Dermot Gault reviews the Ulster Orchestra with János Fürst at the Ulster Hall, Belfast and the Ulster Youth Orchestra under En Shao at the same venue, while Peter Crawley went along to the BellRays at the Temple Bar Music Centre
Ulster Orchestra/János Fürst at the Ulster Hall, Belfast
Norwegian Rhapsody No 3....Svendsen
Three Songs....Grieg
Symphonic Dances....Grieg
Luonnotar....Sibelius
Symphony No 1 in G minor....Nielsen
This was the most consistently satisfying, to date, of the current series of free BBC Invitation Concerts.
The Svendsen Rhapsody may not be especially great music, but it has undeniable folkloric charm and it featured some fine solos from the Ulster Orchestra's wind section.
Grieg's "symphonic" treatment of similarly folkloric themes may sometimes strain the limits of the material in a way which Svendsen is careful to avoid, but the music has the magic that eluded Svendsen and, in the final "dance" in particular, János Fürst managed to restrain the occasionally melodramatic content without stinting its dramatic character. Throughout, the playing was clean-cut, well-balanced, well-characterised and attentive to detail.
The Norwegian soprano Solveig Kringelborn sang charmingly in three songs by Grieg (Solveig's Song from Peer Gynt, En Svane and the familiar Vaaren, replacing the advertised Henrik Wergeland) and beautifully in Luonnotar, Sibelius's mythological evocation of the creation of the world.
Her fresh, youthful-sounding voice suits this visionary work especially well.
If Fürst to some extent fought shy of the melancholy and sense of loss inherent in Solveig's Song, Vaaren was expressive without being sentimental, and the rustling strings at the start of Luonnotar were delicately realised.
Nielsen's First Symphony is still something of a rarity, although it has all its composer's characteristic freshness and vitality, besides being an astonishingly mature work for its date (1892).
The performance was once again excellent, energetic in the opening Allegro and persuasively flowing in the following Andante.
Dermot Gault
Ulster Youth Orchestra/En Shao at the Ulster Hall, Belfast
Overture "In the South"....Elgar
Reaching (UYO commission)....Ed Bennett
Ein Heldenleben....Strauss
The Ulster Youth Orchestra has faced many challenges in its eight-year history, but Strauss's combination of athletic writing and complexity of texture makes Heldenleben a particularly adventurous choice. It is a challenge which these young musicians - maximum age 21 - are well able to meet.
Each section made a strong showing, the trombones being particularly impressive. Leader Laura Kernohan acquitted herself well in a solo violin part which requires a soloist's technique and powers of projection. En Shao may not be one to linger over detail or coax expressive refinements from his players, but the final section, with its solo contributions from the leader and from principal horn Louise Brown, was nevertheless effective.
Elgar's In the South is as challenging in its way; the writing may not be as brilliant, but for this very reason the textures require more careful handling. Here one missed the last degree of refinement - in wind intonation, for instance - but David Strange's
sweet- toned viola solo was a highlight.
It is the Ulster Youth Orchestra's policy to commission new works for their annual concerts, each of which is preceded by a course of intensive training from leading professionals. Ed Bennett was born in Bangor, Co Down, in 1975.
Reaching was remarkable not for thematic or harmonic invention, or even for its use of the orchestra, some striking sonorities notwithstanding (it certainly provided work for the orchestra's percussion section), but for its rhythmic energy and sheer determination to express itself. The playing showed equal determination.
Dermot Gault
The BellRays at the Temple Bar Music Centre
What have I done to make the BellRays so angry? Concluding a break-neck, breathless set of apoplectic soul-punk, singer Lisa Kekaula demands to know if we have heard anything like them before. "You won't read about it," she declaims with unadulterated scorn.
I can hardly blame Detroit's industrial Motown exponents for their media-directed wrath. After all, one of the nastiest reviews printed this year was an acerbic write-off of a BellRays gig in Britain.
Clearly no fan of small-talk, Kekaula's audience repartee extends only to a curt "We are The BellRays" before Tony Fate's guitar squall and Bob Vennum's raucous bass line coalesce for a ferocious Fire on the Moon. Kekaula's fearsome yowl resembles an aggravated Tina Turner or Aretha Franklin throwing an absolute fouler. Before the song can even come to a complete finish, Screwdriver has already roared to admonishing life.
As each successive song erupts from the dying embers of the previous number, it seems that the BellRays are stuck in one gear. And it's fifth. Consequently, they are difficult to warm to, but they win the audience over through the sheer force of their playing.
In our fast-music culture (Do you want punk with that?), the BellRays' genre-fusing may not seem as revolutionary as they would have us believe. Indeed, self-conscious references to MC5, the Stooges and even the Blues Brothers supply a tacit admission. But influences are hardly a crime.
Played with the urgency of a bomb-disposal unit, the stinging energy of They Glued Your Head On Upside Down or the searing gospel-growl of Testify spell it out clear: you don't want to be on their bad side.
Peter Crawley
