Conductor: Jordan de Souza
For the final concert of the 2022-23 season, the Orchestra of Opera North engaged two international stars, Norwegian trumpeter Tine Thing Helseth and in-demand Canadian conductor Jordan de Souza. If Helseth’s artistry and technique came as no surprise, de Souza’s fiercely energetic approach to Brahms (and, earlier, to Richard Strauss’s Don Juan) produced some electrifying edge-of-the-seat moments.
In Hummel’s Trumpet Concerto Tine Thing Helseth displayed all the fluency, combined with purity of tone and range, that Anton Weidinger’s new improved trumpet could muster in 1803. The longish first movement contained delightful interplay with the orchestra; the second movement, ethereal in tone, led directly into the amazing final Rondo. This is the movement that will get Hummel into the Classics FM Hall of Fame today, breath-taking trumpet fireworks, rather soberly referred to in the programme as “brilliant and bravura in style”, all delivered with crackling virtuosity by Helseth.
Interestingly enough, Helseth’s encore could not have more different, a Norwegian folk song that could only have been Nordic in the sense of space, wide and distant horizons, that it summoned up.
The concert began with Strauss’s Don Juan, an early tone-poem full of the self-confidence of youth. Beginning tumultuously and marked throughout by mighty horn calls (under Rebecca Levis the horns have lost nothing in attack with the retirement of Robert Ashworth), apart from fairly brief romantic passages that represent the Don’s loves, the whole work throbbed with a rhythmic intensity – until silence and the death of Don Juan.
The dynamism that De Souza brought to the Strauss was more than replicated in Brahms’ First Symphony. This is the symphony that took 14 years to complete, only to be unfairly labelled as “Beethoven’s Tenth”. After many years not hearing it in the concert hall, in de Souza’s uninhibited reading, it emerged as simply a great symphony – and led one to speculate on what other 19th century gems might crop up next season – anyone for Schumann?
The strenuous first movement of the Brahms symphony, underpinned by menacing timpani (Jeremy Cornes), building to dramatic climaxes, driven by relentless syncopation, is certainly, in Brahms’ own words, “not particularly amiable”, but he could not avoid being melodic. This was even more apparent in the more amiable central movements, with Richard Hewitt and Oliver Casanovas Nueva revelling in glorious oboe and clarinet melodies, before we came to the transcendent final movement, dominated by a wonderfully expansive theme, both in anticipation and development (this is where the edge of the seat comes in). De Souza led an urgently committed performance, with all sections of the orchestra prepared to risk the high wire.
Spaced out at different stages in the programme were two Minute Masterpieces, brief pieces by young composers. Omri Kochavi’s Yam-Yabasha was based on an ingenious idea that seemed a touch too involved for the time available and Carol J Jones’ evergreen picked out different instruments and sections in representing the diversity of life. Jordan De Souza made certain that both composers received their due.
Reviewed on 6th April 2023.
