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The Daily Telegraph,
Orchestra of the Swan, Town Hall Birmingham
Alexander Goehr - Broken Lute premiere
29 April 2008

The Swan swims on with dignity

Keeping a chamber orchestra afloat in the regions is a tough call, and it's especially tough for Stratford-based Orchestra of the Swan, which has just lost its Arts Council grant. David Curtis, the orchestra's artistic director, must surely be tempted to play safe to bring in the crowds.
But that's clearly not his way. Underneath his genial, relaxed demeanour there's clearly a determination to take risks. As pointed out in his pre-performance chat, the orchestra has commissioned more than 50 pieces in recent years.

The latest of them, a new chamber piece from Alexander Goehr, was unveiled on this occasion. But before we reached it, our ears and minds had already been sharpened by two fascinating rarities. The first of them was Bach's famous Toccata and Fugue in D minor - which is hardly unfamiliar in itself, but in the arrangement for string orchestra by Steve Martland it took on a vivid freshness.

The piece that followed, the Nonet by Aaron Copland, was mysterious in a different way. The rich, perfumed nine-part harmonies, lovingly played by the ensemble, seemed a long way from the open-prairie sound of Copland's famous ballets, yet it was discernibly the same composer.

Then came the new piece, which was as spare and lean as the Copland was rich. Goehr's Broken Lute is based on an ancient Chinese tale, which tells how two men of vastly different social class are drawn into a long friendship through a shared love of music.

When one dies, the other breaks his lute on the dead man's grave. Lines from the story are dropped into pauses in the music, which unfolds with the delicate suggestiveness of a Chinese scroll-painting - a breathy flute phrase here, an answering phrase in the strings there, a silence in between.

The performance was sensitively attuned to the music's fugitive melancholy, and much helped by the dignified, unsentimental recitation of the story from one of the orchestra's horn players, Kai Hoffman.
Put together, these three pieces were an intense experience - perhaps a mite too intense. But the second half of the concert was more congenial.

A spirited performance of Bach's 3rd Brandenburg Concerto was followed by Stravinsky's riposte to that piece, his Dumbarton Oaks Concerto. As in the Bach, Curtis kept a light hand on the tiller, allowing the music's genial good humour to shine through.

Ivan Hewett