Concerts and Recitals
Sequeira Costa
Maazel hits the Anvil ears, fragments at first the Philharmonia. At
which gradually built any rate at Basingstoke
n case you live anywhere near Basingstoke and into an aural and intell- we had to listen for half-
I haven’t yet visited the Anvil Concert Hall
(opened 1994) let me wave a flag for it. First-
ectual edifice. The tonal
juxtapositions and sub-
an-hour to his Music for
Violoncello and Orchestra.
class acoustic, comfortable, accessible (car-park sequent resolutions that On the positive side, this
handy), nice walk-about, helpful bars, interest- Sibelius composed are deeply was a good show piece for
ing programmes and events, 1,350 seats. Basic satisfying to heart and mind. the orchestra wherein all dep-
shoe-box shape but no right angles behind Do you, listener, sometimes artments played with consummate
platform (Rudolf Steiner would have approved). wish that the finale’s grand tune would skill. The work is not discordant all the time
On April 3 I heard a concert given by the come back a third time? But no doubt there are but it seems contrived by a clever mind with no
Philharmonia Orchestra (regular visitor) con- cogent reasons why Sibelius ended the work the heart. The composer writes that a subtitle could
ducted by Lorin Maazel, the most fascinating way he did; granite-faced old Finn, he knew be Dreamscape. Hm! My subtitle might echo
director to watch because his technique must what he was doing. And so did Maazel and the the title of an old musical: One Damn Thing
be the surest in the world. He is not always the Orchestra; it was superb. After Another (ODTAA). The cellist Han-na
most enjoyable to hear because The evening had begun with Chang was faultless, coping with every
sometimes he can pull the music Fauré’s touching, tender and difficulty Maazel had thrown her way; but for
about. I find his rehearsals apposite incidental music for quite long periods her cello was silent while
more interesting than his Maeterlinck’s play, Pelléas trumpets screamed, strings sounded air-raid
concerts, there being no et Mélisande, after which warnings, tom-toms tom-tommed, a lady
audience to watch him. we were regaled with an rushed about the platform playing a harpsi-
On this Hampshire example of Maazel’s third chord and other keyboard instruments,
visit, however, Maazel occupation. For he began although we could not hear the sounds she
did not play to the his career as a child made, any more than we could hear a player
gallery and his perform- prodigy violinist and fingering an accordion.
ance of the main work of Lorin Maazel nowadays his compositions John Amis
the evening, Sibelius’s Sym- figure in his programmes.
phony No 2, was exemplary, Skuttlebutt has it that he paid Sequeira Costa at the Wigmore
every detail cared for, but never at Covent Garden a quarter-of-a-
the expense of the trajectory of the music as a million pounds to put on his Orwell opera o judge from his showing on 28 June,
whole; amazing to be able to follow a cogent
argument in sound, the material laid before our
1984 which nobody seemed to enjoy [Ed: not
entirely true – I did]. Perhaps he has a deal with
T Sequeira Costa is more attuned to Chopin