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Exciting Results
A new partnership between Charles Dutoit
and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra,
experienced by MIKE WHEELER
If this was anything to go by, the new partnership between the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and recently appointed Principal Conductor Charles Dutoit is going to yield some exciting results (Royal Concert Hall, Nottingham, UK, 28 April 2009).
Starting with a boisterous, rip-roaring performance of Berlioz' Corsaire overture, they moved on to Ravel's G major Piano Concerto with soloist Jean-Philippe Collard. In between a bright-as-a-button first movement and an agile, punchy finale, came a haunting account of the slow movement, the tone set by Collard's poised, long-breathed phrasing in the long opening solo passage.
After the interval came a selection of pieces from Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet -- a truly heavy and menacing 'Montagues and Capulets', a skittishly nimble 'Juliet as a Young Girl', and a balcony scene full of aching tenderness. in the conclusion of 'The Death of Tybalt', Dutoit and the orchestra brought out the connections with the modernism of some of Prokofiev's scores from the 1920s.
After the main concert came the first in a planned series of short late-night performances at the Royal Concert Hall, this one featuring jazz pianist Sam Hogarth. As well as a couple of standards, by Gershwin and Bernstein, he gave us his very inventive takes on Prokofiev's 'Montagues and Capulets' and the Ravel concerto. He even managed to graft a characteristic chord progression from the Ravel first movement onto the opening of 'I Got Rhythm'. Uri Caine, you've got competition.
Copyright © 6 May 2009
Mike Wheeler,
Derby UK
UNITED KINGDOM ORCHESTRA ROYAL PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA CHARLES DUTOIT NOTTINGHAM ROYAL CONCERT HALL NOTTINGHAM HECTOR BERLIOZ MAURICE RAVEL SERGEY PROKOFIEV ROMEO AND JULIET JAZZ LEONARD BERNSTEIN GEORGE GERSHWIN
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