Heartfelt music plumbs the depths and soars aloft
BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Hoddinott Hall, Cardiff ★★★★☆
THE excellent opening concert in the 50th Vale of Glamorgan Festival posed many searching questions. The answers it offered were shot through with uncertainty, doubt and frustration, but also optimism and vision.
In focusing for much of its life solely on the work of living composers, the festival has had its finger on the pulse of contemporary music and, by extension, modern life. In his programme notes, festival founder and artistic director John Metcalf reflected on how cultural life in Wales had progressed in the past 50 years, and how commercialism had affected the moral, ethical, spiritual and artistic life of the nation. Although positive by nature, Metcalf feared the gains made in these areas over those five decades could be allowed to “decay and atrophy”.
The music in this opening concert – by Chinese composer Qigang Chen, French composer Thierry Escaich and Danish composer Bent Sorensen – mirrors these contrasting feelings of optimism and uncertainty.
Chen’s L’eloignement for String Orchestra was by turns joyful, melancholy and nostalgic. It focused on change that brings hope and excitement, but also doubt and sadness. It was quite beautifully realised by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, conducted by Alexandre Bloch. Escaich’s Psalmos was bolder and more urgent, but equally questioning. There was a relentless, pulsating drive to much of the music, but also passages of tender calm, not least when the music drifts away at the end of the first movement. Sorensen’s Trumpet Concerto was playful, dreamlike and poignant, with trumpeter Philippe Schartz sometimes sounding like a lone voice in the wilderness.
There are no bigger questions than life and death. The emotional ties between the living and the dead was the subject of Chen’s piece for orchestra and chorus, Jiang Tcheng Tse. The BBC National Chorus of Wales and singer Meng Meng combined with the orchestra in an enthralling performance.