Music Review: Ensemble 10/10, St George's Hall, Liverpool

Oct 4 2007 by Glyn Mon Hughes, Liverpool Daily Post

YOU can always count on Ensemble 10/10 to do something innovative, exciting and out of the ordinary.

From the very inception of this group – well nigh a decade ago – they’ve been exciting an ever-growing audience with new music and entertaining programmes which do much to enhance Liverpool’s reputation as a centre for new music.

The opening concert of their new season, the one which catapults them into the Capital of Culture season, said much for what is to come. They will, after all, feature hugely in the season with a massive catalogue of premieres.

The BBC is to record them for Radio 3. If nothing else, that says they have made it onto the circuit of premier ensembles and that is no bad thing, testament to the work of their director Clark Rundell.

This concert was billed as Frankenstein!! A good move, since it included HK Gruber’s entertaining, yet challenging, work, which was premiered in 1978 by Simon Rattle and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra.

This somewhat reduced production was nonetheless entertaining.

The two “chansonnieres” – Ella Kirkpatrick and Alastair McCall – truly entered into the spirit of the piece, part horror, part comedy. McCall’s expertise was evident throughout: falsetto lines which worked excellently. The ensemble was perfectly attuned to what the soloists needed: always rhythmic and sympathetic. Ms Kirkpatrick, too, had some quite wonderful moments. A piece of pure theatre – from the bursting of blown-up paper bags to the bazookas.

And the rest?

There were two anniversary commissions. Steve Martland’s Reveille worked up just three notes – rather like the first movement of Bach’s First Brandenburg Concerto. And it turned into a work of intense interest, especially for the keyboard player who was an absolute star. Graham Fitkin’s Subterfuge for cello and orchestra was as rhythmical as it was orchestrally fascinating, especially cellist Hilary Browning.

The vivacious rendition of Stephen McNeff’s Counting (Two) and the wonderful synthesis of Kenneth Hesketh’s Fra Duri Scogli made this an excellent overture to a brilliant season.