Page 131 - FINAL_CBSO Media Highlights - Sept 2021 - Jan 2022_Neat

Which is one way of saying that if you’re looking for an interpreter of Robert Russell
Bennett’s 1942 “Symphonic Picture” of Gershwin’s opera, Wilson pretty much covers
all the bases.

So it seemed fair to expect an idiomatic performance, and as the opening item in this packed
midweek concert with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (if Omicron anxieties are
supposed to be deterring concert audiences, they clearly don’t worry the matinee crowd) it was
certainly that, right from William Morley’s opening trumpet solo - mellow, smoky, curling lazily on
the afternoon air. The context, however, was utterly uninhibited; a blockbuster, Technicolor
reading in which Wilson brought the banjo player to his feet for "I Got Plenty O’ Nuttin’ "but
unleashed such steely rhythmic violence in the storm sequence that Catfish Row seemed
momentarily to have slipped into the world of The Miraculous Mandarin.

Doubtless that was the whole point of placing Gershwin as the opener for Glazunov’s Violin
Concerto and Rachmaninov’s Third Symphony. This wasn’t just about claiming Gershwin for the
classical tradition, but about positioning the other composers in their wider 20th century context
too: two Russian colleagues, one rejoicing in pre-Revolutionary sunshine; the other trying to
reorient himself in a world of exile, celebrity and – of course – the melodies of Gershwin (by all
accounts Rachmaninov was quite the Paul Whiteman fan).

A smart bit of programming, then, and Wilson drew his parallels forcefully. Gershwin’s hurricane
found an echo in the explosions that destabilise each of Rachmaninov’s three movements.
Timpani blows had the force of artillery fire, while the brass hurled great blasts of syncopated
sound like some malevolent, mechanised big band. That rhythmic verve is one reason we come
to hear Wilson, and the CBSO were on point: the fugal episode in the finale was positively
athletic. Throughout, though, there was a sense of something deeper, and not just in the string
playing, which was as lush and as supple as you could hope for. (The violins’ very first note
came with a swoonsome portamento).