Page 393 - Liverpool Philharmonic 22-23 Season Coverage Book

The way the piece emerges from the depths, in a dreamy, suspenseful, lowering soundscape, is
certainly promising. At length, the gently elegiac tone – with undulations faintly reminiscent of
Rachmaninov’s Isle of the Dead – gives way to perpetual-motion neo-Baroque noodling that is
worryingly similar to the lazier scores of Philip Glass or Michael Nyman. The tempo drags itself
from moderately slow to moderately fast. Still, all is still not yet lost.

But, from this point, nearly half way into the 26-minute single movement, the attraction begins to
wear thin. Solo and orchestral parts are so unrelievedly overlaid that neither gets to speak clearly,
and the resolutely undramatic, non-concerto-like gestures become merely tedious. Mahani’s
harpsichord, discreetly amplified, made some attractive sounds, and Andrew Manze ensured that
the orchestra stuck to the task. But the freedom envisaged by the composer refused to translate
into a compelling aural experience.

Sibelius’s First Symphony prefigures Bryars’s concerto, at least in the sense that its romantic,
Tchaikovskian urges are masked by a stern outward countenance. But what colossal dramatic
tensions result. And what superb musicianship enlivened every phase of Manze’s interpretation,
his ear for texture being as acute as his instinct for pacing.

Another performance or two might help bring more polish to parts of the Scherzo. But overall, the
orchestra’s response was as vivid and characterful as the conductor’s input. Nor was Mozart’s Paris
Symphony in any way a token addition. The first movement balanced energy with grace; the
original slow movement left us wondering why Mozart ever bowed to pressure to rewrite it; and
the finale, taken at something closer to a Presto than the required Allegro, was exhilarating and
uplifting. David Fanning