St Margaret The Queen, Buxted Park

Saturday 6 December

St Margaret The Queen in Buxted Park is a fine venue for a concert and its acoustic adds a bloom to the orchestra even on a very cold winter’s afternoon. The programme brought us two rarely performed English works and a familiar Beethoven Symphony.

Though I have heard Finzi’s Dies Natalis a number of times over the years it is infrequently performed given the spiritual sensitivity of the writing and the clarity with which the text can carry through the lush string sounds. Sophie Pullen proved to be an ideal soloist, enthusiastic and engaged with Traherne’s mystical text, her line floating easily above the orchestra. Finzi’s string writing is often complex and divides into nine parts on occasion across the string ensemble. Given the small numbers in the Buxted Symphony Orchestra this meant that at times desks would be playing by themselves, a difficulty for a fully professional orchestra and approached here with considerable skill. Julian Broughton maintained a firm sense of pace throughout which moved the score forward to its gentle speculative conclusion.

Elgar’s Romance for Bassoon and Orchestra is even less familiar than the Finzi. A short work, first heard in 1911, it has a drifting, haunted quality well captured by the Portuguese soloist Susana Dias.

Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony is possibly less well known than the rest of the canon but was given a highly convincing reading with firmer intonation from the strings and a tighter sense of ensemble throughout. Pacing was crisp and clear, with a bravura sense of attack in the final movement.

The concert was well supported, and enthusiastically received – such encouragement well justified by the standard of music presented.