Plymouth Symphony Orchestra shines with heavenly Sky

Not that many months ago, it was quite a challenge to feel comfortable, sitting on the somewhat unyielding pews of Plymouth’s Mother Church in the run-up to Christmas, with the boiler out-of-action, and the temperature decidedly less than balmy.

But during the current bout of Mediterranean weather, it proved the ideal venue for Plymouth Symphony Orchestra’s (PSO) Summer Concert – cool, airy, and with beams of sunlight evincing some lovely tints from the glorious Reyntiens stained-glass windows – even if this wasn’t overly appreciated by some of the players, as the direct sunlight mercilessly sought to target their individual desk as the evening progressed.

On top form

The concert-opener – Shostakovich’s ‘Festival Overture’ – was an excellent piece of programming, with its introductory brass fanfare, which saw the PSO brass section on top form, with such really powerful, yet totally assured playing. Had this been the Guildhall, with its far-from-ideal acoustic, the sound would have had far less attack and immediacy, even though it would still have tended to overpower the rest of the orchestra – especially the strings – whenever it joined in.

An exhilarating starter

The church’s acoustic is so very different, in that it virtually allows the listener to pinpoint each individual solo instrument’s location, even if, unfortunately, actual visibility is often impaired by the supporting columns. But this proved an exhilarating starter from all concerned, with each section contributing so much to the success of the performance.

One of the many good things to have happened since the refurbishment of the Guildhall began, now seemingly aeons ago, is that there has been a far greater variety of visiting professional soloists, because the PSO piano is probably unceremoniously upended, and very much ‘hors de combat’ just down the road from St Andrew’s. Of course, in the past, PSO has been joined by solo violinists, cellists, and various other instrumentalists, but not singers, again due to the inherent difficulties in achieving a satisfactory vocal/instrumental balance.

Once again, a church’s specific acoustic comes into its own here, and we’ve already been able to enjoy some excellent vocal soloists over the last few years.

Sky Ingram

But nothing quite prepared me for this evening’s soloist – Sky Ingram, who hails from South Australia’s less-well-known capital, Adelaide. Sky wasn’t even the original soloist when the programme was first advertised, but stepped in when her predecessor was unable to fulfil the commitment. Where instrumental soloists are concerned, this is usually not a major issue, since most artists will already have a similar range of concertos, or concertante works, at their disposal, which they can bring to the fore, as and when needed.

With singers, it’s usually not as straightforward to find a replacement willing and able to take over a fellow-artist’s programme en bloc, because of the infinite differences say, between one soprano’s and another’s specific repertoire. In fact, to find a replacement Carmen, for example, would usually be far less challenging.

Totally captivated

The moment Sky made her entrance, she had totally captivated me – and I’m sure the rest of the large audience, before even the first note was heard – such was her awesome presence on stage. Her programme for the evening was essentially – and, I always feel wisely – a popular one, starting with Dvořák’s hauntingly-beautiful ‘Song to the Moon’ from ‘Rusalka’. Here was a voice of immense power when called for, yet with such a subtly-controlled range of dynamics elsewhere. Intonation was spot on, throughout, and, as always tends to happen, accompanying such a gifted performer as Sky, always brings out the very best from the PSO, both when providing such sympathetic supporting textures, as well as some finely-shaped and impressive obbligato solos. Sky also deserved a true ten out of ten for delivering the aria in the original Czech text, which sounded pretty authentic to me – even if my knowledge of the language barely extends beyond ‘Škoda’.

From Dvořák’s Romantic opera about water sprites and woodland lakes, the scene changed for arguably one of the best-known arias from the world of Viennese operetta, ‘Vilja’, from Lehár’s ‘The Merry Widow’. Here – in a flash – Sky transported us all to the Grand Duke of Pontevedro’s Birthday Ball at the country’s embassy in Paris, where, as Hanna Glawari – aka ‘The Merry Widow’ – she is heard singing this aria, this time about a wood-maiden, brim-full of Viennese schmalz and tenderness, and where the PSO’s muted strings were really heard to perfection in providing exactly the right degree of ‘Gemütlichkeit’, to help in setting the scene.

In character from start to finish

So often in this simple strophic aria, soloists can be seen ‘switching off’ during the short orchestral interludes, or even imbibing a little liquid refreshment from their seemingly-mandatory water bottle. But this was certainly not Sky’s modus operandi here. Just as with the previous aria and, in fact, the rest of her programme, she was in character from start to finish, and clearly saw any brief orchestral symphonies as important moments to remain in character, rather than a mere opportunity to take a quick ‘breather’.

No soprano-recital can ever really be complete without at least one Puccini aria, and, in the event, we were treated to two of his arguably all-time-favourites – ‘Vissi d’arte’ from ‘Tosca’, and, finally, ‘One Fine Day’ from ‘Madama Butterfly. In these two particular arias, although the musical substance is not radically different, the two roles involved – one a famous opera singer, the other, the young and easily-duped Cio-Cio-San, vainly hoping that the father of her infant child, will soon return to her on the next US warship that enters Nagasaki harbour – couldn’t be more dissimilar in character, status, and, of course, age.

Immensely poignant

Sky gave immensely poignant and well-studied readings of both arias, and I, for one, found it quite difficult not to shed a tear or two during her heartfelt rendition of ‘One Fine Day’.

But there was even more to come, with a somewhat less-well-known aria, ‘Elsa’s Dream’ from Wagner’s ‘Lohengrin’, which sat perfectly between the two Italian offerings. While Elsa’s role in the opera is more that of a dramatic lyric soprano, rather than a fully-blown ‘Wagnerian’ voice like Brünnhilde, or Isolde, it is still a very different sound-world from the Italian verismo composer. Indeed, Puccini’s operatic heritage was essentially all about the voice, while Wagner’s game-changing concept of opera as an all-embracing ‘Music Drama’, tended to treat the voice more like another instrumental colour.

Seamless

Yet again, Sky assumed the role just as seamlessly as a chameleon changes colour, and her performance definitely asked the question why this Wagner aria isn’t more frequently given on the concert-platform. Needless to say, after the initial aria was given in the original Czech, Sky sang the rest of her programme in its original tongue, but, as a well-seasoned opera-singer, ensured that she did her utmost to convey the meaning of every word, notwithstanding the language being used at the time.

Sky was extremely popular with the members of the orchestra, both in rehearsal and performance, and she clearly benefited from such patent empathy, the moment she took made her entrance. Whoever decided on the name ‘Sky’, proved unknowingly prescient – a ‘celestial’ presence allied to a ‘heavenly’ voice – and, for me, by far the most exciting vocal soloist yet to appear with PSO.

While creative programming has always been one of PSO’s particular strengths, for my part, on this occasion – and perhaps somewhat mindful of the oft-used idiom, ‘After the Lord Mayor’s Show’, I would have chosen to place the interval at this point, rather than keeping the audience in their seats for one more work, which, inevitably, can all-too-easily feel like something of an anticlimax.

Shimmer and shining

The work in question was Debussy’s evocative and highly-Impressionist setting of Mallarmé’s ‘L’après-midi d’un faune’. This, in fact, actually produced some of the evening’s most-accomplished playing – not just the shimmering string textures, but also the opportunities to shine, which it afforded some of PSO’s finest wind soloists, and something, I feel, that might have been slightly better showcased after the interval, rather than directly following the high-octane soloist.

Tour de force

The single main work in the second half – Rimsky-Korsakov’s exotic and exciting Symphonic Suite, ‘Scheherazade’ – is, among other things, a real tour de force in terms of orchestration. For a good number of years now, PSO’s string section has always been able to punch well above its weight, something that not only reflects the high calibre of players in each sub-section, but moreover the orchestra’s highly-effective scheme whereby there is no longer a single leader as such, but the role is shared among a small team of well-established, and experienced violinists.

Furthermore, those members of the team, not currently acting as leader, will be seen dotted around the rank-and-file players of the first or second violins, or, on some occasions bolstering the violas. Given the sound-quality of the strings, it is certainly a scheme that pays serious dividends on the night.

Nathan Broomhead

As it happened, tonight’s concert gave PSO the opportunity to welcome a new member to the lead-violin team, Nathan Broomhead. When not playing the violin, Nathan can be seen in his daytime role as a Lecturer in Pure Mathematics at the University of Plymouth – something which really brings home the fact that a good number of PSO players aren’t formally involved in Music by day. This, of course, still underpins the orchestra’s ‘amateur’ status, but certainly not in any pejorative way, given the unusually high standards of each and every player, whether a musician by trade, or not.  In fact, it’s even more important to emphasize that, without PSO’s three concerts annually, Plymouth – and the Liskeard area too – would be even poorer in terms of their respective cultural footprints.     

Panache, confidence, and reassurance

Whether the lead-violin team drew lots in order to decide on tonight’s leader, Nathan definitely drew the short straw, considering that the lead-violin part in ‘Scheherazade’ has a number of solo passages throughout its four movements, which would certainly not appear out of place in any Violin Concerto – and we’re talking the top end of the difficulty scale, too.

Nathan faced all the challenges really well, and solved virtually all the problems as if he’d just found a solution to the ‘Collatz conjecture’, in his day job. Here, and elsewhere, he assumed the leader’s role with real panache, confidence, and reassurance, and which clearly every member of the orchestra truly appreciated, when it came to his personal round of applause at the end.

Textures and soundscapes

Once more, PSO was on top form, and created many varied textures and soundscapes. Again, the strings were as assured as ever, the woodwind, delicate when required, but equally capable of forceful projection, should the score require it. Brass also rose to the challenge exceptionally well throughout, evidencing well-articulated playing, secure in ensemble and intonation, and certainly able to produce an awe-inspiring sound on demand. The telling contributions from percussion and harp finally proved to be the ‘icing on the cake’ of this highly-entertaining confection of Arab sweetmeats.

Tempi were always felt appropriate, making sure that there was sufficient onward progression within the movements themselves, yet always expansive enough to ensure that the composer’s highly-descriptive and redolent writing never felt rushed, and nowhere more so that in the quite voluptuous third movement – ‘The Young Prince and the Young Princess’ – with its hugely familiar violin melody, so ‘full of Eastern promise’ – to quote the iconic advert for Fry’s Turkish Delight, which was often seen on the black-and-white TVs of the late 1950s.

Indefatigable

Of course, none of tonight’s music-making could have been possible without the indefatigable efforts from PSO conductor, Anne Kimber, not only on the night and in rehearsal, but also in the vast amount of behind-the-scene work, from programme planning, acquiring the scores and parts, liaising and negotiating with the soloist – which, in the present instance, involved having to change soloist not that far away from the event, and hoping that the same repertoire will apply – all these chores have to be attended to, before even a single note is played.

And when you’re someone as dedicated to the cause as Anne is, this can nearly always mean her taking on a lot of the work herself – not  because there’s any shortage of willing helpers and volunteers – but Anne very much likes to have all her eggs in one basket, so to speak, and where she can keep a knowing eye on each and every one of them herself.

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PSO’s next Concert takes place on Sunday November 22 at the Public Hall, Liskeard, starting at 5.30pm, and will then be repeated on Wednesday November 25 in the Minster Church of St Andrew, Plymouth, at the slightly later starting time of 7.30pm.

On this occasion, PSO will be joined by young UK oboist Ewan Millar in the Oboe Concerto by Richard Strauss – written in 1945, it was one of the last works he composed near the end of his life, during what is often described as his ‘Indian Summer’.

The programme will also feature popular orchestral works by Sibelius, Mahler, and Tchaikovsky.  

Full details are available by visiting the PSO website.

CLASSICAL WITH PHILIP R BUTTALL

images courtesy of Philip R Buttall