Still much to enjoy from the WNOO

Welsh National Opera Orchestra St David’s Hall, Cardiff ★★★II

BEING hanged for blasphemy was a pretty dramatic way for the German peasant folk hero Till Eulenspiegel to say goodbye to this world, particularly in the musical portrayal of his life by Richard Strauss.

Strauss’s tone poem, Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks, can be seen as a defence of freedom of speech and action and a plea to people not to take themselves too seriously. That in any event is how Tomas Hanus, music director of Welsh National Opera, views the piece. It was entertainingly realised in his interpretation of the composition which closed this International Concert Series concert by the WNO Orchestra.

In recent years the orchestra’s contributions to the International Concert Series have been outstanding. Viewed in that light, this concert was something of a disappointment, although there was still much to enjoy.

Till Eulenspiegel is represented by two themes. The first is lilting melody played by the horn, while the second for D clarinet suggests the prankster’s craftier side.

The unfolding story, during which Till Eulenspiegel dents bourgeois and ecclesiastical certainties, is often operatic which is why it was told in such a convincing way by this orchestra in one of it rare orchestral concerts away from the opera house. The playing was particularly emotive as the prankster went to the gallows, despite his desperate protestations.

The structure of this concert was unusual with Brahms’s Third Symphony opening proceedings and Mozart’s final piano concerto beginning the second half.

If Till Eulenspiegel’s farewell to life is dramatic, the sense of an ending in the Brahms symphony is much more elusive. This is the composer’s shortest and most intimate symphony.

Hanus led the orchestra in a muscular and persuasive account that avoided the portentous and explored its dark-hued mysteries with skill, insight and tenderness.

Was Mozart bidding farewell to life in his Piano Concerto No 27, which is beieved to have been first performed shortly before he died in 1791? Certainly in this account by Paul Lewis the Larghetto second movement was a melancholy and emotional contemplation of the vagaries of life.

The outer movements were given zest by some fine playing by the orchestra, gently and elegantly coaxed along by Tomas Hanus. This was a satisfactory interpretation of the work without being particularly memorable.