Brighton Philharmonic Orchestra, guest-led by Igor Yuzefovich
Brighton Festival Chorus
Ben Gernon
Cody Quattlebaum
Brighton Dome
Ben Gernon conducted this all English, all 20th century concert without baton and a great deal of sensitive immediacy.
There’s really only one way to treat the Enigma Variations – with affectionate respect, and that’s exactly what Gernon gave it. Highlights included a pleasing contrast between variations one and two, some fine cello and bass work in the third and lots of sweetness in the eighth. The viola solo (Caroline Harrison) in the tenth and the cello one (Peter Adams) in the twelfth were beautifully poignant. And it’s good to hear Nimrod (Variation 9) allowed to flow. It’s much more moving this way than if you stagnate it as, for example Leonard Bernstein did.
The piece is famously a series of portraits of Elgar’s friends and, if you know a bit about this, you can hear their personalities in the music such as variation 12 which depicts an amateur cellist or the grandiose variation 13 which was for an organist friend. Actually it works perfectly well simply as a series of tuneful movements without worrying about “my friends pictured within”. And that, I presume, is how the pleasing number of children sitting near me were hearing it. Full marks to their parents for bringing them.
After the interval it was on to the wondrous drama of Belshazzar’s Feast and this was an outstanding performance. I think William Walton would have been very happy. Brighton Festival Chorus – all 140 of them – now illuminated in the choir seating behind the orchestra made an arrestingly rich sound from their very first entry. And, best of all, because this is a piece which tells a story, every single word was crisply articulated.
Belshazzar was the Old Testament king who disobeyed the rules by indulging in wine women and song, admiring some glitzty gods and promoting himself above the “One True God.” Then, terrifyingly, the writing, literally, appears on the wall as a warning and he gets his come-uppance in one gloriously sung staccato chord.
Cody Quattlebaum (currently singing Count Almaviva in The Marriage of Figaro at ENO), who looks a bit like an old testament prophet with his spectacular hair, is superb as the baritone soloist who is effectively a narrator in this piece. He too has wonderfully incisive diction and a way of making his lower notes rattle with so much menace that you almost want to back away. He is every inch an actor as well as a singer.
The crisp syncopation in the chorus was especially delightful in the third section and I admired the trumpet work during the singing of “Blow the trumpet in Zion” as well as the way Gernon delivered the triumphant final bars.
Bravo BPO and BFC. It was quite an afternoon.
