Page 229 - Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Coverage Book 2023-24

The next morning, the start of the Quintet was at first beset by a few intonation
problems in the first movement before the musicians seemed to settle and gel
to produce a rich, moving and melancholy, account. Their soft playing was
particularly affecting; the cellist produced the loveliest ‘messa di voce’ effect on
the long, sustained notes towards the end of the beautiful Adagio.

The Ninth Symphony provided a fitting valediction to both the weekend and the
composer, especially as no reconstructed fourth movement was involved; it
concluded with the sublime Adagio. I was especially looking forward to hearing
Alpesh Chauhan conduct, having so much enjoyed his debut recording on the
Chandos label of Tchaikovsky orchestral works with this orchestra – and his

performance was a revelation. Dancing off the podium, sweeping the air with
beseeching gestures, requesting a pianissimo or an entry with a crook of his
little finger, his conducting style was certainly histrionic, but no-one could
object when the results were so exhilarating. His orchestra played like demons
and I have never heard such phenomenal power and attack from an ensemble;
by the end of the first movement I was already stunned and slack-jawed by the
sheer noise and drama generated – and I could see that I was not alone in my
reaction. The strings were playing on the edge of possibility, sometimes fraying
horsehair, such was the ferocity of their upstrokes which lent their phrasing
extra, savage bite, yet tremolos crept in almost imperceptibly and pizzicatos
were impeccably co-ordinated; this was an account which was both brutally
tough and meltingly Romantic in equal measure. Timpani were gratifyingly
prominent and precise, the woodwind was exceptional, headed by crystalline
flutes, the first violins, so often exposed, played with supreme confidence. The
energy and commitment of this playing were of the kind you would hope to hear
from one of the world’s top orchestras but the Adagio gave us even more: its
intensity and incandescence were transcendent. The long silence which ensued
after the last note spiralled into infinity was testament to the effect of the kind
of performance the concertgoer always hopes to hear but rarely experiences.

Ralph Moore