New Year’s Eve, 2015

The Dome, Brighton

It must be New Year’s Eve – we have spent the afternoon in Vienna with the Brighton Phil and it proved as genial and uplifting as ever. Barry Wordsworth may have had some difficulty with his throat but this did not impair his conducting abilities as he launched into the Overture to Die Fledermaus.  I suspect it may be the result of many years working with the Royal Ballet, but his approach to Strauss is always mellifluous in its line spinning. There is none of the over-exaggerated marking of rhythms or the – often very unfunny – musical jokes which can mar the finest playing. Instead all we had was some exceptional playing of hugely enjoyable works. Yes they were mostly familiar from the lushness of Lehar’s Gold and Silver Waltz to the inevitable grandeur of the Blue Danube, by way of The Emperor Waltz and Roses from the South.

As a change from the normal Viennese diet he introduced three pieces of British light music; all familiar and all very welcome. British light music needs no apology, surely, these days and sat comfortably alongside the Egyptian March and Pizzicato Polka. Coates’ Dance in the Twilightwas possibly the least well known of the three pieces played but proved to be a fine waltz in its own right. Robert Docker’s Tabarinage and Hartley’s Rouge et Noir are more familiar – particularly to those of us who remember Music while you work or the early days of Friday Night is Music Night.

Barry Wordsworth suggested we might like to hear more like this as part of a British New Year celebration – he is right; we would!

The guest soloist this year was soprano Kiandra Howarth who has a confident stage presence to add to a fine voice which easily filled The Dome. She opened with the familiar Meine Lippen, following this with Eine wird Kommen from Der Zarewitsch, its heady sentimentality easily bewitching the audience. In the second half she was radiant as Dvorak’s Rusalka, singing the Song to the Moon and was the unexpected vocal soloist in Voices of Spring where her coloratura excelled expectation.

She came back at the end to entrance us with O mio babbino caro proving herself to be a soloist of many parts. It will be worth following her blossoming career.

We all joined in the Radetzky March before Barry Wordsworth led the orchestra off to platform before we demanded any more. If the rest of the year is as good as this we have little to worry about.