The high spot of this concert was a glorious, witty performance of Beethoven’s first symphony. Once we’d got over the slight raggedness at the opening Pekka Kuusisto packed in the brio and I really admired the detail of those beautiful fugal moments in the andante which were played with exquisite, and quite unusual, dynamic contrast. Then we got excitement and palpable pleasure from players grinning at each other in the minuet and a top speed bravura performance of the finale. It was in short, full of light, air and joie de vivre, although I didn’t feel the audience participation moment before the finale added much.

After the interval came the much hyped up “enhanced” version of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons with Kuusisto on violin (you can’t fault him for beaming energy and sense of fun) and Ale Carr on cittern. It’s certainly a novel idea to intersperse Vivaldi with folk music but it’s not how I would wish to hear this piece regularly. We got ever longer passages of folk music – the two men duetting, facing each other and almost dancing so that at times it felt as if we were at a completely different sort of concert. Despite, or perhaps because of, the evident musical chemistry between them, it became increasing self-indulgent as we proceeded slowly to the end of an hour long performance. The orchestra meanwhile played spiritedly even though they were, effectively, marginalised. I suspect that – complex as it is in this form with more than twenty movements – it was under-rehearsed too. At one point Kuusisto had to leave the stage (not long enough for a broken string so I was mystified) and he began one movement at the wrong time and had to joke with the audience that it would be edited out for the broadcast. Nonetheless it was fascinating to see and hear the cittern given such prominence and Carr is a stupendous and charismatic player.

After all that one had almost forgotten the concert’s opening work: Birds of Paradise by Andrea Tarrodi which is a pity because it is an attractive piece, inspired by David Attenborough’s Planet Earth. It’s music imitating life with the orchestra building to a rich texture and then offering tropical forest sounds such as glissandi from the strings and chattering sounds from the percussion – all quite eerie. It must be quite challenging to play but Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie is a fine orchestra and delivered it with panache and a fabulous morendo pianissimo effect at the end.

Susan Elkin