Bridgewater Hall, Manchester
Marking the centenary of someone's retirement would doubtless be regarded as eccentric in some quarters. The Hall�, however, is currently commemorating one of its greats, the conductor Hans Richter, whose work with the orchestra between 1899 and 1911 was hugely influential in forging its identity. A friend and champion of Elgar, Richter gave the premiere of the composer's First Symphony in Manchester in 1908. Earlier this year, Richter's archive was placed in the Hall�'s care: Mark Elder and the orchestra are celebrating with performances of the First.
It is often said that the Hall� have Elgar's music in their blood ? an acknowledgement, perhaps, of their ongoing revitalisation of the tradition that Richter founded. You'd be hard pressed to find the First better done. Elder has an almost instinctual grasp of its mixture of grandeur and turmoil, laying out its emotional parameters early as the swelling majesty of the opening march gave way to the vehemence with which he launched the first movement's allegro. Everything that followed had a tense beauty and an inexorable momentum, until the march reasserted itself, bounding and elated, at the close.
The first half of the concert, meanwhile, was given over to Verdi's Overture to Luisa Miller and Mozart's G Major Piano Concerto, No 17, K 453. Serpentine yet tautly monothematic, Verdi's overture heaved with menace and excitement. Martin Helmchen, one of today's finest young pianists, was the well-nigh perfect soloist in the Mozart, playing with refined muscularity and wonderfully alert to the melancholy poetry that lurk beneath the work's gracious surface.
Portia de Rossi Jolene Blalock Nichole Robinson Monet Mazur Rozonda Thomas
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