Amid the sea of musicians clad in concert black, his baggy white trousers inevitably stood out. And for an orchestra that has been a fixture of the classical mainstream for well over 150 years, the choreography was awkward: lengthy resets between pieces, a second half that threatened to begin before the audience was seated, a celebrity guest who fled having barely acknowledged the applause. Yet despite all that, this collaboration between the Hallé and Jonny Greenwood – Radiohead guitarist and award-winning composer – was musically compelling.
In Steve Reich’s Pulse, Greenwood stood behind the Hallé musicians, his body at a slant and chin jutting nonchalantly, as he provided some of the work’s vital chugging on electric bass. His playing was subtly expressive, his plectrum featherweight, the bass’s occasional excursions away from repeated notes a stylish release as the Hallé’s wind and string players worked through Reich’s Copland-esque melodic lines. Under conductor Hugh Tieppo-Brunt it was a cool, understated performance.
Greenwood’s 2014 concert work Water was more obviously gripping. It emerges from gently scintillating piano and violins, overlaid with thick splodges of bass and the glittering drone of three tanpuras (one played by Greenwood himself). At one point a gleaming major chord on the organ broke through the texture, euphoric and luminous, before solo lines gradually went rogue, souring the diatonicism. Elsewhere, the strings became a synthetic organ – their tone deliciously intense – playing chords that blurred disturbingly at the edges.
The world premiere of Greenwood’s Violin Concerto began with a vicious glissando from soloist Daniel Pioro, instantly aped by the Hallé’s strings, which set in motion a lengthy imitation game. There were beautiful moments. A dim recollection of Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending amid nightmarish pitch bends was especially haunting. But despite Pioro’s virtuosity (fearless in the violin’s stratosphere), the Hallé’s honeyed tone and Tieppo-Brunt’s air traffic control gestures, the piece felt oddly formless.
The programme began with Witold Lutosławski’s Musique Funèbre. Its desolate counterpoint, oozy chromatic creep and occasional searing unisons are a clear forebear for Greenwood’s sound world – and showcased the Hallé’s strings as a world-class act in their own right.
