Evaluation of Northern Chamber Orchestra with chief Nicholas Ward and soloist Craig Ogden

Nicholas Ward (left) and Craig Ogden

The highspot of the weekend Manchester Guitar
Pageant at Chetham’s Faculty of Music was a live performance on Sunday afternoon by the
Northern Chamber Orchestra within the Stoller Corridor, that includes Craig Ogden as
soloist in each Malcolm Arnold’s Guitar Concerto and Peter Sculthorpe’s Nourlangie.

However the live performance – a repeat of 1 given in
Macclesfield Heritage Centre the evening earlier than – was necessary for one more
purpose: it was the ultimate efficiency by the NCO with Nicholas Ward as chief
and inventive director. Nick has been within the chief’s chair since 1984, and I’ve
adopted the fortunes of this exceptional ensemble, player-led each organizationally
and musically, all through that point. His departure is a wrench.

Nick’s whimsical and typically far-ranging
spoken introductions to the music performed of their live shows have lengthy been a welcome
a part of their particular ambiance: you understand that that is actual chamber music, performed
by buddies amongst buddies. His inspiring musical contribution, actually main
by instance, has additionally been one thing to savour, making the sound of the NCO one
that may range from subtlest intimacy to terribly huge results. There was
one proper firstly, as for this efficiency he had a strings energy of
17, augmented to 27 by musicians from Chetham’s Faculty for the opening Fantasia
on a Theme of Thomas Tallis, by Vaughan Williams – one in every of three great
examples of string writing on the programme. Designed for a cathedral acoustic,
the numerous textures and sense of the previous dropped at new life had been equally
entrancing within the vivid, reflective Stoller Corridor, and this was no routine efficiency
however filled with ardour.

Percy Grainger’s setting of the Londonderry
Air (Irish Tune from County Derry, as he known as it), with a horn added to
the feel, was equally beguiling. Then we heard a particular piece for the
event: the NCO’s personal composer-player James Manson’s Bânjöeš Yètí, based mostly
on a Moldovan people tune however utterly within the English pastoral custom in
nature, with beautiful roles for solo clarinet, horn and flute – and, after all, a
violin solo.

And so to the guitar items. The Arnold
concerto needs to be heard way more typically: it’s obtained candy and wistful tunes in every
of its three actions, of the type he crafted so nicely, and the central one in every of
the three is each lengthy and somewhat mysterious, partly like a rating for a Hitchcock
thriller (because it’s been described), with portamento slides on the violins and the
menace of thudding bass notes – but in addition by turns energetic and at last haunting.

Craig Ogden’s mastery of his instrument
wants no endorsement from me: his enjoying is all the time crystal-clear, super-sensitive
and delightful to take heed to. And so it was once more in Sculthorpe’s piece, which
brings on an array of percussion (thunder sheet, gong and cymbals included) to
current its ingeniously developed themes.

Lastly it was strings alone once more, for
Elgar’s Introduction and Allegro. For me it’s one of the wonderful
issues ever created, and the sound of Nick Ward and the NCO enjoying it, molto
sostenuto and molto espressivo (because it says in the direction of the tip) is the
approach I shall bear in mind the enriching time that his management of this orchestra
has given us.