The Swingle Singers, São Paulo Symphony Orchestra… · 11/4/13 The Swingle Singers, São Paulo Symphony Orchestra, Alsop, Royal Festival Hall | Classical music reviews, news & interviews

11/4/13 The Swingle Singers, São Paulo Symphony Orchestra, Alsop, Royal Festival Hall | Classical music reviews, news & interviews | The Arts Desk

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Marin Alsop, most genial of animateurs

Grant Leighton

Anyone who saw or attended this year’s Last Night of the Proms willknow that Marin Alsop is a born communicator with a wry sense ofhumour. Another of those youthful crowds The Rest is Noise festivalkeeps attracting gave her a hero’s welcome last night, and sheresponded with easy compering. As a conductor she’s good, with clear,strong gestures plus a bit of shoulder acting – though if we have to talktop women interpreters, as opposed to animateurs, in the profession, mymoney’s still on Finn Susanna Mälkki - and she has a good orchestra ather disposal, too, the Brazilian first team of which she became MusicDirector in 2012. Only an occasional lack of atmosphere in Bernstein’smore poetic West Side Story music and Luciano Berio’s Sinfonia, not tomention a second-rank Brazilian opener, stopped this from turning into agreat concert.

It certainly had its stretches inthe sun. Alsop, the São Paulansand the ever-unique SwingleSingers (seven of last night's

The absolute

star was Swingle

tenor Oliver

Griffiths, who

chased streams

of consciousness

from Beckett’s

The Unnamable

with necessary

histrionics

rating

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The Swingle Singers, São Paulo Symphony Orchestra,Alsop, Royal Festival HallSixties psychedelia from Berio and masterly Bernstein dances overshadow a Brazilianrarity

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Singers (seven of last night'seight pictured right byBenedetta Pitscheider) werenot to blame if Berio surroundsthe most psychedelic of allcollages, the Sinfonia’s thirdand longest movementbattening on the rainbowcarcase of the scherzo fromMahler’s Second Symphony, with four cloudlets which barely impinge upon thewatery-whizzing central landscape.

Maybe, too, I’ve been spoilt by recordings where the balance between amplifiedvoices and orchestra allows every strand, every reference to tell in Berio’s swimthrough great music from Bach to Berg and Boulez. Here the Swingles wererather more to the fore than is usual, though they timed their spooky harmonies,shouts and speeches to perfection. The absolute star was tenor Oliver Griffiths,who chased streams of consciousness from Beckett’s The Unnamable withnecessary histrionics and rounded off with the nameable (his fellow singers andthe Maestra).

Berio’s work homes in on thespirit of ’68 and accommodatesa lament for the death of MartinLuther King. Coincidentally,protests over transport in theorchestra's home city turnedinto violence and destruction onFriday, though there was amore peaceful demonstration inthe hall last night. We weren’t atfirst sure who the singers risingfrom their seats before theorchestra came on might be,only to acknowledge theresourceful protesters of Shell’songoing Southbank concertsponsorship by their death-

banner. That’s the way to do it. And it was certainly more fun than CarmargoGuarnieri’s pseudo-tragic string dirge at the heart of his Fourth, BrasiliaSymphony of 1963. Lively cross rhythms in the outer movements and brevitywere its only virtues, for the invention is unremarkable throughout.

Never any such problems with Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances from West SideStory, complete with finger-clickings, “Mambo” shouts and that astonishing hoveron the brink of atonality in the “Cool” sequence. Despite sterling work throughoutthe concert by first trumpeter Fernando Dissenha and the trombone department,though, the gym feast never quite swung in the way the Venezuelans can makeit, and that was true, too, of the orchestra – though not the Swingles' obbligati – inthe riotous encore, Victory Stride by Ragtime pioneer James P Johnson(pictured above). Full credit to Alsop for that, and for a daring programme whichstill packed ‘em in.

More on Berio's Sinfonia, with a YouTube performance of the extraordinarythird movement, on David Nice's blog

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The Swingle Singers, São Paulo Symphony Orchestra… · 11/4/13 The Swingle Singers, São Paulo Symphony Orchestra, Alsop, Royal Festival Hall | Classical music reviews, news & interviews