Gromes, Hallé, Chauhan, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - new concerto and music of triumph

A cello concerto received its UK premiere in Manchester last night – almost 100 years after it was written. It’s by Maria Herz, a German-Jewish composer who had to leave her native land in the 1930s and whose work has remained almost unknown until quite recently.

Raphaela Gromes has championed this concerto, giving its German premiere last year, and she brought it to Britain with the Hallé and Alpesh Chauhan (main picture).

It’s a one-movement work in three sections, with modest orchestral forces required, and harmonic analysts might say it’s of its time – displaying a mastery of chromatic modulations, though, that serve to create its rising tensions and underlie its creation of a feeling of rootlessness.

It's of its time and place, also and strikingly, in its sense of unease, menace and ultimately despondency: for a Jewish woman living in the Germany that saw the rise of the Nazis, that is an inescapable context. It’s also written with originality and brilliance for the soloist, with accomplished orchestral scoring.

The sense of disturbance and threat is there from the opening, as the solo emerges from the depths of the cello’s register, soon duetting with itself in a striking passage of double-stopping, all over a long-held pedal note in the orchestra. Wind instruments add their piquant comments, and the first violins hover gently, like doves, over the texture.

The opening section builds to a resounding climax, followed by a cadenza-like solo for the cello (with the menacing pedal still there), and then the central part of the work, opening with tick-tock-ing woodwind and a sense of false jollity. The solo gains in passion, as if trapped, as mechanical oom-pahs rise in the orchestra, and the harmonic language creates a sense of instability and drowning.

There is a whiff of frantic desperation (and another cadenza-like passage, ending with a descending glissando) before the piece reaches its grim conclusion. It does contain some elements of repetition and over-extension of its material in the central part, but that weakness is of little account in comparison with the overall impact the concerto makes. It needs to be heard again, and often.

Raphaela Gromes is a player of wide-ranging expressive ability and superb technique and it could hardly ask for a more committed advocate.Alpesh Chauhan (pictured above), himself a cellist in his early career, is a sensitive and sensible accompanist. His concert last November with the BBC Philharmonic in this hall, when Alban Gerhardt was soloist in the second Shostakovich cello concerto, demonstrated that beyond all doubt, and his unshowy but productive command of the Hallé on this occasion had the same authority.

That performance included a Richard Strauss tone poem (Ein Heldenleben, played with power and panache), so he proved the man for the job in this one as he took the place of the previously advertised Han-Na Chang. It was Don Juan whose challenge he took on, opening it at an exciting pace and as con brio as could be asked, and relaxing into lyrical tenderness for the intimate episodes implied in the music’s story-telling. Hallé leader Roberto Ruisi gave the violin solos seductive charm (and brought the depiction of the hero’s sensual exhaustion vividly to life), and the great, song-like central love scene featured a deep-breathed flute solo (Amy Yule), a passionate oboe cantilena from Stéphane Rancourt, and warmly-embracing wind ensemble from the entire team.

If there is one thing that conductors could learn from Strauss himself, it’s his advice “Never look at the brass – it only encourages them”, but there’s no doubt he wanted them to work hard in this piece. Sometimes, however, their dominance of the ensemble became obliteration of everyone else.

Prokoviev’s Fifth Symphony, the selling point of the concert’s marketing line on account of its “triumphant” qualities, was given a reading that equally included its thoughtful aspect. It’s an end-of-wartime piece (1944) and, though it asks for playing of dolce quality at one point, the predominant element is relief and rejoicing, percussion-heavy and with the full brass chorus interjections almost frightening in their intensity. Prokoviev used material originally destined for his Romeo and Juliet ballet in the jolly, sardonic scherzo movement (played by the Hallé strings and woodwind with admirable discipline) and in Chauhan’s reading it became furious and unrelenting all the way to its abrupt ending.

The slow movement was both passionate and eloquently shaped, and the finale, with its chugging positivity built up to a shattering climax, had more depth to it than appeared at first – an insightful presentation.

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