Last weekend was the seventh annual Malcolm Arnold Festival at the Royal and Derngate in Northampton, celebrating one of the town’s most famous sons. If you’re into the works of Arnold, this weekend is definitely for you. Concerts and talks abound, and this year they mounted a concert performance of Malcolm Arnold’s opera The Dancing Master, its first ever public performance because way back in 1952 it was considered too bawdy for the TV screen for which it was originally written. And all this entertainment for a ridiculous knock-down price too.
We usually just go to the final concert of the weekend, which this year was A Night at the Ballet with the Worthing Symphony Orchestra under the baton of John Gibbons. Mr Gibbons is an enthusiastic supporter of the festival, and conducted Arnold’s 9th Symphony last year. I didn’t think that as many people attended the concert this year as last – possibly a sign of the recessionary times in which we live. If it’s because the Northamptonians are insisting on only the best – we are used to the Royal Philharmonic after all – then let me assure you, in no way are the Worthing Symphony Orchestra inferior. They were all on fine form, and indeed we recognised the formidable presence of Mr Russell Gilbert amongst the violins, who also appears with the RPO.
At the beginning of the concert, Mr Gibbons’ arrival onstage started inauspiciously. As he walked down the stairs and the orchestra rose, like you did when the Headmaster walked in on a lesson, the musician playing the – is it the celeste? – for the first piece shifted his seat away with a flick from the back of his knees and thus his chair thereby obstructed the conductor’s path to the podium. Thwarted, Mr Gibbons had to double back and wend his way through the violins. We reckon Mr Celeste did it on purpose.
It was an evening of well-known pieces and (for us) a number of pieces we hadn’t heard before. We started with Arnold’s Homage to the Queen Suite. This is an absolutely charming, warm, lusciously tuneful piece, like a musical equivalent of comfort eating. I suppose you could call it the “greatest hits” version of the full ballet, which made it a little lop-sided structurally; quite long movements interspersed with some very short ones made it hard to tell when the piece had reached its natural conclusion. I cheated and watched till the musicians came to the last page of their sheet music so that I knew it had ended. Highly enjoyable though, and a recording of it will definitely go on my classical wishlist.
Next was the Adagio from Spartacus by Khachaturian. Old Khachaturian knew how to write a tune, didn’t he? John Gibbons said people aged 50+ will recognise it as the theme to the Onedin Line. Well, Mrs Chrisparkle, who certainly wouldn’t thank you for erroneously including her in that age bracket, was taken back to childhood reveries as she remembered watching the programme back on the old Cattle Station in the New South Wales bush of her youth. She was positively beaming throughout. The orchestra did play it stunningly beautifully. Never having liked the Onedin Line as a kid I was always a bit prejudiced against this piece of music; I may have to reappraise that unnecessarily deep-seated reaction.
On to Delius’ Cello Concerto, with soloist Julian Lloyd Webber. We saw Mr Lloyd Webber about the same time last year with the Royal Philharmonic playing Elgar’s Cello Concerto, and there’s no doubt that he’s a total star. The Delius Cello Concerto was new to me, and I thought it was stunning. Moody and tuneful, romantic but also quite violent at times I felt, you run the full gamut of emotions in less than half an hour. From a clothes point of view, which is perhaps not the best way to appraise Mr Lloyd Webber, he was in an oversized rustic white shirt, having borrowed Olivia Newton John’s headband from the “Let’s Get Physical” video. An incredibly expressive performance, and so generous to the input of the rest of the orchestra as well. For his encore, he fittingly played the first movement of Arnold’s Cello Fantasy, written for him in 1986. That sounded stunning too. During the interval, Mr Lloyd Webber signed CDs and photos in the foyer, just like he did last year. He is clearly the Tom Conti of the classical music world.
The second half was due to start with another Arnold piece, his Sweeney Todd Op.68, but Mr Gibbons announced, in the style of London Midland (his description), that owing to earlier delays the Sweeney Todd departure had been cancelled. It’s true, if they had played it as scheduled, the concert would have gone on long past 10.00. However, the sigh of disappointment from the audience was tangible. I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen an item removed from a running order simply because of earlier delays.
Instead we moved straight on to Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker suite and then Ponchielli’s Dance of the Hours. The Nutcracker is always such a crowd-pleaser. But for me I felt there was just something held back from the orchestra; I couldn’t put my finger on it, it just sounded a little safe, a little reserved somehow. One forgets how delightful the Dance of the Hours is, and that was another beautiful performance; and I promise that I did not sing to myself either “Everyone’s a fruit and nut case” or “Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh” to either of these fine classical oeuvres.
We were promised some fireworks with Malcolm Arnold’s Electra, and we certainly got them. An extraordinary piece, wild and fiery, full of clashes and attack, making the orchestra work hard to do justice to Arnold’s demanding score. Short – stunning – breathtaking. Then to round the evening off in a more genteel way, we had Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty suite; utterly charming, totally elegant, returning us to serenity for the journey home. Fantastic work by Julia Thornton on the harp, by the way.
Mrs C felt the programme was like a dream version of Hooked on Classics, which I’m pretty sure she meant as a sign of appreciation. It was indeed a very enjoyable evening and the orchestra gave us a great performance. For those who didn’t come, in future get those bums on those seats – you missed a treat!