wallen’s piece the heavy romantic yearning of Wagner’s Wesendonck-Lieder came as a shock, but a pleasant one. The poems by Wagner’s one-time lover Mathilde Wesendonck are frankly poor stuff, full of conventional romantic yearning for night-time and oblivion. Conductor James Lowe chose to perform the songs in the prismatic, almost fractured orchestral arrangements by German modernist Hans Werner Henze. They certainly let some air into the songs’ foetid atmosphere, but were distractingly over-elaborate.
But it didn’t matter, because Scotland’s own tremendous Wagnerian mezzo-soprano Karen Cargill was on hand. She sustained Wagner’s enormously long lines with majestic gravity, her tone as strong as steel even when it faded to a near-whisper. Here as elsewhere, Lowe, standing in for Ryan Bancroft at very short notice, paced the music very intelligently, making it both flowing and spacious.
That quality was a boon in the final piece, Dvořák’s New World Symphony, where the long-winded tunes and repetitions can easily clog the music’s flow. Lowe kept tedium at bay so well with subtle dynamic and tempo inflections you could almost believe the symphony was a real masterpiece after all.
Click here to read on the Telegraph website
Ivan Hewett, CHIEF CLASSICAL MUSIC CRITIC, The Telegraph
Let’s put this in context. James MacMillan’s Tryst, from 1989, was his breakthrough piece. The Confession of Isobel Gowdie, from the following year, usually collects that accolade, which is true in an international sense. But Tryst is the work where it all happened.
And in the SCO’s rigorous analysis and performance of the work in its Masterworks series on Monday night in Edinburgh, the core of Tryst was laid bare in an astounding analysis of the work by Paul Rissmann, with the SCO conducted by James Lowe, demonstrating and exemplifying its elements.
Absolutely no stone was left unturned in this comprehensive deconstruction of the piece, which, structure by structure, cell by cell and motive by motive, took the music apart and revealed its core, explaining the function, purpose and links of every element of the piece, from its woodwind wails to its trumpet fanfares, its block chords, its pugnacious, acerbic rhythms, its reductive passages, its collisions and the stark juxtapositions and superimpositions, now familiar and quintessential elements in the MacMillan style book, but so startling 20 years ago.
Beginning with the William Soutar poem, and MacMillan’s seminal setting of it; following it through the seedbed violin study After the Tryst (with a flavour of the piece from SCO leader Chris George) and through to the final work itself, outstandingly played by the SCO with big Jim Lowe in magisterial form, this was premier league music education and top drawer performance in indivisible alliance.
As for Paul Rissmann, I knew he was good – but this good? This was a tour de force of intellectual, musical and educational navigation. Masterworks indeed, in more ways than one. A nomination for an award from someone, please.
Michael Tumelty, The Herald
When it’s difficult to sit still at a concert it means one of two things: that the performance is either very bad or very good. Fortunately this fell into the latter category.
The initial auguries were not promising. I had been looking forward to tonight’s concert as it marks the return of conductor Frans Bruggen, who was one of the finest guest conductors to join the Scottish Chamber Orchestra last year for an all Mendelssohn programme. For his return he was opting for Beethoven with the ballet The Creatures of Prometheus and the second symphony.
I was, therefore, initially somewhat disappointed to see the poster on my way in that stated Bruggen had withdrawn from the concert. We hope all is well with the 74 year old conductor and wish him a speedy return to the podium, hopefully here in Edinburgh.
His replacement was James Lowe, a young and up and coming Scottish conductor. I heard him during the summer when he conducted the amateur Rose Street Ensemble in a rather interesting programme (and a friend of ours who plays in that ensemble gives he rave reviews, indeed, by coincidence, and by way of declaring an interest, I met him in passing in the pub last week after film club).
Beethoven is tricky ground for anyone conducting the SCO. After all, Mackerras’s stunning series of the symphonies at the 2006 festival still rings in the minds as all, such as myself, who had the privilege to hear them. Many conductors who’ve tackled the works with them since have fallen short in comparison.
Interestingly, the programme placed the The Creatures of Prometheus first. Lowe has a dynamic style and the orchestra were at their most responsive for him. Well, nearly; perhaps not quite so much as with Mackerras, but that may be that the latter has a better understanding of their capabilities, or a better knowledge of how to get them, as once or twice it felt Lowe pushed them further than they could go. That said, Beethoven should always sound a little raw.
He got some wonderfully sharp contrasting dynamics and was at his most persuasive in the quicker moments. It is true that at times a little more subtlety would have been nice, but this was Beethoven at his most youthful. Superb solo performances were given by Clarinetist Maximiliano Martin, David Watkin (as ever) and also bassoonist Peter Whelan (at least, I assume so, the second bassoon is credited in the programme as Alison Green, but it certainly wasn’t her).
Then came the second half and the second symphony. I always find it an interesting work: unlike many of the other symphonies, I would be hard pushed to hum any of the tunes, yet from the moment I hear the opening bars I feel as though I’m back with a dear old friend. A dear, old, fresh and rejuvenated friend in Lowe’s hands. The slow opening was nicely taken before they launched thrillingly into the main theme, and I started to struggle to sit still. My head wanted to move, my feet to tap and I even fancied a little armchair conducting as I might in the privacy of my own living room. I wasn’t the only one: leader Christopher George played with a wonderful energy, swaying on his seat as he did so.
Like the best of Beethoven it was full of surprises, the orchestra playing superbly. Though, if there was a reservation, it would be that the volume was a bit too high for the Queen’s Hall much of the time, yet they seemed to display a wider dynamic range than in the first half. Also, while the pauses were full of tension, they could have been held that bit longer, for that bit more drama.
But it wasn’t just the faster moments such as the first and last movements that were electric: the slow movement and the scherzo were both filled with drama too.
This was one of the finest and most enjoyable performances of the second that it has been my pleasure to hear, and I’ve heard Mackerras conduct with the same band so my praise doesn’t get too much higher than that.
Only one question remains: when can we next expect to hear Lowe on the podium at the Queen’s Hall? I don’t know if the orchestra’s management reads this blog, I expect not, but they could do an awful lot worse than engage his services more frequently (certainly they have done much worse in the past). Perhaps we might have him as principal guest conductor when Elts’ contract is up.
Tam Pollard, Where's Runnicles?
IT IS the lot of the players in opera orchestras to spend much of their lives in the confines of an orchestra pit, so when the members of the Orchestra of Welsh National Opera were given the chance to display their symphonic aspirations in the airy space of St Davids Cathedral, their enthusiasm was almost palpable.
This year is Mendelssohn’s bicentenary, so it was fitting that the 40th Fishguard International Festival should open with one of his most popular works, the Hebrides Overture. From the word go it allowed the young conductor, James Lowe, to show his considerable mettle as he deftly navigated the orchestra through storm and cross-current to bring us securely into the serenity of Fingal’s Cave.
The festival’s president, celebrated pianist Peter Donahoe, then joined the orchestra for Rachmaninov’s Rhapsody on a theme of Paganini. This was no routine performance of that ever-popular work. Donahoe’s pianism was simply dazzling, as delicate in colour as it was dramatic in power, and he was supported by some superbly precise orchestral playing under Lowe’s astute direction.
The second half of the concert was devoted to Schubert’s Ninth Symphony in C major. Although Schubert died shortly after completing it, the symphony is still a young man’s work, and at St Davids it received a fittingly ebullient performance at the hands of another young man who is clearly destined for stardom. Many conductors treat the work with so much reverential deference to its sobriquet ‘great’ that they adopt grandiose gestures and ponderous tempi, but there was nothing ponderous in Lowe’s daring interpretation.
He demanded – and got – some stunning feats of virtuosity from the orchestra, and brought out the work’s exuberance and dramatic force with impressive panache. From the opening horn theme to the measured tread of the slow movement and the daring brilliance of the scherzo we were held in thrall.
John Rushby Smith, Western Mail
The music of Ralph Vaughan Williams flows in the blood of English choral societies and it’s hard to think of a composer who was more dedicated to the cause of communal music-making. Undeterred by the snow, Music for Everyone rose to the many challenges of his mighty Sea Symphony on Saturday, a work full of the power and mystery of the ocean and one which tests the stamina and range of its performers to the full.
Its enduring popularity with choirs does not mean that it’s easy to bring off a successful performance in the concert hall. On CD engineers can balance its huge forces so that everything is crystal clear. Not so in a live performance. So it’s worth saying that conductor James Lowe not only directed his musicians with insight and energy but he also knew that orchestral restraint was sometimes necessary for greater overall impact. The attack of the opening brass flourish and the choir’s thrilling ‘Behold the Sea itself’ was typical of the performance that followed. The well-matched and eloquent soloists were Claire Seaton and David Stout.
As well as Mendelssohn’s The Fair Melusine, there was more Vaughan Williams in the concert’s first half: his Tallis Fantasia, a magical work which reaches deep into the soul of England and its musical heritage. Again the forces (large and small string groups plus quartet) were perfectly balanced – and as a delightful surprise the performance was preceded by an off-stage choir singing Tallis’ original hymn tune.
