Daniel Hope and the Basel Chamber Orchestra at the Wigmore Hall
Daniel Hope and the Basel Chamber Orchestra
Bach's A minor Violin Concerto, Mendelssohn's D minor Violin Concerto, Martin's Pavane couleur du temps and Bartók's Divertimento for Strings
Wigmore Hall
18 April 2017
Stalls H5, £5 under-35s ticket
https://wigmore-hall.org.uk/whats-on/basel-chamber-orchestra-daniel-hope-201704181930
I think there might be nothing like hearing a piece you love in the Wigmore Hall. It is almost a distraction from the music: how incredibly pleasant it is to be there and to hear sounds so rich and enveloping. As the Bach began it was as though weights lifted from my shoulders and my brain became scrubbed clean, detritus ejected. All to be had for £5: what a bargain. (Why, might you ask, do I not go more often? Good question.)
Not that it's all plain sailing. The Bach was one of my earliest discoveries on my journey into music and I've listened to it in recording probably at least a hundred times. I've only very rarely, though, seen it in live, and this is perhaps a source of my problems with Daniel Hope's performance. His account was lively, imaginative and full of energy. It was also rushing and consistently ahead of the (excellent) band, and replete with dodgy intonation and scraped mis-bowings. I guess if forced to choose I prefer my Bach with less animation and more of the right notes.
Hope seemed much more at home in the Mendelssohn, perhaps because on it he lavished a vibrato-rich, fully Romantic style. That was a wee bit of a shame, as it occluded the clear parallels between these two pieces and the savvy programming to place them together. Nevertheless, it was a pleasure to admire Hope's wit and invention unencumbered by the problems that beset the Bach (although he still rushed (although perhaps I'm excessively fussy: for me the only cloud in the clear shining sky of András Schiff is what strikes me as a slight tendency to rush, so maybe I'm just set a hair slower than the norm)). While Hope was romancing away, the Basel Chamber Orchestra, although slightly expanded in numbers from the Bach, provided some more consistency with the previous work, ably keeping pace with Hope's whirlwind interpretation with the same excellent accuracy, ensemble and quality of tone. My only criticism is that the bass sound is maybe a bit heavy for the Wigmore – but then what can you do.
Hope rewarded us with an encore to close his half of the concert, performing with the ensemble's leader Anders Kjellberg Nilsson the final movement of Vivaldi's D minor double violin concerto. Slightly annoyingly Hope seemed to introduce this as a little-known work (I mean, surely not among this concert's audience?) but never mind: the performance was satisfyingly encore-like, principally in that it left me wishing they had performed the entire concerto.
In the second half the Basel Chamber Orchestra continued their fascinating programme Hope-free. I didn't know the Martin but it is a very pretty, short piece, seemingly inspired by Fauré in its easy melody and gentle harmonic lilt. And then onto the Bartók, which was magnificent! What a great piece, with Basel bringing out all its shifts and transformations of colour, from the emphatic to the quicksilver. I enjoyed the performance of this wonderful work so much that I perhaps could have done without the encore: one of Bartók's Romanian folk songs, of course very good in its own right but to my ears a poor follow-on from the invention of the Divertimento.
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