{"id":4894,"date":"2019-01-27T15:30:58","date_gmt":"2019-01-27T15:30:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.larkreviews.co.uk\/?p=4894"},"modified":"2019-01-27T15:30:58","modified_gmt":"2019-01-27T15:30:58","slug":"hastings-sinfonia-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/?p=4894","title":{"rendered":"Hastings Sinfonia"},"content":{"rendered":"

St John\u2019s, Upper St Leonards, Saturday 26 January 2019<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

An engaging concert, and one very much of two halves. The first half brought us richly romantic works by Weber and Schumann in a formal setting and without introductions. The second half reminded me of the early days of Friday night is music night<\/em> with gently witty links between the works from conductor Derek Carden, and a splendid variety of pieces on offer.<\/p>\n

The evening opened with Weber\u2019s overture to Oberon<\/em>, with heavy brass and bass tones almost overpowering the strings. Balance was better in the Schumann Piano Concerto where Howard Southern was a familiar but nonetheless very welcome soloist. His precise phrasing and graceful arpeggios in the opening movement were a prelude to the dancing, if unhurried, rhythmic pleasures of the finale.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

We had two living composers in the audience, and heard works from both of them, opening with Paul Lewis\u2019 theme for King\u2019s Royal<\/em> which some will recall from the TV series in the 1980s. The next orchestral work was Polo Piatti\u2019s stirring Agitato<\/em> with the composer providing the piano solo. The writing is often furious in impact but leads us to a gentler conclusion.<\/p>\n

Between the orchestral items Thomasin Trezise was the soprano soloist in equally familiar operatic arias. She opened with a thrilling performance of Un bel di vedremo<\/em> from Madama Butterfly <\/em>and later gave us a warmly effective Vilja <\/em>from The Merry Widow<\/em> and the Czardas <\/em>from Die Fledermaus \u2013 <\/em>in the latter case changing into a glittering golden dress which understandably caused a stir across the very full audience.<\/p>\n

Between these items we enjoyed Borodin\u2019s In the Steppes of Central Asia,<\/em> with its haunting cor anglais solo, and the evening ended with the March<\/em> from Sibelius\u2019 Karalia Suite. <\/em>There are times when the familiar is all the more welcome for being live.<\/p>\n

My grandson was with me \u2013 his first concert. It will certainly not be the last, and please, when can we go to an opera?<\/em><\/p>\n

Brian Hick<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

St John\u2019s, Upper St Leonards, Saturday 26 January 2019 An engaging concert, and one very much of two halves. The first half brought us richly romantic works by Weber and Schumann in a formal setting and without introductions. The second … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4894"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4894"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4894\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4896,"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4894\/revisions\/4896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}