Classical concert review: The Hallé with Kahchun Wong at the Royal Concert Hall

The undisputed highlight of the 2024/25 Nottingham Classics season was The Hallé under their new principal conductor Kahchun Wong performing Wagner’s Tannhauser overture and Beethoven’s Ninth. It was comparable with Haitink, who I’d seen perform that self-same symphony almost two decades previously, and easily one of the greatest classical music concerts I’ve attended. 

The Hallé and Wong made a spectacular return to Nottingham on 10th February, and Beethoven was again on the bill - this time, his epic Third Symphony, the ‘Eroica’, a work that redefined what the symphonic form was capable of and announced Beethoven’s staunch genius to the world and to history.

The programme started, however, with Sibelius. The Andante Festivo is a short, solemn work, originally written as a chamber piece and later reorchestrated for string orchestra, which has the distinction of being the only Sibelius composition to exist in a recording conducted by the composer himself. It’s also arguably the only classical piece commissioned to mark the anniversary of the opening of a sawmill, and was also played at his niece’s wedding and his own funeral. 

Conducting with an expansiveness that brought Klemperer to mind, Wong and his orchestra transformed what is arguably one of the slighter works in Sibelius’s oeuvre into a soundscape more reminiscent of his great tone poems. There was a resolve and a discipline to the playing that still left room for nuance and the accentuation of fine detail. Short it might have been, but the Andante Festivo was a mesmerising opener

Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 1, renowned as one of the trickiest pieces for that instrument, was written for his friend Mstislav Rostropovich. Despite its complexity, Rostropovich committed it to memory in a matter of days. This evening’s soloist, Jan Vogler, demonstrated a comparable facility, making the piece seem almost effortless. Wong’s podium presence was minimalist throughout, ceding the limelight to Vogler. And yet Wong’s rigorous intellectual and artistic control of the piece was writ large. In particular, the rhythmical precision of the first movement was an astounding example of the conductor’s art and The Hallé responded with a world-class performance.

Originally dedicated to Napoleon Bonaparte, whom he initially considered a positive force for change in Europe, Beethoven famously (and furiously) scratched his name from the score after Bonaparte declared himself emperor - a dramatic backstory to a symphony which exudes drama from every note. Wong went into it with plenty of attack, setting the tone of fifty minutes of edge-of-the-seat music-making. Well, for the audience and some of his orchestra anyway - the violin section stood for the entire performance. This was a wise move: had they powered through the Eroica so intensely from a seated position, bows might have taken eyes out or sent music stands spinning.

If that makes it sound like Wong took a crash-bang-wallop approach to the symphony, then let me state that the nuance, attention to detail, rhythmical precision and acute intellectual engagement he brought to the other works were all present and correct here. And these attributes were in service of an innate understanding of the visceral emotionalism of Beethoven’s music. I can’t stress this enough: Wong gets Beethoven. He gets the drama and intensity. He gets the pulse of the music. He gets the heroism of it.

In my review for LeftLion last year of The Hallé’s performance of Beethoven’s Ninth, I noted that Wong had charisma, confidence and musical talent to burn; that he hadn’t just filled Elder’s boots but was already already writing the next chapter of The Hallé’s history. I stand by that. And then some.

The Hallé played the Royal Concert Hall on Tuesday 10th February 2026.