Hils, History Boy and I did a bit of Kulture (with a capital "K") last night, as we trotted off to the magnificent surroundings of St John's Smith Square in Whitehall for a concert by the Fulham Symphony Orchestra, an amateur ensemble in which one of Hils' colleagues plays viola. "Amateur" they may be labelled, but "amateurish", they certainly were not!
The theme, if any were needed, of the evening's selection (according to the programme notes) was "ecstasy" - the passion of love. Oo-er.
With conductor Marc Dooley, they opened the evening with something a little familiar, but splendid - the Overture from Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's masterpiece Romeo and Juliet. It's a complicated number - most befitting of the "ecstatic" theme, with all the foreboding, clashing battles and doomed passion that Tchaikovsky could possibly throw into it - and the orchestra really did it proud. We were bowled over!
No video footage of the Fulham-ites yet exists on the interweb unfortunately, but here's (a snippet of) the overture as played by the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Valery Gergiev at the Proms in 2007, so you can see what I mean...
Suitably woken up by that glorious opening, it was time for some more gentle emotions to be evoked, as the soprano Anna Dennis was applauded onto the stage to perform (beautifully I might add) the six pieces by Hector Berlioz that make up his cycle Les Nuits d'Été (Summer Nights) Op.7.
Miss Dennis's voice is sublime, and the audience was enraptured by her recital of these lovely pieces, which together evoke a journey through the hopes, dreams and losses of love. Sigh. Memories of summers past, indeed.
Again, such a shame that there is no video recording of her version, but here are two of the pieces by other sopranos. [An unfair comparison, perhaps, but the beauty of Miss Dennis's voice can be heard on the La Nuova Musica production of Handel's Il Pastor Fido here (at about 5:30)]. First, we have Villanelle by Anne Sofie Von Otter, followed by Anna Caterina and Le Spectre de la Rose:
After the break, it was time for a brace of less familiar composers.
In what might possibly be its first performance in the UK, the orchestra opened the second half with Charles Koechlin's "tone poem" Vers une Plage Lointaine - a more experimental piece than even Berlioz, and last night used as a prelude to the "climax" of the evening. As preludes go, it was beautiful, if brief, and almost (but not quite) lost in its seamless segué into the closing number. Here is on its own:
Having had the courtship, the foreboding, the summer loving, the loss and the contemplation, it was time for the orgasm - for that is indeed what Alexander Scriabin intended his Le Poeme de l'Extase to evoke. His own instruction was for the orchestra to play with an "ever increasing sense of intoxication - almost in a delirium".
And that is exactly what the orchestra last night achieved! The "poem" builds, and builds, and builds to its explosive concusion, and leaves one completely breathless. It was, quite simply, astonishing.
Here's Evgeny Svetlanov conducting the Russian State Symphony Orchestra in their version:
We all need a twenty-minute orgasm now and again!
A stupendous night, and a concert I'll remember for a long time...
Fulham Symphony Orchestra
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