Northern Sinfonia / Lockington

The Sage Gateshead 2.3.06

Northern Sinfonia looks the part on the platform at its stunning new concert hall ‘Hall One’ – part of The Sage Gateshead. This is a young, dynamic and presentable ensemble enthused with confidence much like its new home. The Sage Gateshead is infested with smart, helpful staff and is that rare thing: a major new arts venue that works for all the purposes it sets out to cater for – your lunchtime cappuccino, your evening haute cuisine, and your world class concert facility can be enjoyed in isolation or together with no loss of impact and a shared commitment to excellence and creativity. The layout of the building is refreshingly self-explanatory – you never feel more than seconds from where you need to be; fold-out maps and building guides are unnecessary. But it’s the quality of the build that impresses most; with Lord Foster’s first UK concert space Hall One as its crowning glory, this is a venue which has put Newcastle on the cultural map, however much of a cliché that may seem a year after its opening. It’s what the Lowry in Manchester could have been.

But the quality of Northern Sinfonia’s performance was not as consistent as that of its HQ. In an intriguing programme of American music that was in itself a credit to the Orchestra’s bosses, David Lockington drew varied standards of playing from his orchestra. Indeed, the best performance of the evening came first with John Adams’ Shaker Loops. The Sinfonia’s strings achieved an almost quartet-like unity, giving the undulation of Adams' score a chance to permeate the similarly clean lines of the hall with gravitas. There was quality of tone here, and some fine playing and leading from the section principals.

In Copland’s weighty Clarinet Concerto, again scored for a tutti of strings only, the playing was similarly insightful, though occasionally a more wooden intensity to the string sound would have brought more life to Copland’s score which at times seemed aloof, as if the Atlantic had never been crossed. Frank, virtuosic and delightfully unpretentious playing from virtuoso clarinettist Richard Stoltzman made this performance. Stoltzman played to the Gateshead audience like they were fellow virtuosos, not concealing the tricky corners of the concerto with conceit, but revealing a human struggle and victory that was endearing – a journey which we must all make.

Bernstein’s Clarinet Sonata which followed is the composer’s first published work, but it contains more than a few of his hallmarks; lurches from rhythmic drive into soaring lyrical theme which are so often encountered in his other scores for stage and platform. Stoltzman was equally as impressive, but the strings, piano and harp of the Sinfonia never really had Bernstein in their bloodstreams. They didn’t swing and didn’t seethe, and this performance sounded at times like ‘Bernstein by Numbers’.

Copland’s Appalachian Spring suite which followed was similarly bland, and unfortunately seasoned with a litany of errors and lapses from the Orchestra in which it seemed no section could be acquitted of blame. There were painfully tense and angular offerings from the bassoon and oboe, exercises in ragged string playing from the first violins, and rhythmic ambiguities from the timpani. There could have been some rousing moments which paid tribute to Copland’s score, but these were quashed by symphonic sized brass and woodwind against baroque sized string sections. Where did it all go wrong? The problems were rooted in a seeming lack of empathy with the sound world. You can’t play Copland like it’s Handel, and it seemed in this last work that the Orchestra had lost any Shaker spirit that they managed to capture at the concert’s opening. 

Andrew Mellor