Yet again there was nearly a full house at the Usher Hall. Many will have been curious to see what Peter Oundjian, the night’s conductor, looked like for he is to be the Orchestra’s Music Director once Stéphane Denève departs for Germany in a year’s time. He was born in Canada of an Armenian father, English mother and Scottish maternal grandfather - and educated in England.
The Usher Hall has a worldwide reputation for responding in like vein to the Music Director’s Good Evening. Peter Oundjian was a little disappointed at our response and quickly blamed his lack of a French accent. We took the hint and quickly repeated our Good Evening with the vigour for which we are famed, and all was put right and augers well.
Others will have been there to say farewell to Simon Woods, the chief executive who has done so much for the success and stability of the Orchestra in recent years, who is off with his family to a post in Seattle.
Had it not been for repetitive strain injury Ursula Heidecker would have been playing with the first violins. But her maiden pre-concert talk gave us a real insight into both the first and last pieces on the programme. She told us to listen out for the chorale in the background of Christopher Rouse’s Rapture. Only recently, she told us, had the spiritual life of Brahms become known and read an interesting passage on it, before demonstrating on her violin parts of his Symphony No 3.
The highly talented Stephen Hough played Grieg’s piano concerto, always a great favourite. Brought up on the Wirral, initially an evangelical then a Roman Catholic he has written about how his career as an internationally known pianist has helped ameliorate what he calls the ‘terrible light’ of the Church’s teaching on homosexuality.
The third movement of Brahms Symphony No 3 must be one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever written. Under the baton of the Music Director Designate the Orchestra did not disappoint and indeed gave us a lovely concert. If Peter Oundjian was feeling he was under close scrutiny he appeared to be overwhelmed with the response he received.
Event: Friday 15 April 2011 6.45 pm (talk), 7.30 pm (concert)