United Kingdom Bach, Haydn, Vaughan Williams, Garcia: Julien Van Mellaerts (baritone), BBC Nationwide Refrain and Orchestra of Wales / Harry Bicket (conductor). Hoddinott Corridor, Millennium Centre, Cardiff, 22.3.2024. (PCG)

Garcia – Zemira: Overture (1803)
Bach – Cantata No.82 ‘Ich habe genug’ (1727)
Haydn – Symphony No.26 ‘Lamentatione’ (1768)
Vaughan Williams – 5 Mystical Songs (1911)

This assorted programme, named after George Herbert’s hymn by the identical title and loosely woven across the theme of Easter, was performed in Cardiff two days earlier than Palm Sunday. It opened with an actual novelty: an overture by José Maurício Nunes Garcia (1767-1830). Born in Rio de Janeiro because the son of slaves, he rose by way of the ranks of the church to imagine cost of music on the Portuguese royal courtroom when it was compelled to flee to Brazil in 1808.

It’s unclear if the overture was written for an opera – no such work has been found – however it clearly has dramatic origins, The composer described it as ‘expressing lightning and thunderstorms’. This isn’t a lacking masterpiece. It virtually solely includes depictive speeding passages for woodwind and strings, not even timpani, and has an annoying behavior of stopping and beginning with out warning. After three or 4 minutes, the entire of the musical content material is actually repeated, and a short coda depicts the restoration of calm. This clearly anticipates related storm music in Rossini’s operas (La Cenerentola and The Barber of Seville) however it has no extra critical pretensions even whether it is good enjoyable.

Haydn, alternatively, clearly meant his ‘Lamentatione’ Symphony to be taken very severely certainly. The primary motion is outwardly typical sufficient, with sprightly syncopated passage-writing for the strings, however a plainchant-derived melody underpins the bustle. The next Adagio provides us one other solemn plainchant, which the primary violins adorned with a flickering filigree accompaniment that often leapt for a second into an higher octave. Conductor Harry Bicket clearly relished the joyous first motion, however he insisted on suppressing vibrato on the strings within the gradual motion. Because of this, the emotional heat which Haydn appears to have anticipated was sacrificed to a extra repressed supply (that will certainly be a sound method of treating the music). Additionally, these little leaps an octave typically didn’t make a definite mark. For some purpose, Bicket additionally omitted the marked repeat of the second half of the motion, and that shifted the relative weight of the symphony as an entire. A minimum of the ultimate motion, a cheeky offbeat minuet which fades unexpectedly into silence on the finish, was scrumptious in Haydn’s greatest humorous type.

The New Zealand baritone Julien Van Mellaerts joined a slimmed-down orchestra for the Bach cantata. The BBC Nationwide Refrain of Wales was available for Vaughan Williams’s songs, so it felt odd to pick out a cantata which excluded the choir: it solely consists of three consecutive arias with becoming a member of recitative. Nor did I get the impression that the soloist was fairly suited to the tessitura of his half. Its descents to sustained low G appear to require a deep bass singer reasonably than the upper voice of a baritone. Right here the voice appeared to submerge altogether under B flat. It didn’t assist that Bicket appeared to encourage the orchestra to play with full tone. The oboe obligato, superbly phrased by Steve Hudson, dominated the textures within the first aria, even when my seat was significantly nearer the singer just a few rows again within the physique of the corridor.

Van Mellaerts positively got here into his personal within the efficiency of the 5 Mystical Songs. Vaughan Williams didn’t make the most effective case for his personal work. He insisted on publishing the songs in quite a lot of variations, starting from baritone and piano to (as right here) baritone, refrain and a reasonably substantial orchestra. It’s extra frequent to listen to the songs carried out with organ, with or with out refrain, than with orchestra, however solely within the fullest type does the work emerge as a collection of settings of genius. Van Mellaerts has already proved in recital his sympathy and engagement with the composer; there’s a marvellously dramatic recital efficiency of the whole Songs of Journey on YouTube. Right here his vary of dynamics gave an excellent ring to such passages as ‘such a Pleasure, as none can transfer’ in The Name rising to a climactic excessive F. The composer has sprinkled the rating with entire rafts of expressive marks, gloriously and faithfully realised right here. As soon as once more, nevertheless, issues with steadiness arose when the singer tried to match Vaughan Williams’s specification of quieter dynamics. (Oddly, the printed programme equipped us with the phrases in George Herbert’s unique spelling. Vaughan Williams’s rating amended it to evolve to trendy utilization; that’s the type I’ve adopted on this assessment.)

Harry Bicket appeared to make little effort to restrain the wealthy and enthusiastic orchestral enjoying. That made for thrilling leads to the closing Antiphon however robbed the ultimate pages of Love bade me welcome of its extraordinary ambiance. The rating is marked ppp senza cresc. and the wordless choral components of the plainchant ‘O sacrum convivium’ much more emphatically pppp senza espress. Every little thing was far too palpable, too ahead, and the baritone line ‘You should sit down, says Love, and style my meat’ – it ought to break one’s coronary heart – missed its goal. In Easter, Vaughan Williams employs the harp on the phrases ‘Awake, my lute’, however that equally didn’t register towards the woodwinds. And in the identical manner Bicket maintained once more an onward orchestral tempo all through the extraordinary ultimate 5 bars of the primary tune, the place the orchestral key appears to rise enharmonically into ever extra mysterious spheres. Right here, they had been merely easy and imperturbable – at one other second when the hair ought to rise on the again of your neck. Such minor particulars under no circumstances diminished the overall impact, however that type of issues distinguishes an incredible efficiency from a merely efficient one.

It might be that listeners at dwelling may have some benefit over these within the corridor. The BBC engineers will certainly be capable to regulate the interior balances to offer the viewers a extra passable expertise. I think that these sitting additional again than I used to be could properly have discovered the subtler factors in his interpretation much less satisfactorily distinguishable. I’ll actually take heed to the relay on BBC Radio 3 scheduled for 13 Might – maybe odd for an Easter-oriented programme, however by no means thoughts – and the printed shall be out there on BBC Sounds thereafter. Apparently the primary three gadgets on the programme had been filmed for future launch within the BBC NOW Digital Live performance collection; I might have most popular the Vaughan Williams to the Bach.

Paul Corfield Godfrey