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Nick Kimberley's rating
Kennedy returns with an eloquent, edgy Elgar
By
Nick Kimberley
21 Jul 2008
The 2008 BBC Proms began on Friday, but Saturday brought one of its real coups: the return of Nigel Kennedy to the festival after an absence of 21 years, and not just for one concert, but two.
The first focused on British music, with the BBC Concert Orchestra conducted by Paul Daniel. The opener was Arnold Bax's The Garden Of Fand, an instrumental portrait of a surprisingly placid Atlantic; then came Gerald Finzi's immense setting of Wordsworth, Intimations Of Immortality, with Andrew Kennedy (no relation to Nigel) proving the epitome of the English tenor, light and flexible with just a hint of acid in the voice.
These were substantial pieces, but in the context merely curtain-raisers for the main attraction. Now in his fifties, Kennedy can no longer claim enfant terrible status, but he still likes to play Jack the Lad; after tuning his violin, he assured the conductor: "It's gonna be alright, mate." His fans love his chirpiness, but even if you hate it, you know that the music-making will be entirely serious. So it proved in Elgar's Violin Concerto, a milestone that has marked several significant stages of his career. This year he has returned to it with renewed maturity, and his performance balanced muscularity and delicacy, fiery passion and rapt concentration.
The range of colour at his disposal is immense, from big and beefy to the merest thread of sound, and there was a real sense of dialogue between soloist and orchestra. At times he seemed to be urging the orchestra forward, and Paul Daniel had to pay close attention to the way Kennedy stretched or contracted a phrase. Pushing at the limits of expressive emphasis, he delivered a reading that was highly personal but never wayward.
Clocking in at 50 minutes, the Elgar is a mighty test of stamina but barely an hour later, Kennedy was back with his own Nigel Kennedy Quintet, consisting of himself on amplified violin and four Polish musicians. All are highly accomplishedbut in a series of Kennedy's own compositions, their playing seemed merely efficient. The musical style is late-night smooth, and even a surprise appearance by guitarist Jeff Beck failed to provide a silver lining.
The quintet is not merely a means of Kennedy letting his hair down, yet it finds him well within his comfort zone. Elgar had taken him to the edge, and at the edge is where Kennedy works best.
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Reader views (2)
The problem with Elgar is that everyone thinks he or she knows how a piece ought to be played and the Violin Concerto is no exception to this maxim. Moreover, Elgar is popular and 'very English', although nearly all of the best performers of this work have not been so with one or two outstanding exceptions, such as Salmons, and the work was written for Kreisler, who never played it again in its full form. I enjoyed Kennedy's playing, especially in the but the marriage of him and the orchestra under Paul Daniels was a rather mixed affair. The tempi towards the end of the last movement seemed to take the orchestra by surprise and I had the distinct feeling that not everyone was in the right place at the end. Nonetheless, it was a great occasion and some of the surprising interpretations definitely spiced the work up and if you like your elgar spicy then you were lucky.
- Reg Sinclair, dunbar, scotland, 30/07/2008 13:45
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I was extremely disappointed in Nigel Kennedy's performance which was nothing like as good as he used to play it, 20 or so years ago. Obviously his excursions into jazz have not had a good effect on his classical playing. He did not seem to be able to play sostenuto phrases smoothly and beautifully, the bow changes having tiny gaps very often that should not have been there. And the sound he produced did not seem as beautiful as it should have been. In fact he made a far lovelier, more musical sound on the "phoney" electric violin later in the Prom. No amount of looking soulful will compensate for mediocre playing. A great waste of a talented musician.
- B. Shuker, Gerrards Cross, 28/07/2008 10:08
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