Always a quietly forceful presence on the podium: Ryan Bancroft in his final concert as BBC National Orchestra of Wales's principal conductor.
Review: BBCNOW/Bancroft – conductor takes final bow in imaginative programme of vivid colours and emotions
Hoddinott Hall, Cardiff
Works about infatuation and deep feeling were fitting choices with which Ryan Bancroft bid a celebratory farewell to the BBC National Orchestra of Wales.
Back in 2018, Ryan Bancroft stepped in as a last-minute replacement for a BBC National Orchestra of Wales tour. By September 2020, the US-born musician had become principal conductor. During his six-year tenure, he has always been a vibrant and quietly forceful presence on the podium, amply demonstrated in this, his last Cardiff concert in the role.
He opened with Stravinsky's Song of the Nightingale, the symphonic poem fashioned from music originally an opera and ultimately a ballet choreographed by Balanchine. Hans Christian Andersen's story, set in imperial China, allowed Stravinsky to conjure exotic sounds, including gong and celeste. But it is the poignancy of the emperor's fate, symbolised by his infatuation first with a real nightingale – made suitably enchanting by Matthew Featherstone's flute – who is then usurped in his affection by a mere mechanical version, that colours the score.
The Stravinsky made for an imaginative pairing with Rachmaninov's Symphonic Dances, with its similarly delicate balance between light and dark, life and death, where the composer's habitual referencing of the Dies Irae is countered by a quote from his own Vespers, with its resonance of his Russian Orthodox heritage. Nowhere was the ease of Bancroft's relationship with the BBCNOW players more apparent than in the central waltz, flowing and infinitely flexible, while at the very end of the final dance the lingering reverberation of the tam-tam, precisely observed, was another indication of the subtle detail Bancroft had found throughout. An emotional rollercoaster, no less.
Between these two came Brahms's Double Concerto for Violin and Cello, equally imbued with deeply felt reflections on life, having been conceived as a peace-offering to the violinist Joseph Joachim. Here, one's attention was held by the close rapport of the two soloists, colleagues of long standing: the orchestra's leader, Lesley Hatfield, and its former principal cellist, Alice Neary, each in tune with the other in their handling of Brahms's richly expressive interweaving of melody and also in their exchanges with the wind players, often carrying the finesse of chamber music. The final dancing rondo, its theme a tribute to Joachim's Hungarian roots, moved from minor to major with a grace and commitment that was its own testimony to friendship. To be broadcast on Radio 3 at a future date; watch it now on iPlayer.
