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The Times (London)
February 6, 2013 Wednesday
Edition 1; National Edition
Northern Sinfonia/Gourlay
Concert
by: Geoff Brown
Queen Elizabeth Hall ****
Last weekend the focus in the Southbank's Rest is Noise series was on
nationalism's rise early in the 20th century. Four concerts, seven
films and 25 talks were featured - but none, I bet, was as warming and
foot-tapping as the Northern Sinfonia's tribute to classical music's
"folk pioneers". The Sinfonia's sound, sturdy and fresh, was pleasure
enough, particularly when we had just the strings, coursing so crisply
and succulently through Bartók's Romanian Folk Dances and four
wonderfully heart-aching songs gathered by Komitas Vardapet, the
tragic saviour of Armenian folk music who lost his mind in 1915 during
the Ottoman Empire's Armenian genocide.
Vigorously conducted by Andrew Gourlay, the concert also worked very
well as a welcome pack for classical music. Everything was shortish
and pungent, scattered with friendly commentary from the programme's
deviser, the queen of the Northumbrian pipes, Kathryn Tickell, who
should have played her noble instrument more often. The geographic
spread was admirable, with North Country folk settings nestling
alongside soul-shakers from Eastern Europe, bumptious American
delights such as Ives's marching band mash-up Putnam's Camp, Percy
Grainger's iconoclastic wonders and hot blooms from Brazil and Spain.
Individual musicians were equally on show. The Sinfonia leader Bradley
Creswick's smiling brio proved essential in the tuneful chaos of
Ives's violin sonata movement In the Barn, while the cellist Louisa
Tuck easily survived the testing work-out of Gaspar Cassadó's Sardana,
a spin through Catalonia's national dance. Another cap must be doffed
to the pianist Kate Thompson, valiantly bashing with elbows and fists
during Henry Cowell's The Lilt of the Reel, but swaying tenderly in
the Atraente polka of Chiquinha Gonzaga, the Brazilian feminist
extraordinary. Such joyful, inspiring and lifeenhancing music-making.
Geoff Brown
February 6, 2013 Wednesday
Edition 1; National Edition
Northern Sinfonia/Gourlay
Concert
by: Geoff Brown
Queen Elizabeth Hall ****
Last weekend the focus in the Southbank's Rest is Noise series was on
nationalism's rise early in the 20th century. Four concerts, seven
films and 25 talks were featured - but none, I bet, was as warming and
foot-tapping as the Northern Sinfonia's tribute to classical music's
"folk pioneers". The Sinfonia's sound, sturdy and fresh, was pleasure
enough, particularly when we had just the strings, coursing so crisply
and succulently through Bartók's Romanian Folk Dances and four
wonderfully heart-aching songs gathered by Komitas Vardapet, the
tragic saviour of Armenian folk music who lost his mind in 1915 during
the Ottoman Empire's Armenian genocide.
Vigorously conducted by Andrew Gourlay, the concert also worked very
well as a welcome pack for classical music. Everything was shortish
and pungent, scattered with friendly commentary from the programme's
deviser, the queen of the Northumbrian pipes, Kathryn Tickell, who
should have played her noble instrument more often. The geographic
spread was admirable, with North Country folk settings nestling
alongside soul-shakers from Eastern Europe, bumptious American
delights such as Ives's marching band mash-up Putnam's Camp, Percy
Grainger's iconoclastic wonders and hot blooms from Brazil and Spain.
Individual musicians were equally on show. The Sinfonia leader Bradley
Creswick's smiling brio proved essential in the tuneful chaos of
Ives's violin sonata movement In the Barn, while the cellist Louisa
Tuck easily survived the testing work-out of Gaspar Cassadó's Sardana,
a spin through Catalonia's national dance. Another cap must be doffed
to the pianist Kate Thompson, valiantly bashing with elbows and fists
during Henry Cowell's The Lilt of the Reel, but swaying tenderly in
the Atraente polka of Chiquinha Gonzaga, the Brazilian feminist
extraordinary. Such joyful, inspiring and lifeenhancing music-making.
Geoff Brown