Helleur-Simcock, Hallé, Wong, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - moving lyricism in Elgar’s concerto

Rachel Helleur-Simcock’s first appearance with the Hallé after appointment as leader of its cello section was auspicious – she became the soloist in their performance of Elgar’s Cello Concerto in the season’s opening concert at the Bridgewater Hall (Truls Mørk having had to withdraw).

After 16 years with the Berlin Philharmonic, she’s come to the Manchester orchestra. No stranger to the concerto’s solo role, she brought a highly lyrical, sweetly sorrowful voice to it that made this performance, conducted by the Hallé’s gifted young maestro, Kahchun Wong, one of the most affecting I’ve heard.

From the very opening, mellow and smoothly eloquent, her playing was expressive and laden with the sense of loss that is surely the key to its music (written just after the end of World War One). Its meditative quality to the fore, the melodic line of the first movement was almost other-worldly, the steady tempo maintained by Kahchun Wong underlining the feeling, while the counterpoint between solo and orchestral string sections was clearly and precisely enunciated. The orchestra was spread over an area that included the platform extension first generally used during the Covid era, and, as was notable then, it helps to deepen and broaden the tone of all the strings, as a kind of giant extra soundboard.

Even the rapid-fire second movement was introduced in a distant, nostalgic, vein, but the solo, once it was fully under way, was brilliantly and neatly executed. The brief third movement was a gentle elegy: catching that sense of numbness that comes when we contemplate devastating human loss; and the finale, where Elgar relives the pomp-and-circumstance ebullience that characterised the music of his earlier years, only for it to die on its feet, was turned to real pathos in this reading, becoming a lumbering echo of past glories. It was a moving interpretation and seemed a meeting of minds between conductor and his new star principal (pictured).

The concert had opened in fine style with Shostakovich’s Festival Overture, the Hallé brass crisp and confident, the strings playing with resonance – Wong seems to have the knack of getting them to lose their inhibitions and enjoy themselves.

The meat of the matter, though, was Rachmaninov’s gorgeously Romantic Symphony no. 2. This had a broad and generous sound and clear, flowing phrasing. In the opening movement, at points of peak intensity, the full string ensemble was effectively bolstered by the considerable power of the horns, and Kahchun Wong kept rhythmic impetus up behind the big tunes and found drama and intensity in the development section. There was a plaintive, haunting voice there, too, by contrast, especially in the later part of the structure.

A weighty vigour characterized the opening of the fast second movement, and both here and in the slow third one the strings, with Roberto Ruisi leading, produced a full-on, soulful richness, while principal clarinet Sergio Castelló López was restrained yet eloquent in his time in the melodic limelight. A wallow in sentiment? Yes, but that’s just what we love about Rachmaninov. The finale was solid and positive, its pulse gradually quickening and the horns again contributing nobly to the textural build-up to its climax.

One thing I also admired about Kahchun Wong’s demeanour in this performance: he wasn’t going to begin until there was real quiet in the hall. That was Barbirolli’s way, too, and it’s always the right one. 

• To be broadcast on Radio 3 on 13 October
• More classical reviews on theartsdesk