From Wookiees to Wagner
Symphony Orchestra of India - Warwick Arts Centre, Coventry, 29 November 2023
Review by David Court
Presented at part of Warwick Art Centre’s Orchestral Series for 2023/24 – a season that began with the Chineke! Orchestra in October - this is the first date of an eight-concert tour for the Symphony Orchestra of India.
The first and only full-time professional orchestra in India, The Symphony Orchestra of India were founded in 2006. Resident at the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Mumbai, their core group of musicians also perform as the SOI Chamber Orchestra.
Richard Farnes (winner of the 2017 Royal Philharmonic Conductor of the year award) was the guest conductor for the evening, switching Wagner’s Ring Cycle for Wars in the Stars – kicking off with John Williams’ ‘Imperial March’, the bombastic and brooding motif used extensively throughout the series of science fiction films.
First used in ‘The Empire Strikes Back’ in 1980, this anthem to space fascism is far from an indicator of the evening to come - it’s a mere five minute amuse-bouche compared to the two forty-five-minute pieces which will make up the bulk of the evening but whets the appetite of the audience nicely. It’s apparent that we’re in safe hands with Richard and the orchestra.
From then it’s on to Johannes Brahms’ Piano Concerto No 2 in B-Flat Major. Known for his modest, self-effacing nature and inclination to self-criticise, this fifty-minute complex piece was described somewhat underwhelmingly by the Hamburger himself as a ‘very small piano concerto with a very small and pretty scherzo’. Started in 1878 and eventually completed in 1881, it received its debut in Budapest – and the wonderful environs and acoustics of Butterworth Hall at Warwick seem as equally apt a setting as any.
The four movements open with a delightful call to arms to the orchestra from the horn section, with them answering correspondingly – before the piano starts, responding with its own graceful melody. The pianist for the evening is Siberian-born Pavel Kolesnikov, and he’s nothing short of a revelation – the orchestra are without exception excellent, but Kolesnikov’s beautiful playing is at the very core of this performance – and he’s well up to the task. At times the piece seems chaotic, but, just as it appears to be heading in that direction – it’s restrained by the familiar refrain of the opening from the horn section or with the majestic work from Pavel. It’s a piece of many moods, but all ends with a beautiful crescendo and a wall of well-deserved applause.
British Conductor Andrew Gourlay set himself no mean feat in 2019 when constructing the Parsifal Suite, an orchestral suite of 45 minutes of continuous music from Wagner’s opera, tying together the pieces where possible using the original material. To condense such a lengthy epic into a single continuous piece of music is impressive enough, yet to effectively lose nothing in the abridged retelling nothing short of miraculous.
After the interval, we’re treated to that very suite. Parsifal was Wagner’s last masterpiece and is something of a medieval epic. It tells the tale of Parsifal, the Grail Knight, and his literal and metaphysical quest to obtain the Holy Grail – and what it truly represents. It’s a piece of grandiose highs and intricate delicacy – and the superlative compression of the work means it loses nothing in the translation. The segues between each piece are majestically handled, making the whole suite feel natural and organic – but it feels like a proper journey. You feel blessed to have heard the suite performed by an orchestra of such supreme talent, and well-deserved rapturous applause fills Butterworth Hall for a considerable amount of time at the suites magnificent conclusion.
Their tour next takes them to London, but their next leg in the Midlands is on the 1st of December at Birmingham Symphony Hall. I urge you to try and catch them, if you can.
For more information on the Symphony Orchestra of India, click here. For more information on the impressive line-up for the Warwick Arts Centre Orchestral series 23/24, click here.
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