Philharmonia conductor Giulini was celebrated in his hometown in a concert attended by the late maestro’s son
Staged by Città di Bari and Comune di Barletta in Puglia, Italy, the Philharmonia Orchestra joined forces with conductor Alessandro Crudele and pianist Martin Helmchen for a programme of Brahms, Mozart and Beethoven earlier this week.
The concerts honoured one of Barletta’s own, the celebrated Philharmonia conductor Carlo Maria Guilini who started out pre- WW2 playing violin professionally in Italy, escaped discovery amid the Nazi occupation at the end of the war and went on to conduct the Chicago Symphony, Vienna Philharmonic, Royal Opera House, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. He died in 2005.
The Barletta concert tribute to Guilini was staged in the Teatro Curci, built to celebrate the life and relatively unknown work of another local musical celebrity Giuseppe Curci. Fifty miles away from the Philharmonia’s temporary base in Bari, Barletta was the more intimate and keenly felt concert of the two amongst the audience.
Pianist Martin Helmchen sparkled in Mozart’s breezy but piano concerto no. 16, his bright energetic sound complimented with splashes of detail from the woodwind in the first movement. Helmchen succeeded in quietening the local audience in the second movement, creating a delectable stillness with delicately voiced notes that disappeared away to nothing at the movement’s conclusion. The boisterous third saw Helmchen at his sprightly best, not letting the necessary precocity dominate. The final material in the cadenza teed up things nicely for a satisfyingly rambunctious coda. This is a work that needs to be programmed a whole lot more.
In performance, Crudele’s disciplined approach pairs well with the Philharmonia’s characteristically reliable rigour. As a listening experience the Brahms worked better in the larger Teatro di Bari than the intimate opera theatre in Barletta the night after, though the closer proximity revealed pleasing detail in both Brahms and Mozart’s score often obscured in larger venues. There were moments when the demands on the strings in the Bari acoustic made the sound feel underpowered, but the descriptive pizzicatos and glossy legatos made for glorious moments where the players evident enthusiasm made this an involving experience. Special mention to the principal clarinettist (there was no personnel list available in the programme) whose tone was a warm caress in the dry Barletta acoustic.
Whilst the programme wasn’t going to change the world, it undoubtedly captivated the audience in Barletta for whom classical concerts remain a rare event — a compelling argument in favour of crowd-pleasing concerts made up of core repertoire that actually please the crowd.
In mounting this Guilini tribute in the former Philharmonia conductor’s birthplace, Crudele drew on the Philharmonia’s storied history to develop his profile. In both concerts there was a consistently clear and self-assured beat even if at times it felt like this prioritised technical detail over interpretative depth. His personable style clearly reflected a sincere desire to foster collaboration with a group of exceptional players. The woodwind in particular were a delight to hear every time they were cued — the ensemble of principle flute, oboe and bassoon in the Mozart combining precision articulation with toasty-warm, richly-coloured tones. Crudele is well-meaning to a fault, but there’s benefit in developing the stagecraft a little.
