“...the urbane Kenneth Woods.” 

This month on ESO DIGITAL

Freely available through 17 August

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David Stout - Kékszakállú (Bluebeard)

Sung in Hungarian with English Subtitles

Pleased to note that the two most recent ESO Digital concerts, Mahler's Ninth Symphony and Bartók's Bluebeard's Castle, have been included in Classic FM's listing of:

First post-Covid Festival festival to take place in Boulder August 24-28

Chamber Orchestra:

Chamber Music:

Music by Mahler, Zemlinsky, Robert Kahn, Erwin Schulhoff, Hans Gál, Ernst Krenek, Philip Sawyers and Erich Wolfgang Korngold

Jason Starr Movies“Mahler’s Titan” & “On Mahler’s Songs of a Wayfarer”

Critical response to the

"A little corner of Monmouthshire turned Viennese in March when Mahler’s Ninth Symphony was performed at the Wyastone Concert Hall.. Such arrangements often seem miraculously sturdy and illuminating, and Simon’s is no exception... Otherwise, hearing the Ninth in lighter clothing underlines the music’s objectivity... It’s certainly easier to hear the piece as a precursor to Schoenberg’s Chamber Symphony....The ESO players demonstrate nerves of steel – particularly its texture-controlling concertmaster Zoë Beyers and confident first horn James Topp. Woods ratchets up the tension of the second movement’s manic Ländler and the tempo of the Rondo-Burleske to edgy effect. He meets the biggest challenges well, bringing depth and sure consolation to the bare-boned final pages that could easily have fallen flat and empty." Andrew Mellor, Gramophone

"Kenneth Woods’s batonless conducting was unmannered and he was sensitive to the dynamic contrasts, rhythmic fluidity and shifting moods of the music... Woods knows his Mahler in the minutest detail and has the ability to impart to his musicians the essentials of his interpretation and make them respond spontaneously and enthusiastically. The performance takes off with the quixotic Rondo-Burleske and music that relentlessly builds and builds, whist increasing equally in intensity. Woods and his accomplished musicians bring out all the mournful expressivity that is at the core of concluding Adagio. If such a reflective, deeply sad ending could be said to be satisfying, that’s the word that now seems appropriate." Jim Pritchard (former chair, UK Mahler Society), MusicWeb International

"Released online on the composer’s 161st birthday yesterday, the performance of Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 9 (1908-09) by the English Symphony Orchestra and Kenneth Woods is a gripping affair. Recorded at Wyastone Hall, in an excellent ensemble version by Klaus Simon, the downscaled symphony comes off remarkably well, with utmost intensity and fine detail...The musical architecture is well taken care of by Woods, as the opening movement unfolds in its multi-layered hue. The ESO players deliver a reading of utmost musicality and admirable clarity, giving rise to an absolutely captivating experience...In any case, the Rondo-Burleske is marvellously served by ESO and Woods, who provide an almost cinematic take on the score, vivid in its dramaturgy, abundant in its astonishing instrumental detail. The musical tensions are conveyed with heated dedication, giving rise to an unforgettable thirteen-minute tableau of shades and long shadows, with impassioned climaxes and telling silences... Heart-piercing in its longing and sorrow, the music adopts a deeply moving tone in its intimate ensemble setting. A mixture of gorgeous solo playing and seamless teamwork, the ESO and Woods performance is awash with notable detail, constituting an architectural entity of gripping power and sonic beauty...True to Mahler’s symphonic blueprint and orchestral spirit, the ensemble adaptation is both an organic reflection of the composer’s original as well as a terrific instrumental work of its own merit. The performance is one to cherish, providing a perfect way to cherish the legacy of one of the most extraordinary composers in history, whose time did indeed come to stay." Jari Kallio, Adventures in Music

"It hardly needs to be said that the playing of this 15-strong ensemble drawn from the English Symphony Orchestra was consistently attuned to the spirit of this music – as, too, is Simon’s methodical and apposite arrangement. Whether such reductions can continue to be relevant in the (presumed) aftermath of the pandemic, it would be a pity were these not to enjoy revival in their own right: revival, moreover, out of aesthetic rather than just didactic considerations, as this impressively conceived and executed rendition demonstrated to often moving effect...the final Adagio – only equivocally conclusive now that the Tenth Symphony has all but been accepted into the Mahler canon, yet remaining a test of all-round cohesion such as this account rendered with unwavering conviction. Having thus gauged the balance between its alternate paragraphs, Woods assuredly controlled the winding down of tension towards a coda of inward rapture despite its sparseness of gesture – while affording the speculative dialogue between solo strings the necessary temporal and emotional space." Richard Whitehouse, Arcana.FM

"Steve Elcock's Symphony No. 8 is only 20 minutes long, but a huge symphonic heart beats inside its compact frame...the music strives to return to a safe harmonic harbour at the end, but never quite reaches it. My heartfelt thanks to composer and performers alike for letting me hear new music that harnesses the great symphonic tradition to create an experience with so much personality of its own....We began with music by Emily Doolittle, a composer new to me. Woodwings is based on birdsong from Canada, the country of her birth. Cool, fresh and well-ordered in the first of its five short movements, it evolved into wild and free twilit fantasy by the last. Most effective. [In Beethoven Seven] the roof almost came off @Kiddy_Town_Hall, but there was plenty of thoughtfulness among the thunder and thrills. @kennethwoods & co. maximized the momentum by playing the first two movements without a break, making the major-minor transition all the more powerful. The tumultuous coda had me concerned for the foundations as well but the hall survived." Adam Philp, The Symphonist

"...Steve Elcock Composer's 20-minute entity is more about striving towards a destination which remains tantalizingly beyond reach. Various pithy motifs are sounded in the opening pages, the earlier stages pursuing a productive interplay between relative stasis and dynamism as is thrown into relief by the emergence (10 minutes in) of a trumpet melody which crystallizes the course of this piece as it builds inexorably to a powerful climax then subsides into a searching postlude that recedes beyond earshot. Overt resolution may be avoided, yet the sense of cohesion and inevitability audible throughout its course makes for an engrossing and rewarding experience....That was certainly the impression left by this well prepared and finely realized performance, notable for the way in which Elcock's idiomatic while demanding string writing was realized with manifest conviction. A 10-strong wind ensemble (along with cello and double-bass) had opened the concert with Emily Doolittle's Woodwings, the songs and calls of nine Canadian birds rendered over five characterful movements somewhere between Poulenc and Messiaen, with a finale whose relatively freeform structure made for an intriguing and enticing payoff....Beethoven‘s Seventh Symphony received a performance as uninhibited and exhilarating as the piece itself. That all repeats in the first, third and fourth movements is no longer the surprise it might once have been: more startling was Kenneth Woods’s decision – entirely justified – to proceed without a pause into the second movement, so underlining the A-A minor pivot which uncannily anticipates that of Mahler’s Sixth almost a century later. Other highlights were the bracing cross-rhythms of the transition into the first movement’s reprise, the flexible pacing of the scherzo’s trio melody– poised ideally between hymn and dance, then a finale whose coda threatened to breach the confines of Kidderminster Town Hall but whose ultimate elation clearly left its mark on the audience’s enthusiastic response....An impressive return to live performance from the ESO (above) and a harbinger of just what can be expected in its 2021/22 season. " Richard Whitehouse, Arcana.FM

The ESO' world-premiere performance of Steve Elcock's Eighth Symphony is the cover story in the July-October issue of Musical Opinion Quarterly. Available now!

"It benefits from being thrillingly played by the ESO and vividly engineered. Low strings rasp and pulse. Limpid woodwind solos provide timbral and emotional relief, but even they seem touched by an undercurrent of mellow darkness." Richard Hanlon, MusicWeb International

Five wonderful new storytelling works for narrator and orchestra by Kile Smith, David Yang, Jay Reise, Tom Kraines and Ken Woods, performed by the English Symphony Orchestra.

Starring Hugh Bonneville, Davood Ghadami, Henry Goodman and Gemma Whelan.