Cristina Gómez Godoy and Roberto Forés Veses with ADDA orchestra in Wagner, Strauss and Brahms

There are not many opportunities to hear an oboe concerto in the concert hall. It is surprising that an instrument that has been a mainstay of the sound of a symphony orchestra is so infrequently featured as a solo instrument. The twentieth century repertoire is relatively extensive, and it was one of the most played twentieth century oboe concertos that Cristina Gómez Godoy played with the ADDA orchestra last night.

Richard Strauss’s Oboe Concerto is a late work and, characteristically in the composer’s later style, it is it is a deceptively simple work. In three movements and scored for a moderate orchestra, it presents a neo-classical surface beneath which appear memories of the key changes and orchestral sumptuousness of the composer’s youth. But this is no mere autobiographical retrospective. The three movements are played without a break and, like the Four Last Songs, they make valedictory gestures within a tranquillity which is possibly the composer’s reflection of having just lived through years of war. The music is both a personal statement and, at the same time, a vision of enduring humanity. Richard Strauss was a complex person with a consciously simple public projection. He had to sign documents to support the Nazis and keep his mouth closed. On the other hand... Surely it was in works like the Oboe Concerto that we hear his inner voice, the one that he had by law to suppress.

Cristina Gómez Godoy’s playing of the piece was a complete joy from first note to last. Her total and absolute control, matched with a tremendous feel for phrasing and expression was utterly mesmerizing. Sitting close to the performer, one is reminded of how much effort is needed to play this instrument well. And, it must be recorded, there exist very few breathing spaces for the soloist in this piece’s half hour duration. This is a true musical dialogue between soloist and orchestra, and Richard Strauss’s writing ensures that the soloist is never swamped by the orchestral accompaniment. There is, therefore, nowhere to hide. Cristina Gómez Godoy played the slow movement from one of JS Bach’s concertos as an encore and we thus had demonstrated many of the similarities between Bach’s use of the instrument and what we had just heard. Put simply, this was an utterly memorable performance.

Roberto Forés Veses, guest conductor with the ADDA Orchestra had opened the concert with an orchestral interlude from Wagner’s Ring Cycle. This was the “Rumores del bosque” from Siegfried, when the eponymous hero becomes captivated by nature and birdsong. It was revealing to hear how modern this music sounded, especially in its understated passages where the music was allowed space to register.

In the second half, Roberto Forés Veses directed the orchestra in a performance of Brahms’s Symphony No. 4. Memorable was the tempo and excitement generated in the third movement, which for me at least was wholly original. The evening ended with an encore of Brahms’s Hungarian Dance No. 5, which was both rousing and playful.

A concert that surely made history - Pablo Sainz Villegas in Arturo Marquez's Concierto Mistico y Profano with Josep Vicent and the ADDA orchestra

 

It is possible to run out of superlatives. We can easily pepper any description with the words “best” or “greatest”, but they have been so overused that to see them is often associated with a dismissal of the message as marketing hype. I will not, therefore, describe last night’s ADDA concert is the “best” or the “greatest”. I will simply say that it was utterly memorable, intensely moving and completely joyous, and perhaps may go down in history.

On paper, it looked like a short concert, promising under an hour of music, comprising just two works. In the event, it lasted two hours and presented seven pieces. Such is our varied and rich experience of ADDA concerts under Josep Vicent’s artistic directorship.

The ADDA orchestra opened the concert with a non-programmed piece. Josep Vicent explained that they would offer something to mark the passing of Pope Francis and, in recognition of his work for peace, they would play the Nimrod variation from an Elgar’s Enigma. The music’s tranquillity and understatement made a perfect tribute.

I have been attending concerts for about sixty years and the experience that followed our unscheduled opening must rank as a pinnacle of those decades. In every respect, the playing, the composition, the approach and the delivery, it was all utterly memorable. And perhaps even historically so.

What made it special was the second ever performance of the Concierto Mistico y Profano of Arturo Marquez. By the end of the work, it was clear to everyone that this was a major contribution to the repertoire, a concerto to go alongside those of Rodrigo and Villa-Lobos as potentially one of the most performed guitar concertos.

Pablo Sainz Villegas gave a superb performance of this rhythmically complex work, indeed stressing those rhythms, but also taking every opportunity to ensure that the lyricism showed through. His playing was both inspired and inspiring. It is a work of some complexity, but the audience immediately warmed to its simultaneous accessibility.

As ever, the ADDA orchestra also starred, and the dynamics were so carefully worked out by composer and performers alike that not a note of the solo guitar part was lost. This was surely a performance that made musical history in that, if the concerto does indeed become standard repertoire, then this performance will be seeing as pivotal in establishing the work’s credentials.

No, less than three encores followed. An orchestral version of the well-known Romanza, provided a calm interlude after the rhythmic vitality of the concerto, but then a version of Piazzolla’s Libertango re-established it. Josep Vicent also joined in with a percussion accompaniment when he used his baton on his desk to colour things even more.

Then Pablo Sainz Villegas played a solo piece. It was nothing less than the Gran Jota of Tarrega, complete with snare drum rolls sounded by tangling the guitar’s E and A strings. Quite superb. Even breathtaking.

In the second half, we heard an orchestral tour de force. Mussorgsky’s music with orchestration by Ravel became an ultra-colourful Pictures At An Exhibition. This is work that is well known and is always spectacular.

And orchestral encore brought the concert to a close and appropriately, it was the Danzon 2 of Marquez. The ADDA orchestra plays this piece quite regularly, but in their hands, it never loses either its shine or its excitement. The players’ enthusiasm when the band strikes up is palpable. There were a lot of smiles around during this concert, and not only among the audience, but between the players as well. It was clearly a night to remember for all concerned.

ADDA Alicante hosts RTVE orchestra and chorus in Brahms, Nielsen, Strauss and Borodin

 

Alicante’s ADDA hosted the Orchestra and Chorus of RTVE in a concert entitled “Don Juan and Prince Igor”. The title rather ignored the first half, which featured three works, two choral pieces by Brahms and Nielsen’s Flute Concerto. I will therefore describe the second half first.

Twenty minutes was the listed performance time for Richard Strauss’s tone poem, Don Juan. It is a race through the biography of a character who occupied Daponte and Mozart for a couple of hours and Lord Byron for a lifetime. And in this performance, these 20 minutes, absolutely whizzed by. Richard Strauss’s orchestration in this symphonic poem is so massive that the audience members in the first few rows regularly had to duck to avoid the kitchen sinks.

But what subtlety lies within this apparently broad brush! From the second row, I could see the percussionists behind the first violins and was astounded to hear a triangle played softly rising above an orchestral tutti. Richard Strauss certainly knew how to write for orchestra, and this performance, at speed, was virtuosic. As the good times roll by, we know the character is going to receive his come-uppance, and that duly arrives with the finality of pizzicato marking a truly quiet end to a raucous life.

And then we launched into Borodin’s Polovtsian Dances from Prince Igor. Now this is a real show-stopper. Not only does it present a thoroughly familiar tune in its opening passages and at the end, the Gliding Dance of the Maidens, a tune made famous by its incorporation into Kismet in Hollywood, but its upbeat central section is it itself a pop classic. Someone behind us in the audience sang along with the RTVE chorus with the words of “Stranger in Paradise”, but it was not disturbing, because the volume of sound produced on stage in this work is immense.

We did have an encore. It was another pop classic in the form of the chorus of the Hebrew Slaves from Nabucco. It all makes musical sense, if you can imagine an entire race incarcerated in a prehistorical concentration camp and faced with extermination joining in with a waltz sung in a major key. I suppose faith is powerful.

The first half started with the two with two significant works by Brahms. In Nänie, Op. 82, we are presented with a rather funereal atmosphere that anticipates some of Brahms’s later works, but without the obvious lyricism. In Schicksalslied, Op.54 we have full blown Brahms in mid-career. Brahms, complete with a smoker’s shortness of breath, presents his characteristic short phrase – pause – short phrase – pause (repeat) structure that he so commonly used. My personal theory is that he liked to sing along with his work, but his lungs could no longer sustain a long phrase.

And so to the problematic piece in the program. Make of this what you will – and our soloist, whose name is Mónica Raga, resident of the RTV Orchestra, did just that. The playing of this enigmatic work was utterly breathtaking, nothing less than perfect, even inspired. And this despite conductor Christoph König at one point letting go of his baton and hitting her mid-stream. Not a note was lost. Quite brilliant.

But Nielsen’s Flute Concerto is a late work and the composer, already at work on the Sixth  (and equally problematic) Symphony presents his audience with a piece that vacillates between serious and tender, between cynical and sincere throughout its two movements. One wonders where Carl Nielsen had convinced himself by 1926 that a composer’s life was the pits and his offerings were without worth. In his own words, he wrote, “If I could live my life again, I would chase any thoughts of Art out of my head and be apprenticed to a merchant or pursue some other useful trade the results of which could be visible in the end ...” This concerto, neither modern nor traditional, neither the tonal nor abstract, neither serious or frivolous, presents a challenge for an audience and a soloist. Mónica Raga truly rose to the occasion, and she made sense of this enigmatic work. It is, however, an enigma worth revisiting.

The third Gonzalo Soriano Piano Competition in Alicante

 

From 23rd April 26 April 2025, some 90 competitors took part in the third Gonzalo Soriano Piano Competition. The participants competed across five categories based on age, right from “prodigios”, who were very young indeed, up to the adult category D, in which the participants are basically already professional or semi-professional pianists seeking to enhance their careers. The Gonzalo Soriano Piano Competition is organized by Ars Alta Cultural (arsatlacultural.com) with the cooperation of Alicante’s Conservatorio Profesional de Música Guitarrista “José Tomás”.

The adult category was scheduled over the first two days of the competition and the final took place on the Friday evening. Three participants were selected to play half hour programs in the final, being Luis Cabello López from Spain, Yui Higashijima from Japan and Michał Selwesiuk from Poland.

The competition’s first prize went to Yui Higashijima. Second prize went Michał Selwesiuk and third prize to the 19-year-old Luis Cabello López from Spain. All three performances in the final were superb. Luis’s interpretation of the Second Sonata of Prokofiev was both exciting and witty. He stresses the angularity of the writing, but uses liberal legato where tenderness shows through the composer’s is almost metallic sheen. Bartok’s percussive Sonata completed his program. Now this is a very difficult work to interpret. It’s quieter sections can sometimes seem lacking in direction, but overall, Luis’s interpretation was exciting and satisfying.

Yui Higashijima’s program was a complete contrast to what had gone before. She offered JS Bach’s Toccata in D Minor, BWV 917, which she played with complete lyrical control. It’s amazing how Bach’s music suggests harmonic complexities by juxtaposing ideas rather than sounding chords. All this music’s elegance and sophistication came alive in her performance. She followed with Rachmaninov’s Variations on a Theme of Corelli, Opus 42. Unlike Rachmaninov’s Paganini Variations, this work has few memorable tunes, and fewer technical gymnastics and, of course, is for solo piano. But nevertheless it is still by Rachmaninov, and it is designed to be technically demanding. Yui played it in such a way that the technical demands were not obvious because the music flowed by virtue of the energy and accuracy of her performance.

Michał Selwesiuk also programmed Rachmaninov. He began with Moments Musicaux No1 from Opus 16 which, if anything, is Rachmaninov in a more reflective, understated style. He played the piece almost as if it were prelude to what followed, which was Chopin’s B-flat minor Sonata, Opus 35. This is a major work in the piano repertoire and Michał’s playing and interpretation of it with faultless.

Personally, I am not a judge of piano playing. The Gonzalo Soriano Piano Competition, however, had four judges who all have extensive experience and expertise in the role. Helena Sul from Sweden, Denise Lutgens from the Netherlands, Dorian Leljac and Danijel Gašparović from Croatia judged collectively that Yui Higashijima would be awarded first prize, Michał Selwesiuk second prize and Luis Cabello third prize. As a lover of music, I can testify that these three performances, covering such a different repertoire, were all thoroughly professional, and what is more, musically and artistically moving.

In the other categories, Mara Spitz was awarded absolute first prize in category C, Petar Vidošević in category B and Deedeh Rouhani in category A. All the prodigies who took part were awarded prizes.

Four days is a lot of piano music. But the hard work, dedication, and practice by these young players is a pure joy to witness. And if it were to happen again next week, I would want to attend every session, but this time in the audience! One can only hope that music lovers can have a chance to hear more of these gifted performers in the future.

Vilde Frang, Vladimir Jurowski and the London Philharmonic Orchestra play Beethoven and Schumann in ADDA Alicante

 

A few years ago, a concert program comprising two works by Beethoven, and one by Schuman would not, for me, have aroused much interest. That is the value of an abono, a subscription, because a subscription means that you have opted for an entire season of performances and thus one goes to whatever is on offer. My wife and I have had a subscription to Alicante’s ADDA auditorium for several years and so we are now used to attending concerts that would not usually be in our comfort zone, which is that of twentieth and twenty-first century music. Last night in ADDA, we received a clear statement of what we have been missing over the years when we repeatedly tried to edit out what we didn’t “like”.

The concert was by the London Philharmonic Orchestra under Vladimir Jurowski and featured the violin playing of Vilde Frang. Right, that has got the star billing out of the way! The concert presented Beethoven’s Coriolan Overture, Robert Schumann’s Violin Concerto, and then Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5. For someone who does not normally warm to Beethoven’s symphonies, I confess that in concert over the last two months I have heard numbers four, five and seven, and all three in their own way, have proved to be the highlights of a very rich musical year. My fear of cliché often gets in the way, but these three performances, and last night’s number five included, have all been outstanding.

Vladimir Jurowski needs no introduction. He is a justifiably a world-famous conductor. He is very economical, highly proficient and a very precise conductor. There are no grand or grandiose gestures, just content. The way he communicated what he wanted to stress in this performance of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony was both subtle and dramatically perfect. His indication of the syncopations in the final movement, for instance, were both precise and perfectly judged. In the central movements, Beethoven’s memory of wind bands in the street were clear, but the context was always architectural, with nothing being played for momentary effect. The pace of the first movement was fast and this “knock of fate on the door” was truly frightening. Again, I am tempted to describe the playing and the conducting as perfect.

The Coriolan Overture in its own way a masterpiece. Here Beethoven is trying to give us a complete Shakespeare play in five minutes. The ending, where treason results in public disgrace, is telling.

The Violin Concerto of Robert Schumann is potentially at least a problematic work. It is a late work, perhaps conceived when Robert Schumann was not fully in control of his own mind. But how many of us care when the result is what we heard? Vilde Frang’s playing made sense of this rather rambling score and the orchestral accompaniment was always sympathetic to her substantial dynamic. The sound from her Guarneri was something to behold. She did play an encore, which I believe was Montanari’s Giga Senza Basso.

I intend to repeat the subscription for another year at least!

La Leyenda del Príncipe y el Lago Helado: Prokofiev's Alexander Nevsky in ADDA, Alicante with Orfeón Donostiarra and Silvia Tro, plus Beethoven!

I last heard Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky in April 1985. It was a performance of the complete film score alongside the film itself, recently reconstructed, in London’s Royal Festival Hall. The orchestra was the London Philharmonic and the conductor was Mstislav Rostropóvich. I could remember the venue and the music, but not the performers or the date. Those were filled in by artificial intelligence. That would also be the last time I saw the film.

Last night’s performance by the ADDA orchestra under Josep Vicent featured the cantata that Prokofiev constructed out of his incidental music to Eisenstein’s film This choral work has since become a concert hall regular, perhaps the major cantata of all twentieth century music. Performances are not offered very often, however, because it is a work that needs a lot of resources, large numbers of human beings and, if it is to be done well, lots of rehearsal time.

This performance, subtitled “La Leyenda del  Príncipe y el Lago Helado”, of the purely musical work was accompanied by a brief passages from the film, projected above the heads of the Orfeón Donostiarra chorus. There was enough visual material to provide context, but no more. In any case, Prokofiev’s cantata score does not follow the film’s action sequentially, only thematically. Rest assured that this is a massive work and, for many concert goers, it is probably a one-in-a-lifetime experience. Not only does it demand a large orchestra and a full chorus, it also has a soloist, mezzo-soprano Silvia Tro this evening, to sing an orchestral song towards the end. Silvia Tro’s performance of this patriotic text was moving, though its propaganda message was better left untranslated.

From the start, indeed, we can hear that this is a Prokofiev score because of the filled out and emphasised bass. The orchestration is simply spectacular and the ADDA orchestra delivered perfectly all the unexpected and frankly surprising textures. Even the opening chords, delivered softly offer the listeners something of a surprise.

Josep Vicent had placed the percussion not at the back, because Orfeón Donostiarra were there. Hence the players of extensive percussion section were immediately behind the violins. This brought all the percussive colour to the fore, and the effect was spectacular. At the start of the battle on the ice scene, it seemed as if the assembled army on stage had come alive as a single insect-like force, scratching its way towards the audience. Simply spectacular.

Truly spectacular had been the first half of the concert. Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony is clearly a favourite of Josep Vicent and the ADDA orchestra. I have heard them perform it at least three times and, if it were on offer again today, I would be first in line for a ticket. I will limit my description of the piece, because it has featured regularly in ADDA concerts.

This was playing of the very highest quality. Not only was it accurate and controlled, but it also came across a slightly reckless, even improvised. But of course, it was not, but this performance had the quality of experiment at breakneck speed. The performance of Alexander Nevsky was both welcome and spectacular. But it was Ludwig van Beethoven who stole this music show.

 

A concert of surprises - Beethoven Piano Concert No4 and Symphony No4 featuring Joachim Gustavsson and Antonii Baryshvskyi

What could possibly be surprising about a concert whose program listed two works by Beethoven, both numbered four, one a piano concerto and the other symphony? Well, the answer is just about everything. To start with, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 4 is certainly not the most played of his symphonic works. I am sure I have heard it in the concert hall before, but I am also sure it was more than four decades ago. The fourth piano concerto, on the other hand, is a regular inclusion on concert programmes, and I have heard it several times in the last decade and countless times via recordings. But it has never sounded quite like this.

The first surprise, though it was announced in advance, was the identity of the soloist. Antonii Baryshvskyi played the concerto instead of Judith Jauregui, who stepped down on medical advice. In addition, the evening’s conductor was Joachim Gustafsson, a guest of the ADDA Simfonica, was making, I believe, his first appearance with the orchestra.

The fourth piano concerto of Beethoven is a masterpiece. It has that amazing concept of a slow movement where the quiet piano competes with angry strings and wins them over by gentle persuasion. It is perhaps one of the most original pieces of music ever written. In the hands of Antonii Baryshvskyi, the movement attained perfection.

But so did the first and third movements. Antonii Baryshvskyi’s style throughout was sensitive and accommodating of an orchestral sound that refused to dominate. This was real human dialogue between soloist and orchestra. In fact, the orchestral textures throughout - except, of course, for the strings in the second movement - were light and played softer and with less attack than would be the norm. The overall effect was to render the whole work profoundly human and humble. Then, given the nature of the argument of its second movement, this approach rendered the experience utterly moving from the first note to the last. Surely everyone present was deeply affected by this perfect music making.

Antonii Baryshvskyi chose to play different credenzas from any that I have previously heard. This concerto has several cadenzas written by various composers and pianists. I did not recognize the ones that the pianist chose, and conclude, therefore, that they were his own. It was both surprising and startling to have contemporary-sounding cadenzas appearing in such familiar music, but nothing was out of place. Everything made perfect musical sense. Joachim Gustavson’s muted approach to the music allowed the experience to develop and the space thus created was emotionally very special. Antonii Baryshvskyi then played two encores. The first was Chopin’s Revolutionary Study – how apt, given what we had just heard! - and the second, again I speculate, was probably his own work. The ADDA audience gave him the warmest possible applause in recognition of something profoundly special.

So after the familiar cast anew in the first half, the second half embarked upon the less familiar fourth symphony. The fourth symphony’s opening could pass for Mahler and the rest is hardly less revolutionary for the first decade of the nineteenth century.

Beethoven wrote the work after the Eroica and before the anger of the fifth. It is a work that could be superficially classed as a tranquil interlude between two great statements. But anyone who listens to this music will conclude that it is wholly original and indeed visionary. There were times when we might have been listening to Mendelssohn, forty years early!

Again, Joachim Gustavsson’s reading of the music was perfect. The music seemed actually to be human, so much did it seem to breathe. Anyone unfamiliar with this work, and there will be many, even amongst regular concertgoers, should listen intently to its argument because it makes perfect sense. The rhythmic variations Beethoven used in the scherzo are reminiscent even of the seventh symphony. This was a performance that will live in the memory forever.

The evening’s third encore was something completely different, the Intermezzo from Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana. Like everything else on this wonderful evening this was a surprise.