Daily Archives: 21 May, 2017

Hastings Philharmonic at St Mary in the Castle

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St Mary in the Castle, Saturday 20 May 2017

When Marcio da Silva announced last year that Hastings Philharmonic was launching a fully professional symphony orchestra for the South East it seemed a risky undertaking, yet here we are, and the evidence of success was fully formed at St Mary in the Castle last Saturday. This had to be one of the finest orchestral performances in this building and potentially one which will herald a new era for symphonic music in our area. Where the performance last year of Beethoven’s Choral Symphony had been brave if not quite fully fledged, there was no problem here with either the Beethoven or the Brahms.

The evening opened with a passionate and fiery reading of Beethoven’s Egmont overture, with a crisp attack and real sense of drive and energy throughout. The sudden horn calls at the climax were electrifying and set a level of expectation for the rest of the evening.

Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy is a glorious work unfortunately eclipsed by the finale of the Choral Symphony itself, but here given the sensitivity and delicacy it requires to make a full impact. Andre Dolabella was a limpid and persuasive piano soloist, apparently floated between the orchestra and the raised choral forces. Beethoven indulges himself in a wide range of solo writing, including a lovely passage for string quartet which was very effective before the entrance of the chorus. Here the top sopranos were particularly impressive and the small male force accurate and very well focused.

After the interval – and a group photo – we came to Brahms’ Second Symphony. The tonal palette here is quite different and relies far more heavily on the string textures which have been strengthened and developed into a far more dynamic force since last year. Brahms frequently leads with the lower strings who were more than up to the task with their warm tone and insightful phrasing. The fleetly moving string passages of the third movement were handled with great skill as we moved effortlessly into the finale with its blazing brass chorus and highly extrovert impact.

It was received with great enthusiasm – and rightly so. Marcio da Silva should be proud of what he has achieved so far and the programme now released for next year is both demanding and exciting. Let us hope that somebody of this level of professional skill it not head-hunted too soon!

 

Maidstone Symphony Orchestra

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Mote Hall, Maidstone, Saturday 20 May 2017

There was a lot of B Minor in this concert and it’s a good key for plangency especially in the dying notes of Tchaikovsky’s valedictory masterpiece, the Sixth Symphony. Brian Wright held his orchestra and the audience in rapt tense suspension at the very end of the concert (and the MSO season) before finally dropping his baton to tumultuous applause. It was an appropriate end in another way too as this concert was dedicated to a much loved and much missed veteran, cellist Margaret Chapman who died last month, after 65 years of playing with MSO. She played her last concert with them in February.

At other points in Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony, Brian Wright achieved a good balance between the manic energy (terrific work from brass and percussion) of the Allegro which forms the second half of the first movement and the delicacy of the unsettling five-in-a-bar con grazia second movement. The molto vivace movement packed all the resounding energy it requires – more or less together in the general pauses and exuberant enough to ensure that few people would have noticed the occasional wrong note.

Earlier in the evening Michael Petrov, a charismatic Bulgarian who smiles warmly at the orchestra when he is enjoying their playing, gave us a nicely judged account of the Dvorak cello concerto – more B minor. In the slow lyrical section of the first movement he had the cello itself almost weeping but because this is Dvorak that has to be offset against all those sparky cheerful melodies – and it was. The allegro finale was dramatic, lively and beautifully played. I shall long treasure Petrov’s sensitive duet with MSO leader Andrew Pearson in that movement.

It isn’t easy to start a programme with Night on the Bare Mountain which has a lot of exposed work and is hardly a “warm up” piece. On this occasion MSO really hit the ground running with a very assured, entertaining rendering. The string sound wove in well around the brass blasts and Anna Binney’s tender, warm flute solo at the end was outstanding.

Susan Elkin