Elgar’s Violin Concerto – Huddersfield Town Hall

Conductor: Garry Walker

Concertgoers at the latest Orchestra of Opera North concert at Huddersfield Town Hall raised an eyebrow at the ordering of it. After all the normal run of things places the concerto before the interval and finishes with the symphony. By 9.35pm all was clear: the Elgar Violin Concerto is a mighty work, fit to climax any concert.

Elena Urioste often had a dense orchestral sound to rise above and oddly enough registered most strongly in the more delicate passages. The hushed violin entry in the opening movement, after an orchestral introduction that played with six themes, was magical and in the first movement it was the tender moments that made most impact.

In the second movement a serene opening darkens until finally a tranquil theme which one is tempted to call Elgarian asserts itself. The glory of the work comes in the final movement, what the programme calls “the emotional core of the work” – the accompanied cadenza. Here Urioste asserted the dream-like quality of Elgar’s writing across a background of strings, both pizzicato and bowed, building an atmospheric sound. Elsewhere in the third movement Urioste rose above the orchestra with fierce attack and, in a notoriously difficult concerto, soloist and orchestra combined to magnificent effect.

The first half of the concert was less intense, but Nielsen’s Symphony Number 2, The Four Temperaments, alternated fun and intensity. Struck by a painting of the four temperaments in a village inn in Zealand, Nielsen first laughed, then wrote this symphony. The first and last movements (Choleric and Sanguine) are where the fun lies, the former full of mighty tutti and blaring brass, the latter given to explosions of sound with the timpanist working overtime. Both the middle two movements (phlegmatic and melancholy) finish quietly, the shimmering sounds at the end of the third movement particularly memorable, and Garry Walker drained the emotion from both.

Before that Sally Beamish’s The Day Dawn called on only the strings of the orchestra as she built around an old Shetland fiddle tune, beautifully played before the start by Andrew Beer, the most recent Guest Leader in Opera North’s quest for a successor to David Greed. Gradually she changed from calm to increased animation. and back again. Then Peter Longworth, the latest to come up with a Minute Masterpiece, briefly charmed us with Bergamasca, an evocation of the Bergamasque Alps, mostly in the bells of Bergamo Citta Alta.

This was not an easy concert to respond to, but the sheer accomplishment of orchestra, conductor and soloist made for a memorable evening.

Reviewed on 9th February 2023.