This concert by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales on 22 January celebrated, to the very day, the centenary of Henri Dutilleux, who died in 2013 at the age of 97. It was all the more touching for the memory of the composer standing, at 92, on the St David’s Hall stage, speaking eloquently and at length.
The eloquence and characteristic finesse of the Dutilleux pieces were communicated well here, and his fastidious concern for timbre and a sound-world of ordered perfection never unduly challenged the listener. In Métaboles, conductor Thomas Søndergård allowed the orchestra to luxuriate in every note without undermining the music’s growing organic momentum, and tension ratcheted up in the final Flamboyant.
A nocturne was how Dutilleux subtitled his Sur le Même Accord, and in this work violinist Akiko Suwanai was sensitive to the subtle textures, even if her pearly tone was sometimes submerged in the hall. The greater flurry of excitement came with Suwanai’s other performance: by way of homage to Dutilleux and his reverence for Debussy, the latter’s nocturne for solo violin and orchestra, immaculately completed by the scholar Robert Orledge, was given a UK premiere. Its suggestion of an awakening and withdrawing from a liminal horizon into an altogether more playful, carefree lightness was captivating and tantalising.
Last but not least came Mozart’s Requiem in the completion by Süssmayr, boasting a quartet of soloists – Rebecca Evans, Jennifer Johnston, Timothy Robinson and Alastair Miles – who could hardly have been bettered, and the BBCNOW’s fine chorus.
Søndergård countered his unsentimental approach – brisk occasionally verging on brusque – by lingering over closing phrases. As ever, it was the anguished beauty of Mozart’s music which stabbed the heart.
• BBCNOW performs Dutilleux – Impressions at BBC Hoddinott Hall, Cardiff, on 27 January. Box office: 029 2063 6464.
