Page 378 - Liverpool Philharmonic 22-23 Season Coverage Book

The glittering caravan that is Eurovision 2023 will soon roll into Liverpool and

set up camp along the waterfront and around the Pier Head. The song contest kicks off
on 9 May, with the final on the 13th. Reflecting the circumstances of this year’s event,
which should have been hosted by Ukraine, the slogan is “united by music”. These
words could apply to Liverpool, a Unesco city of music bubbling with sonic activity, any
time in its modern history. Merseyside’s musical associations stretch back centuries.
Last week the star British pianist Benjamin Grosvenor made his Liverpool concert
debut as soloist with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra – founded in 1840
and one of the world’s oldest orchestras – in Rachmaninov’s Second Piano Concerto.
We are in the 150th anniversary year of the Russian composer’s birth. This favourite
work is on every concert schedule. Predictability and familiarity are hazards. Not here.
Vitality and invention made this performance exceptional. Balance was ideal, the
exchanges between pianist and woodwind lithe and expressive, violas – sitting on the
outside of the cellos – notably revelling in their prominent solos.

At times, as when the soft swish of cymbals duet with the pensive, meandering piano in
the last movement, a mood of improvisation took hold. Grosvenor was poetic and
masterly, every nuance noted, and responded to, by the conductor Kahchun Wong. This
Singapore-born ball of energy and charm is a name to watch. Many in the capacity
audience hastened to their feet as the final, imperative chords thundered out. (“Takes a
lot to get an ovation from a Liverpool audience,” my scouse neighbour noted drily.)

The concerto was the popular centrepiece of a programme that showcased the
orchestra’s musical expertise and imagination. The opening work, the Symphony No 21
(1940) by the Soviet composer Nikolai Myaskovsky, is hardly known in this country. It
should be. Lyrical, melancholy, this single-movement work is rooted deep in the modes
and dark-earth colours of Russian folk song, and of Tchaikovsky and Mussorgsky. It
appeared rewarding to play, as well as to hear.

For the evening’s last work, Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition (arr. Ravel), a
surprise was in store. When bells are required in a score, percussionists usually have to
rely on the tubular variety. Instead, the RLPO has commissioned its own set of 18 full-
sized church bells, cast by the Royal Eijsbouts foundry in the Netherlands. What must
have first appeared a mad idea – several expensive tonnes of brass, a headache to
manoeuvre – is now the envy of other orchestras. The initiative came from its principal
percussionist since 1983, Graham Johns, with crowdfunding from a loyal Merseyside
community. As anyone familiar with the Philharmonic Hall will know, it is situated
between the city’s two cathedrals and their mighty bell towers. No surprise that Johns,
now in his final RLPO season, thought the tubular variety puny in comparison.