Page 404 - Aldeburgh Festival 2022 FINAL COVERAGE BOOK

universe unveiled by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and that useful and

versatile conductor, Ludovic Morlot. Percussive breathing started us off, with little eruptions

from piano and harp. Sounds in flux resolved into static consonance from strings and brass, only

to suddenly slither elsewhere, as if melted by the ferocious sun.
Despite the giddy variety of shapes and colours, Thorvaldsdottir’s tight control over her material

never slackened, and everything ended with perfect timing after 23 minutes, just as a listener

might reasonably feel that enough was enough. Morlot and his forces gave a spectacular

rendition of a work that fully deserves an extended life — always supposing our planet has one.

Another sonic adventure beckoned after the interval with Patricia Kopatchinskaja, maverick

soloist in Shostakovich’s equally troubled Violin Concerto No 1. She threw herself into the

whirlwind with her customary thrusting bow, gyrating limbs, tossed hair, beating heart and bare
feet. Tone and mood kept changing, from sour and sullen, through silky and tender, towards

manic frenzy and brutal assault: all warranted by the notes on the page and the turmoil inside

Shostakovich’s head. The long cadenza was the highlight, tension mounting as the crescendo

widened. Throughout, Morlot and the orchestra stayed admirably in sync with her leaping

violin: not an easy task.

Afterwards came a typical PatKop encore: an improvised duet with Nikolaj Henriques’s

wonderfully agile bassoon, imagining Shostakovich’s volcanic reaction to an attacking article
in Pravda. Its wild sounds contrasted sharply with the chiselled kaleidoscopes of

Britten’s Gloriana suite and the Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes — theatrical music

delivered with suitable panache, though the night’s true glories lay elsewhere.