Lviv National Philharmonic Orchestra of Ukraine
Cadogan Hall, 07 October 2024
Conductor: Theodore Kuchar
Soloists: Mykhailo Sosnovskyi (flute) Oksana Hretchyn (violin) Jiri Barta (cello)
Monday 07 October 2024
Part of Cadogan Hall’s Zurich Interntational Orchestra series, this concert was certainly value for money. It’s rare these days to get four full length works plus gorgeous folksy Ukrainian encore and it didn’t finish until 10.15.
I have known the Brahms double concerto since my teens and have listened to recordings hundreds of times but this was the first time I have heard it live. It gets few outings because it’s expensive to do so this was a rare treat and a terrific start to the second half of the concert. It took cellist Jiri Barta, his music on an iPad with blue tooth pedal under his left foot, a few minutes to warm into the first movement but thereafter he and Oksana Hretchyn, a stately, dignified and unshowy player, were well adjusted to each other with good steady work from the orchestra. They played the richly “Brahmsian” Andante sensitively alongside some lovely work from the wind section. They also packed the vivace with drama leading to a resounding conclusion and highlighting the talent of the orchestra’s principal bassoon, Andriy Thachuk.
The other high spot in this concert, whose second half was generally much better than the first, was a sparky account of Beethoven 2 for which Theodore Kuchar adopted a completely different conducting style. Gone was the score and stand. Working on an assumption that we all know this symphony well enough to present it with panache, and hear it with joy, he found new ways of making it fresh. He bent double to entice dramatic pianissimi and often simply twitched and pointed rather than beating time. The effect was to build in lots of refreshing immediacy. The Larghetto was packed with dramatic contrast with particularly pleasing playing from bassoon and flute and I really liked the wind playing in the trio. Kuchar found lots of lightness in the Allegro with its off-beat rhythms and prominent timp. It was, in short, quite an original performance of a warmly familiar work.
The concert began with a mini flute concerto entitled Chamber Symphony No 3 by Yevhen Stankovych, born in 1942. He re-orchestrated the piece for strings and flute, especially for this performance. The orchestra’s principal flautist, Mykhailo Sosnovskyi, gave us some intensely lyrical playing in the middle section and I liked the plaintive mini glissandi over pizzicato and then col legno strings dying away to nothing at the end. On the whole, though, there wasn’t much warmth here and it wasn’t a particularly digestible concert opener.
The other work in the first half was Sibelius’s relentlessly lugubrious fourth symphony which, of his seven symphonies is the one I like least. And Kuchar’s rather irritating audible breathing didn’t help. There was, however, some noteworthy attention to mysterious anguish in the third movement especially from flute and lower strings and the string solos in the last movement were good, Interesting that the Cadogan Hall audience didn’t know when this rather strange work was finished so that Kuchar had to turn round and signal that they could applaud. I think that rather sums up the flaws in this symphony.