United Kingdom Adventurous Journeys – Beethoven, Wagner: Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra / Mark Wigglesworth (conductor). Lighthouse, Poole, 30.9.2026. (CK)
Beethoven – Symphony No.1
Wagner (arr.de Vlieger) – The Ring: An Orchestral Adventure
The opening concert of an orchestra’s season is like the beginning of a journey: the metaphor is more than usually apt for the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra’s concert in their home at Lighthouse in Poole. In a spoken introduction Dougie Scarfe, the orchestra’s charismatic Chief Executive, announced the start of Road to Joy, a survey across two seasons of Beethoven’s symphonies to mark the bicentenary of his death, performed chronologically and supported by three weekends delving into Beethoven’s impact upon humankind (the first, at the end of this month, features Dame Evelyn Glennie, John Suchet, the actor Sam West and Jonathan Dimbleby).
A Beethoven cycle? On the face of it, less sexy (and less expensive) than a Mahler cycle or a Shostakovich cycle: but Scarfe rightly drew our attention to the times of profound societal upheaval and catastrophic war in Europe in which Beethoven was writing. Beethoven for our time? I am on board, and I look forward to a journey full of fresh insights and deeper understanding of the man and his music.
Of course, the performances have to be of high quality: this performance of the First certainly was. As Scarfe pithily expressed it, Beethoven was ‘saying goodbye to the 18th century’ (it was first performed in 1800): an idea explored by Mark Wigglesworth in a thoughtful programme note. In the opening Allegro con brio the playing of the Bournemouth strings was lithe and muscular, alternating with delicious work from the woodwinds; the violas were cat-footed at the start of the Haydnesque Andante cantabile. In a symphony of jokes, perhaps Beethoven’s biggest was calling the third movement a Minuet: no 18th-century manners here, it is a Beethovenian explosion, abetted by crisply thunderous timpani, and the orchestra gave it everything they had got. The first violins’ tentative start to the finale was exquisite, and for all the music’s lightness and effervescence it was hard not to think of the glories to come in the Seventh Symphony. A marvellous performance.
After the interval the orchestra expanded from around forty to almost a hundred, including eight double basses to the left, four harps to the right, a phalanx of horns including a quartet of Wagner tubas, quadruple woodwind, heavy brass augmented by a bass trumpet, all presided over by two sets of timpani. And what a sound they made!
De Vlieger’s arrangement gives us a conspectus of the orchestral music of the entire Ring cycle in 72 minutes. This was not a time for pondering the rights and wrongs of serving up Wagner in this way, but for submitting to the old magician’s musical and dramatic wizardry.
That opening of Das Rheingold – Wagner said it came to him in a dream – was immediately spellbinding. Double basses in deep stasis, joined in turn by bassoons, overlapping horns, undulating cellos – it felt less like the start of a journey, more a sonic trip (a good one). I don’t think I would have minded if the BSO had sustained those 136 bars all night. But on we went: the Rhine surged, the anvils of Nibelheim clanged (Stuart Beard’s tuba baleful), Valhalla gleamed (Paul Bosworth’s trumpet outstanding), and so on to those thundering Valkyries (Wagner’s contribution to Thrash Metal), the Magic Fire Music, Forest Murmurs (gossamer playing from the strings, Barry Deacon’s clarinet a winning Woodbird), a bad-tempered dragon, Brunnhilde’s awakening…
So far, so splendid: the BSO, like a magic carpet, was giving us a sightseeing ride over the major contours of the first three operas. But then something happened. With the Dawn Music from Götterdämmerung we were pulled into the drama, and we were spellbound again, right up to the opera’s – the whole Ring cycle’s – transfigured close. It was extraordinarily moving; and it served as a reminder that Mark Wigglesworth is a superb conductor of opera. A quarter of a century ago I heard him conduct a wonderful Die Meistersinger at Covent Garden, and a visceral, thrilling Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk at English National Opera: I remember both of those occasions achieving the musical/dramatic lift-off that we experienced at Lighthouse. We were deeply stirred, and – I can only speak for myself – shaken too.
None of this would have happened if the BSO had not played like gods. The horns and Wagner tubas were magnificent: their principal Eleanor Blakeney left the stage twice to play Siegfried’s horn call and did so with nerveless virtuosity: she was rightly cheered to the rafters at the end. The strings did everything Wagner demands, sometimes sounding seismic, sometimes light as thistledown: they positively seethed as the Rhine overflowed at the end. Every player in the huge orchestra, it seemed, was a linchpin in an overwhelming musical experience. And to make it even more of a Gesamtkunstwerk even the hall lighting had a part to play.
An extraordinary concert: I have never heard the BSO play better, or with such fire. With Mark Wigglesworth they are going places. An exciting season lies ahead.
Chris Kettle