Review: City of Cambridge Symphony Orchestra
Conductor Richard Hull was deputising for Robert Hodge in the City of Cambridge Symphony Orchestra’s American themed final concert of their current season at West Road on Saturday night.
‘El Salon Mexico’ (1932-6), Aaron Copland’s tribute to Mexican culture, created the lively atmosphere that the composer had experienced in a typical dance hall of the time, and got the concert off to a spirited start.
The single-movement piece was premièred in Mexico City in 1947, attracting the attention of Leonard Bernstein and Toscanini who both made piano arrangements of it, and there were distinct traces of its influence on Elmer Bernstein’s music for ‘The Magnificent Seven’ (1960), both in the colourful and dramatic brass sections, as well as in the softer, lyrical passages.
Most of the music featured on Saturday had its origins in the 20s and 30s and no composition is more central to the musical temper of those times than George Gershwin’s classic ‘Rhapsody in Blue’, a piece originally written for solo piano and jazz band and later orchestrated by the band leader, Paul Whiteman’s arranger Ferde Grofé whom we were to hear from after the interval.
Arriving onstage to perform was 20 year-old Russian-born soloist, Alexander Doronin, First Prize winner of the Moscow Piano Open International Competition in 2019.
The famous opening clarinet glissando (beautifully played by Heather Thorne) led to Alexander’s first intervention where we had absolutely no difficulty in understanding why he had won first prize. This was a sparkling performance of amazing musicality which made short work of the Rhapsody’s innumerable tricky episodes, and the many different piano styles of the era reflected in them, such as Ragtime and Stride.
CCSO accompanied the piano’s lead, and judging by their rapt attention to the pianist were universally impressed. The rapturous melody near the end into which they made a wonderful sweep reminds us of Gershwin’s classical influences and, in that idiom, perhaps most of all of Rachmaninov’s big tunes and who himself was among many notables in the audience at the première of the work in 1924.
Alexander received enthusiastic applause, and rewarded the audience with a performance of a movement from György Ligeti’s ‘Musica Ricercata’, a piece which sustains a moto perpetua in the left hand while the right hand plays a beautiful melody above it. In all, it was an extraordinary display of sensitivity and technique from a young master of the keyboard.
Contemporary American composer Eric Whitacre is currently visiting composer in residence at Pembroke College. Cambridge. CCSO performed his ‘Equus’, a short work of tremendous energy and dynamism, allowing all sections of the orchestra a full say at what they are capable of. The piece hurries the listener along to reach a terrific and breathless finale.
Concluding the concert was an infrequently heard work by Paul Whiteman’s arranger, Ferde Grofé- his ‘Grand Canyon Suite’ (1931). Four of its five movements celebrate the scenic wonders of America, while the 5th imitates a rainstorm, with even a wind machine brought from West Road’s percussion artillery to add to the effects. If Eric Whitacre’s ‘Equus’ sets out to capture the energy of a galloping horse, Grofé’s 3rd movement ‘On the Trail’ has, in like vein, a comedic and leisurely clip-clop percussive accompaniment to a cowboy on-the-trail style tune.
Recalling that Bernstein’s Copland-inspired ‘Magnificent Seven’ theme reached the lower regions of the pop charts in 1961, some of us who were around in the previous year will also be familiar with a huge hit by the Everly Brothers that was number 1 in the charts for 9 consecutive weeks. Don Everly said that the melody for ‘Cathy’s Clown’ was inspired by the music of Grofé’s ‘Grand Canyon Suite’. Listen for example to the opening of its final movement ‘Cloudburst’.
These are the kinds of interconnections that CCSO’s concert was almost designed to promote, and I’m sure there were many more. It was a wonderful evening of music-making. Bravo to Richard Hull for his superb direction, to Alex Reid on the celeste which made an appearance in more than one of the works we heard; and to orchestra leader Philippa Barton for her solo introduction to ‘On the Trail’. There is a pretty good timpanist in Mike Cole as well.
But all deserve a mention for this truly interesting and inspiring conclusion to CCSO’s attractive and stimulating season of music. JOHN GILROY
