BBC Philharmonic, Bihlmaier, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - an International Women's Day special

Anja Bihlmaier returned to the BBC Philharmonic – for the first time in the Bridgewater Hall as principal guest conductor – with a programme to mark International Women’s Day, and consisting entirely of music by women composers, past and present.

Surviving symphonies written by 19th century women are not exactly thick on the ground, but Emilie Mayer’s No. 5 (one of eight) is evidence of what determination and originality could achieve even in a social context where expectations were of conformity and subservience. More of it below. The whole programme was of unfamiliar music: not a single standard work to be seen.

But today’s women composers are freer and somewhat better served than their sisters in the past. Olga Neuwirth’s Dreydl, written four years ago but receiving its UK premiere in this concert, may even have the potential to be a concert sugarplum on the pattern of Ravel’s Bolero. It has a comparable seduction in the form of a rhythmic cell that’s repeated almost throughout and seems never to let up (the title is the Yiddish name for a children’s spinning top) throughout its 12 minutes. Dance-like rhythm with no development is what Neuwirth says she’s reinventing, and she does it in fascinating variety, starting from gentle sounds from electronic organ and guitar (it asks for a pretty large orchestra, though the body of strings is relatively non-dominant). The textural patterns are more varied and intriguing than in Ravel’s exercise in crescendo, though, as there is more than one climax and also some brief, and impactive, interruptions to the predominant rhythmic pattern. The repetition is deceptive, as it’s never just the same thing over again: expansive melodies begin to emerge but never quite take over, and there’s dissolution as well as construction. It’s a piece that makes some of what goes under the flag of minimalism seem thin gruel indeed.

Sofia Gubaidulina’s The Light of the End is more than 20 years old and is a long work, calling for even more resources than many other present-day orchestral scores. It’s often loud, full of rhythmic detail and variety of colour: but the seminal idea is of the conflict between the “natural” overtones produced in brass instruments that derive their higher notes from the properties of long pieces of tube (usually “corrected” in mainstream music) and the consistent pitches required by the repeated scales and equal-temperament tuning we are used to in western classical tradition. It’s not immediately apparent at first, as the sound of a melody on horns with a solo trumpet is contrasted with a rich, multi-voiced texture for violas and cellos (avalanches of percussion – there are seven players in all – erupting over it). Then the battles begin. Percussive patterns play a large part, with a climax rather similar to Prokofiev’s midnight-chiming clock in Cinderella, but then the essential issue is gradually laid bare, as (over a low tuba fundamental pitch) horn and cello duet together. Guest principal horn Olivia Gandee (the Philharmonic also welcomed a guest principal trumpet in Holly Clark) and principal cello Peter Dixon were the heroes of the day – and the piece achieves a synthesis with the help of glissandos from the multi-member string ensemble, which was led by Midori Sugiyama.

The second part of the concert began with the shortest, but in many ways most moving item on the programme. It was the world premiere of beyond the beyond, written by Sarah Gibson when she knew she was dying of cancer and was nursing her baby boy in his first months. It would have been given by the BBC Philharmonic in last August’s London Proms, but for Gibson’s death shortly before the concert’s scheduled date (and has been completed in accordance with her intentions by her friend and colleague Thomas Kotcheff).

It seems a very personal testimony, opening energetically, achieving a grim climax then fading away to a single, ominous pitch on the strings – but transforming into warm diatonic chords and a passionate string theme which is its true heart. There’s an agonized climax before it’s over, ending in tiny interjections and without fuss.

Anja Bihlmaier’s direction of these three highly differing and highly complicated scores was calm and controlled, making each a window into a different creative world.

For Emilie Mayer’s Symphony No. 5 in F minor we were taken back to the Europe of the mid-nineteenth century, when Mozart’s and Beethoven’s shadows loomed large and music had its rules. Mayer was a contemporary of the Mendelssohns and Schumann but was able to pursue a composer’s career only after the early death of her father, blossoming in the era that welcomed a number of their imitators. This symphony steers a cautious path between convention and experiment: there are four movements, the first a sonata movement with the expected contrasting main themes, the second an Adagio, varying a song-without-words melody, the third a Scherzo and the finale exuding busy optimism.

Mayer, however, explored the alternation of major and minor tonalities in her own way, and was inventive in her orchestrations: she knew how to make her tunes appealing, especially in cello solos (Peter Dixon again delivering with distinction), and she was never short of ideas, particularly in the Scherzo. The last movement springs a surprise, too – the jollity of the recapitulation suddenly turns back to F minor for a short but very final coda. Anja Bihlmaier highlighted the swaying rhythms of the opening and the lyricism that followed, skilfully navigated the occasional periods where Mayer’s flow falters, and convinced us that here was a very individual voice.

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