But at length the season of summer does come…

The linden, in the fervors of July,

Hums with a louder concert. When the wind

Sweeps the broad forest in its summer prime,

As when some master-hand exulting sweeps

The keys of some great organ, ye give forth

The music of the woodland depths, a hymn

Of gladness and of thanks.

– William Cullen Bryant: Among the Trees

This month, despite the weather’s best attempts to immerse us in what feels like a premature autumn, music lovers in the UK are in for a treat – a bright, warming ray of sunshine – brought to us, from the United States, in the form of the young rising star, Thomas Nickell: a pianist who has already gathered great praise around the world.

This is his first – hopefully of very many – visits to these shores; and it is rendered even more special by the fact that he will be giving not only the UK première of his own Piano Sonata No.3, but also the first London performance of “Britain’s greatest living composer” David Matthews’ Piano Concerto, Op.111. Both of these will play pivotal rôles in two momentous Orchestra of the Swan concerts (on 10 July 2016 and 16 July 2016) – although his actual début will be with the Cheltenham Symphony Orchestra (on 9 July 2016) – all conducted by OOTS’ Artistic Director David Curtis.

PREVIEW: Prestigious Double Concerto Series with Tamsin Waley-Cohen – Forum Theatre, Malvern (Wednesday, 25 May 2016, at 19:45)

Selected by Birmingham’s Town Hall Symphony Hall as the British nomination for the prestigious European Concert Hall Organisation’s Rising Stars programme in the 2016/17 season, Tamsin has been described by The Times as a violinist “who held us rapt in daring and undaunted performances” and by The Guardian as a performer of “fearless intensity”.

– Orchestra of the Swan: Prestigious Double Concerto Series with Tamsin Waley-Cohen

Certainly not just once in a lifetime – but, nonetheless, remarkably infrequently – an artist crosses your path who completely redefines your definition of the possible. Such occurrences, therefore, rise easily to the surface of your mind, unbidden; and, in my case, can be counted on the fingers of one hand:

• Maurizio Pollini playing Schoenberg’s Five Piano Pieces as an encore at the Edinburgh Festival…. These pieces suddenly emerged, butterfly-like, from their atonal cocoon, as the most beautiful ever written. (I was on the front row, trying not to cry. Having just learned to play them – yet not in any way like this… – it felt like the most personal of messages.)
• My much-missed friend, Michael Rippon, shredding every sinew in his body (and mine) – stretching his Rembrandt-like features, and remarkably sonorous voice, to the limits (and possibly beyond) – projecting (the also much-missed) Maxwell Davies’ Eight Songs for a Mad King with such savage, yet empathetic intensity, accompanied by the composer’s own group, The Fires of London. I had not known that music could be made to do this: to transcend the bounds of theatre and emotional evisceration. Never before or since has such a work hurt so much… – and yet delighted me with its commitment and originality.
• Marin Alsop unleashing the full powers of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra in Elgar’s Second Symphony. I was sat behind the brass and percussion. The balance was therefore so very wrong. But, finally, finally, I knew that this was how this greatest of symphonies must be performed. (That I got a hug from Alsop, subsequently, for weeping from first bar to last, only reinforces the memory, of course. But she is the only conductor I know – apart from David – who personally thanks every single member of the orchestra, afterwards: wandering the stage with a smile and that sincere personal touch.)
• Finally, of course, I have to mention David again… – but with the Cheltenham Symphony Orchestra – digging hard and deep into the very heart of Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony…

PREVIEW: A Scandinavian Serenade – Birmingham Town Hall (Wednesday, 11 May 2016, at 14:30)

Adapted from a review of the same programme at Stratford ArtsHouse (2 December 2015).

Billed as “a serenade with a Scandinavian flavour and a Shakespearean twist”, this is a concert which, on the surface, seems devoted to the warm sun of encroaching summer… – and yet isn’t afraid to probe what hides in the resultant shadows; or even stay outside when the clouds roll over and threaten to burst.

All of the Grieg pieces – the famous, ecstatic, opening Holberg Suite; the Watchman’s Song, from Macbeth; and his Two Elegiac Melodies – are sensationally full of life (replete with its ups and downs). Here is a composer who wrote a lot more wonderful (and sometimes darker) stuff than just his famed piano concerto; and it seems that the more intimate the setting, the greater his power. In other words: music perfectly suited to David and his merry band of minstrels (above, in rehearsal). Playing Grieg plays to their innate strengths… – so expect an inspiring, luminous, resonant clarity that only comes from such chamber-compactness: each line, each texture, audible; each dynamic, each measure, “tight and yare”.

The gods make this a happy day…

Entering Holy Trinity Church to the strains of Vaughan Williams’ Tallis Fantasia has to be the most wonderful start to the day (reminding me, coincidentally, of walking through the chapel of St John’s College, Cambridge, many, many years ago, surrounded on all sides by a hidden rehearsal of the latter’s awe-inspiring Spem in Alium…) – haunting moments, both: which saturate the soul in blessedness. That this was soon followed by Tamsin’s plangent rendering of the opening of the former’s The Lark Ascending – reverberating gently around these hallowed walls, before climbing heavenwards – heaped perfection upon glorious perfection. It is a privilege to witness such wonderments being practised so perfectly… – being the Orchestra of the Swan’s Writer in Residence has so many rewards.