Director: Katie Stillman
Soloist: Jessica Burroughs (cello)
This was very much a home-grown Orchestra of Opera North concert – and none the worse for that! Orchestra Leader Katie Stillman directed proceedings from her chair in the first violins and Principal Cello Jessica Burroughs delivered an authoritative account of Schumann’s Cello Concerto. Throughout the evening Stillman achieved remarkable levels of cohesion without ever seeming to direct at all – no obvious guiding of the orchestra in the opening or closing of movements.
The greatest joy of the evening was hearing a Haydn symphony (in this case, his last and greatest, No. 104 “London”) played as the final piece: too often his symphonies, perhaps because they are shorter than his 19th century successors, are placed at the beginning of a programme.
The “London” is one of 12 symphonies with which Haydn triumphed in London in his early 60s and is full of joyous melody. He combines relentless momentum with acute contrasts: in dynamics or by presenting the same theme in unexpected forms. In his symphonies his humour constantly asserts itself: there is the famous story of his Farewell Symphony where, his musicians getting rebellious over an extra-long stay at Prince Esterhazy’s country palace, he wrote a last movement where all the musicians gradually skulked off leaving two violins to carry the melody. The Prince relented, but the important thing is that the melody played by fewer and fewer musicians was a great tune!
So it is in the “London”, humour combined with melody: a powerful storm that suddenly stops, glorious conversations between strings and bassoon, the last movement a folk song with a shepherd’s pipe drone for accompaniment, etc. Stillman emphasised the contrasts and brought out the energy and invention of the piece.
A particularly neat piece of programming was to start the evening with Prokofiev’s First Symphony, the “Classical”, composed in 1916 on the model of Haydn, but Haydn in the 20th century, with what the programme note called “spicy harmony” alongside classical form. The wit and the energy that suffuse Haydn’s work are all there in Prokofiev’s and, as with the Haydn later, Stillman savoured the contrast between full-on attack and delicate subtlety.
Schumann’s Cello Concerto is an unusual piece, three movements played straight through, with an exquisite slow movement of only 34 bars. Jessica Burroughs gave full play to the emotion, lyricism and eloquence of the piece and attacked the final movement with rhythmical power. A superb bonus came in her encore piece, a Jewish lament perhaps, in which she was accompanied by the four cellos of the orchestra in producing sounds of otherworldly beauty.
The second half began with Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s Illumine, a 2017 piece for string orchestra celebrating the dawn. It proved attractive, with the upper strings suggesting the coming of light and bursts of percussive sound coming from cellos and double basses. Somehow it sounded very Icelandic and was played with great control.
Reviewed on 15th May 2025
