Royal Philharmonic Orchestra Archives - Page 4 of 4

The Royal Philharmonic returned to the Derngate this week with a concert culminating with Fauré’s Requiem. Very pleasing to see that there was hardly a spare seat, as quite rightly these concerts attract many happy music lovers.

Our conductor for the evening was Owain Arwel Hughes. He has an avuncular presence on the podium, letting the music be the star, smiling encouragingly in all the right places, keeping his orchestra perfectly together and sounding sweet. Sweetness was very much the order of the day, as the central work was Chopin’s Piano Concerto No 1 with Andrew Zolinsky as the soloist. I was new to this work, and if ever a piece was delicate this is it.I don’t mean to sound patronising about it, but it is a thoroughly pretty piece of music. It conjures up images of waterfalls and pixies and jewels and fairy dust. Andrew Zolinsky sat tense and tetchy on his stool as the long orchestral introduction ensued, but once he started playing he relaxed into this marvellous escapist dreamlike piece. It was a very luxurious experience. Not particularly demanding for the audience. More like bathing in honey.

There was more oomph in the other pieces though. The evening started with Handel’s Zadok the Priest, a piece I can never recall until I hear the first couple of notes. It was full of the regality and splendour you would expect and the choirs – the Northampton Bach Choir and the Boys and Men of All Saints Church – were in fine voice. Really stirring stuff.

After the interval we had Fauré’s requiem and again the choirs gave a super performance, strong and subtle in turn. For our soloists we had Elin Manahan Thomas for the Pie Jesu and Giles Underwood for the baritone parts. It seems slightly unbalanced that you have a singer of the quality of Elin Manahan Thomascome and perform for barely three minutes, but they were exquisite ones, so I’m not complaining. I love Fauré’s Requiem and it was excellent throughout. The strings hit a forceful and portentous note from the start, the singing was haunting and beautiful and you just felt like it was a privilege to be there.

There was an amusing end to the evening when after the Choirmaster had come down to take a bow to richly deserved enthusiastic applause, two bouquets were brought out for the soloists; the first went to Ms Thomas, but the second one bypassed Mr Underwood and was given to the Choirmaster by mistake, so that we had a bereft baritone! Another splendid concert by the RPO, we’re very lucky to have this season here in Northampton.

And so the new Royal Philharmonic Subscription series starts again with a jolly programme of Elgar’s Cockaigne Overture, Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E Minor and Holst’s Planets Suite. They know what they’re doing, these programmers – this ultra-appealing programme meant there was barely a spare seat in the house.

Andrew Litton was our conductor; he has a very formal appearance in full frock coat and very tidy hair. He looks like a man who is very comfortable with the number of pies he has eaten – quite a few, but not all of them. His style is not over-demonstrative although he does get a bit carried away at the most vigorous moments.

In the past I’ve always found the Cockaigne Overture goes on a bit, but this time it sounded fresh as a daisy, colourfully illustrating all those London characters with spark and shazam.

This was a mere “amuse bouche” before Jack Liebeck’s solo in the Mendelssohn. I am new to the music of Mr Liebeck. He is thirty years old and his sister went to school with my cousin’s daughter. When he was a boy he was really into his football.That’s not the Jack Liebeck who takes centre stage with his violin though. I was both extremely impressed and somewhat disappointed by his performance. Extremely impressive was the actual sound he got out of the instrument. Rarely will you hear a violin sound so pure, so clean, so accurate. If his violin were a singer, it would be a choirboy whose voice is yet to break. It’s quite exquisite. However on the downside, I found it just a trifle cold, passionless, reserved. You don’t get any extra appreciation of the music by watching his facial expressions. He’s kind of the opposite of this lady.

But I am not quibbling because the sound was super.

After the interval we had the old warhorse that is Holst’s The Planets. We all know this piece like the back of our collective hands, don’t we. There’ll be no surprises here then. WRONG! I’ve never heard Mars played with such thrilling attack. It crashed and clashed on the stage, stabbed and shook, looked you right in the eyes and defied you not to be carried away. And thus the standard for the rest of the evening was set.

Venus sounded absolutely beautiful, Mercury was proper ethereal, Jupiter every inch the chart topping magnificent thing it is; Saturn was bold and brave, Uranus vivid and jokey and Neptune reflective and disconcerting. I have to say though that there was a hugely discordant wrong note played in my favourite passage of Uranus (no smutty jokes please) and it sounded horrendous to my ears, but I forgave them because the rest of the show was so splendid. Just as Holst would have liked, they bussed the Ladies of the London Symphony Chorus up to Northampton so that they could go “la la la” at the end of Neptune backstage, with no trace of where the voices were coming from. Spooky, effective, fantastic.

You spoil us, Mr Ambassador.