BOURNEMOUTH SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA October 19th, 2011
Winter is here again. The new definition of winter is the Wednesday evening concert season at what Poole now likes to call ‘Lighthouse’ but which is more conveniently remembered as the Poole Arts Centre. With its facelift of a year or two back, little is changed, certainly not the restricting foyer where there is room for only about half of the hall’s capacity to stretch out and relax in the interval. One’s mind goes back to a concert visit to Dallas Symphony Hall, an elegant marble space of modern architectural genius. If Dallas is built on oil wells, then so is Poole. Is it just that BP choose not to spend in the same way the ‘Oil Town’ does? Where is Poole’s equivalent of JR, the corporate multimillionaire, striding through the instantly recognizable hotel atria of Poole?
Time not to pursue the comparison further, but perhaps it’s not surprising that Andrew Litton moved from Poole to Dallas rather than the other way round.
Having missed the first two concerts (regrettably), it is almost dark now at 7.20pm as we step inside the entrance to the Lighthouse, and greet friends upstairs. Settling in with the other oldies, we spot some new arrivals in the orchestra, an unattractive new beard (on a man, at least), and wonder whether they will be up to scratch. Time for the Polonaise from Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin, with our conductor, also Polish, Michael Dworzynski. Exciting as this work is, I can already sense ‘piano rage’ building up in my companion. The programmed length of the Polonaise is four minutes. So after this short but fun time, there is a shuffling as half the orchestra troops offstage and we wait for the piano to be wheeled on. ‘Why oh why can’t they put the piano on beforehand?’ It’s not as if the difference, particularly for what one might call the overture, is very great. Anyhow, back comes our conductor with Boris Giltburg, the pianist, who gives us a lovely interpretation with plenty of fine technique of the Piano Concerto No. 1 by Chopin. Curiously, the piano is one I have never seen before. In large letters on its front it says ‘Fazioli’. After some research I find that the Fazioli has some serious adherents in the concert world, and one reviewer describes it as ‘the Ferrari of the concert grands’. My mole in the audience found it somewhat tinkly in the high registers. It sounded good to me. More worrying was the kyphosis in Boris’s thoracic spine – that boy needs to get out more. Too many hours per day in practice! I have to admit it was beautiful, and his encore was exquisite too. Another mole in the audience suggests it was from Schumann – traumerei. So, our Italian main course of ‘Fazioli alla Polonesca’ went down very well.
Off to the foyer to discover that interval drinks are in one of the function rooms and somebody has nicked my beer leaving only a glass of rather sickly cider.
Back in for part II. Tchaik 6. I can remember as if it were yesterday the rather laboured joke in Ken Russell’s ‘The Music Lovers’ where Tchaikovsky describes his symphony as ‘Pathetique’ and his brother angrily says something like ‘Too right, it’s ‘Pathetic’ all right, and so are you.’ Or something like that. It made for good cinema, but may not have been strictly accurate. It was a little hard to credit Richard Chamberlain as Tchaikovsky because to people of a certain age he can only be ‘Dr Kildare’. I have to say I enjoyed this performance more than any other of the work I have heard. Especially the last movement as it moves on to its melancholy conclusion with the rasping of the cellos and the double basses – and then, miracle of miracles in little old Poole, where some prat is usually only too keen to show that they know the symphony has finished and starts applauding the moment the conductor’s baton falls: a huge and appreciative silence before the conductor relaxed and the applause began.
Well done BSO. Next week Rach 3 with Jon Kimura Parker. Can’t wait.
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