Lviv National Philharmonic Orchestra of Ukraine – Live Review – Hull City Hall
By Karl Hornsey, October 2024
The ever-popular Hull City Hall Classics series returned this week – and what an event it was to mark the new season, as the Lviv National Philharmonic Orchestra of Ukraine performed four marvellous pieces, under the baton of celebrated conductor Theodore Kuchar. To have the highly regarded orchestra from Ukraine as part of the Classics line-up was a real coup for the city, with the Royal, BBC and Hull Philharmonics sharing the rest of the forthcoming schedule between them. And, of course, given the ongoing horrific war in Ukraine, it was an occasion made all the more emotional for everyone involved.
The concert opened with the overture to Rossini’s comic opera The Thieving Magpie, a piece very familiar to any lovers of classical music, as well as fans of the likes of A Clockwork Orange and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, in which the overture has featured. Had this been the centrepiece of the evening’s schedule then the audience would have been more than happy, such was the wonder of the performance, demonstrating the skill and artistry of the entire orchestra. As it was, this was just the entrée, with Elgar’s Concerto for Cello and Orchestra to follow.
This brought to the stage, in something of a hurry, Czech soloist Jiří Bárta to perform Elgar’s last major completed work which, as with a remarkable number of celebrated pieces these days, was something of a slow burner, having met with a muted reception upon release just after the end of the First World War. Now, it’s considered a cornerstone of the canon of cello concertos, and Bárta’s beautiful handling of it showed exactly why. It’s a moving and emotionally deep piece, given the impact on the composer of so many friends during the Great War, and Elgar’s frame of mind at the time can be felt throughout the concerto.
“Passion and tradition”
Bárta also treated the audience to an unexpected rendition of Bach’s Cello Concerto to herald in the interval, following which was Beethoven’s Second Symphony. Certainly not one of the composer’s most famous or most played pieces, which in a sense made it more interesting to hear. This was also a piece with emotion attached, as Beethoven composed it at a time when it was becoming more and more apparent that his hearing loss was worsening and could become permanent, yet he managed to still compose a piece full of joy and comic moments.
Finally, to end the concert on a joyous high, came Dvořák’s Slavonic Dances – five of them to be precise, from his Opus 46 and Opus 72. These dances have become synonymous with the composer and helped him enormously at the time of release to lift his profile, and there can be few finer pieces in which to bring a concert to a conclusion, so full of life and passion and tradition. Should the Lviv Orchestra come back to Hull, or indeed anywhere in Yorkshire, in the near future, then they really are not to be missed.
images: LNPO
