Richard Strauss Spectacular, Kimichi Symphony Orchestra & Sujata Banerjee Dance Company, Symphony Hall, Birmingham | 22 March 2023 ⭐⭐⭐ Review by David Gray & Paul Gray

Photo credit: Natasha Ludlow

Richard Strauss Spectacular

Kimichi Symphony Orchestra & Sujata Banerjee Dance Company

Symphony Hall, Birmingham | 22 March 2023

⭐⭐⭐ Review by David Gray & Paul Gray

“A potentially good concert and some nice dance that didn’t really work together with the music.”

Richard Strauss – Till Eulenspiegel

Richard Strauss – Tod und Verklärung

Richard Strauss – Ein Heldenleben

Indian Classical Dance is not something that springs immediately to mind as an ideal bedfellow with the Tone Poems of Richard Strauss. And, having now experienced an attempt to fuse the two in a choreographed realisation of Till Eulenspiegel and Tod und Verklärung, we can state  that the case for such a fusion remains weak.

Strauss’ Till Eulenspiegel, a tale of a German folk-hero and prankster, has fine pedigree when it comes to dance; Nijinsky choreographed it in 1916. But the four dancers from Sujata Banerjee Dance Company lacked the visual and physical impact needed to reflect the symphonic scope of the score. Furthermore, the formal constraints of their dance genre prevented any expression of the music’s impish energy. The effect was less a fusion, more a superimposition; the overall effect of which was a diminishment in the impact of both dance and music.

The more abstract subject matter and restrained compositional style of Tod und Verklärung lent itself more readily to this kind of dance. There also seemed to be more of an attempt at a fusion of music and dance, with Western classical dance influences more in evidence. The choreographic interpretation of this work was more, but not entirely, convincing.

This attempted fusion of dance and music was an interesting experiment, but one that failed because, on the whole, fusion art requires some attempt to explore commonalities, and weld genres together into an integrated expressive whole.

As a concert, this ticked a lot of boxes and got better as it progressed. The Kimichi has many strengths: rich upper strings, some very fine principal woodwind, and crisp trumpets & percussion. The orchestra achieved some real moments of symphonic grandeur. On the other hand, the horns were not always up to standard, and the lower strings could have played with more presence.

The opening item, Till Eulenspiegel, felt fragmented, with musical ideas failing to flow seamlessly round the orchestra. Conductor, Keith Slade’s reading of Tod und Verklärung achieved more integration, with strong pacing and a sense of narrative flow.

Rehearsal time had clearly gone into the final item, Ein Heldenleben. This item was also presented without any dance distractions. A confident, assured and thoughtful performance resulted. Leader, Julia Åberg was simply stunning in the solo violin passages.

This was a wildly ambitious programme comprised almost entirely of music written to push any orchestra to its limits. The Kimichi must be applauded for even attempting it, let alone pulling it off quite as well as it did.

Kimichi Symphony Orchestra

Keith Slade – Conductor

Julia Åberg – Leader

Sujata Banerjee Dance Company