Outstanding orchestral playing can be found outside London, Manchester and Birmingham. Unlike those cities, Leeds doesn’t have a purpose-built modern concert hall suitable for large-scale concerts, making do with the gaudy Victorian splendour of Cuthbert Brodrick’s town hall. Acoustically it’s not perfect, but the striking canopy hanging precariously over the concert platform has improved matters. Leeds does have a full-time orchestra; formerly known as the English Northern Philharmonia, the Orchestra of Opera North have a year-round joint role in the opera house and concert hall, giving regular concerts in Leeds and in the surrounding area.
Prokofiev's Third Piano Concerto is a fun concerto to watch – ignore the soloist, and you notice percussionists doing entertaining things with tambourines
The more languorous passages in the second and third movements really glowed, especially the final outpouring of the last movement’s slow centre – a Rachmaninov moment, suddenly snatched away and interrupted by a reprise of the spiky opening bassoon melody. And that glorious, pile-driving close, with its ostinato repetition of an astringent major chord, sounded marvellously emphatic here. It’s a fun concerto to watch – ignore the soloist, and you notice cellos and basses playing frantic C-major scales and percussionists doing entertaining things with tambourines.
Stravinsky’s The Firebird always sounds best in its complete 1911 incarnation, but economic constraints mean that it’s most often heard in the composer’s 1919 suite, arranged for less extravagant forces. The 1945 suite is too rarely performed – essentially an expanded version of the 1919 suite, extended with the inclusion of several of the orchestral transitions. It doesn’t feel longer at all, but it does feel much more satisfying, and there’s a pleasing incongruity about hearing Stravinsky’s youthful excesses expressed through the prism of his leaner, mature style. The flecks of piano seem much more prominent, the Infernal Dance sounds a little more strident and the closing brass theme is played detached and staccato.
González (pictured right) generously gave plenty of space to his outstanding wind soloists, with particular credit due to Richard Hewitt’s gorgeous oboe playing. The opening low string textures sounded like real music instead of sludge, with some spine-tingling string glissandi a few minutes in. And the closing brass cadence was carefully voiced and balanced so that the harmonic changes could be heard despite the efforts of a heroic first trumpet.The concert began with Rimsky-Korsakov’s May Night Overture. A slightly frustrating listen, and music which seems to finish before it’s got started, lacking the cheery vulgarity which makes Scheherazade such a guilty pleasure. There were lovely things in this performance, but despite impeccable woodwind tuning and a brief moment in the spotlight for bass trombone, the work failed to set my pulse racing.
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