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Rimsky-Korsakov, Simon Holt and Rachmaninov:  Colin Currie (percussion)  City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra / Martyn Brabbins, Symphony Hall Birmingham,14.5.2008 (CT)

Rimsky-Korsakov: Suite-The Golden Cockerel
Simon Holt: a table of noises (world premiere)
Rachmaninov: Symphonic Dances


As anticipation builds in Birmingham over the arrival of new Music Director Andris Nelsons later in the year, there was something almost poignant about the outgoing incumbent’s introduction to the concert in the programme as Sakari Oramo welcomed guest conductor Martyn Brabbins and his “special affinity with Russian music”; an affinity that can be traced back to Brabbins’ period of study in Leningrad with Ilya Musin.

Given Brabbins’ even greater and more widely lauded affinity with contemporary music, this was a programme custom made for him, with the world premiere of Simon Holt’s new percussion concerto (although that description is explicitly avoided in the far more intriguing title of “a table of noises”) taking centre stage to the more familiar Russian fare of the Rimsky-Korsakov and Rachmaninov.

It was a shade surprising then that Rimsky-Korsakov’s typically colourful and lavishly scored suite from his last opera The Golden Cockerel (albeit adapted after the composer’s death by his former pupils Alexander Glazunov and Maximilian Steinberg) fell curiously flat in the sumptuous acoustics of Symphony Hall. Replete with its equally colourful Pushkin inspired story line of an ageing Tsar beset by marauding armies, prophecies from mystical astrologers and a magical Golden Cockerel that crows to warn of impending danger, both score and fantastical fable are a heaven sent opportunity for a vivid response from orchestra and conductor. In the case of the orchestra the opening movement, Tsar Dodon in his Palace, drew beautifully rich sounds from the trademark strings that Oramo has so carefully moulded during his tenure with the orchestra whilst the delicacy of the orchestra’s outstanding principal oboist was a sheer delight in the opening of the third movement, Tsar Dodon and Queen Shemakha. Yet it was not until the latter stages of the third movement, as the Tsar dances himself furiously into exhaustion that orchestra and conductor seemed to first find their synergy with a degree of animation absent from the previous two movements. By the radiant march of the final movement however, Marriage Feast and Lamentable End of Tsar Dodon, it was a different matter altogether as the music finally ignited and one was left somewhat bemused by the initial absence of drama from the opening two movements.

The visually spectacular element that has in many cases become the norm associated with the phenomenon of the percussion concerto, with soloist running madly across the stage from instrument to instrument, is perhaps not surprisingly something that is absent from a table of noises. Holt’s subtle and sophisticated musical mind has seen to that. Not that the work is without a visual element, although with the exception of a xylophone placed alongside, the soloist’s instruments are contained to a table top at which he sits, whilst the title is something of a play on words in its translation from “mesa de ruidos”, one of a number of names for a box shaped Peruvian instrument also known as the cajón.

The greater quirkiness of the work comes from Holt’s inspiration, his intriguing Great Uncle Ash (Ashworth Hutton) a taxidermist whose parlour table “was covered with items essential for his existence”. With movement titles such as “a drawer full of eyes” and “skennin’ Mary” (a particularly bizarre sounding neighbour of his great uncle’s whose glass eye would spin when she got angry) it is something of a minor miracle that Holt’s childhood experiences did not scar him for life. Instead, he has used those same experiences to create a work of striking individuality, both in terms of its structure and endlessly fascinating, at times beguiling sound world.

The sound world is due in part to a carefully chosen orchestra designed to emphasise extremes of pitch and is notable for its absence of violins and standard flutes, clarinets and bassoons, instead opting for piccolos and contra bassoon at either end of the woodwind spectrum. With shrieking antiphonal piccolos placed at either side of the stage competing with the soloist on whistle and temple blocks in the opening movement, jute, Holt immediately laid the foundations for a work that reinforces his position as one of our most strikingly original compositional thinkers. As the music moved through a series of six movements, each separated by brief interludes described by the composer as “ghosts”, one was left mesmerised by both the sheer invention of the music and the virtuosic versatility of the soloist, Colin Currie, a true champion of his cause if ever there was one. It’s little surprise that Holt is in continual demand for his orchestral music with another major premiere, Troubled Light, scheduled for the Proms this summer.

If the first half performance of the Rimsky-Korsakov had raised certain questions, the orchestra’s second half performance of Rachmaninov’s effervescent Symphonic Dances firmly shut the door on any such further concerns. Having displayed why he is so justly regarded as one of the most adept conductors of contemporary music around in the Holt, it was a noticeably more animated Martyn Brabbins that directed a performance of the Rachmaninov that captured the imagination and attention from the very first entry of the stuttering violins leading into stirring first subject. Once again, the richness of the strings impressed immensely, but here the woodwind too were on top form, wonderfully delicate in the central passages of the first movement where the soulful sound of the alto saxophone was accompanied with consummate grace. The creeping atmosphere of the second movement waltz was achieved with aplomb whilst the carefully measured and controlled final movement made for a gripping end to a concert that whilst not entirely consistent, gave us a new work of undoubted quality and a performance of the Symphonic Dances that proves Martyn Brabbins to be a man whose talents do indeed extend beyond the realms of the contemporary repertoire.

Christopher Thomas


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