Bexhill Music Festival

Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Brian Wright

De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill, 4 June 2015

An all-Beethoven programme brought a full house to the De La Warr Pavilion on one of the most beautiful evenings so far this year. It was almost too nice to be inside, though the music-making more than made up for this. But we need to start with an honest appraisal of the problems facing any orchestra working in the De La Warr – the acoustic. While solo wind and brass instruments can carry where the string sound is light, there were times when the wind section all but vanished and the horns sounded as if they were coming from another room. This was all the more obvious in the opening Overture Leonore No3, where the ‘off-stage’ trumpet, from the gallery, was far more piercing and effective than the brass actually on stage. None of this was the fault of either the musicians themselves nor of Brian Wright who guided his forces with tact and virile enthusiasm throughout.

Brian Wright takes a very brisk approach to Beethoven, giving us a dramatically forceful reading of Leonore No3 before the Emperor concerto with Alexander Panfilov, winner of the 2015 Hastings Piano Competition, as soloist. The Yamaha, though not a full concert grand, is an impressively loud instrument though Alexander Panfilov tamed it when it came to more reflective passages. The second movement was particularly effective, with much subtlety of touch and phrasing, in marked contrast to the youthful enthusiasm he brought to the opening movement and the final Rondo. It was easy to see how he had won in Hastings and let us hope that his very warm reception will encourage this public concerto prize to become a regular feature. Young musicians of this quality certainly deserve it.

The surprise piece of programme planning was the inclusion, immediately after the interval, of another overture – Coriolan. The forceful and often anguished approach was effective, and allowed the more reflective second subject to be all the sweeter.

The symphony was the Fifth, which Brian Wright approaches with an excitement and fire which comes from very brisk tempi. As he notes himself, even his tempi are not as fast as those indicated by the composer but can seem challenging in a world of conductors who dwell in the moment but ignore the narrative pulse of the work as a whole. Beethoven’s Fifth should challenge us and this approach certainly did. The first movement burst into life leaving little time for reflection as we moved rapidly on to the climax. Cellos, placed firmly outside of the arch, benefited greatly and sounded superb in their solo passages. Where solo wind were able to penetrate they were equally effective and there was some sublime piccolo playing towards the end. The brass choruses were finely formed but again they were battling the proscenium arch and unable to create the bloom we hear regularly from this orchestra in other venues.

With playing of this quality, maybe next time the promoters will think more carefully about where they place the players to allow us to hear the musicianship we know this orchestra can bring. They deserve it as much as we do.