For the Play Term concert on 19 November the orchestra sat at the organ end of School, percussion under Athens, fiddlers before the Roman theatre; the audience entered at the far end, via Ashburnham Garden, to sit in rows stretching back to the stage and up into the Shell. The experiment worked very well acoustically; the orchestral sound carried with exceptional clarity to most parts of the hall. Visually it was not quite such a happy arrangement, as a large gap was left between the front few rows and the raised seats at the back, giving the impression, perhaps unfairly, of a rather small audience. There seemed to be few pupils attending, but those who did come were well rewarded by an ambitious and exciting programme, and by some beautiful playing.
In Gabriel Faure's Pelleas et Melisande Suite, which opened the concert, the present strengths of the orchestra were immediately obvious - above all a lovely, accomplished warmth of string tone and accurate intonation in the Prelude and the Sicilienne, where tempi were well measured and a delightful lilting rhythm was sustained. Despite a few initial problems in woodwind tuning there were no really weak sections, and the players conveyed a sense of genuine commitment and enjoyment.
The centre piece was the first movement of Beethoven's Triple Concerto in C, Op 56, for which the orchestra was joined by Charlie Stevenson (violin), Edwin Cook (cello) and Xandi Imboden (piano). With an excellently judged tempo and secure lead from the orchestra, this was a good performance. The violin and cello, perhaps a little nervous and tentative at the start, soon warmed to their roles and the solo group presented a good balance of 'inward' private playing and, at appropriate moments, something more public and extrovert. A programme note drew attention to the contrast between the grand symphonic scale of this movement and its elements of 'chamber-like intimacy'. The clarity of this contrast was helped by the carefully phrased, coherent reading of the soloists. Their ensemble owed a good deal to Imboden's steady and reliable rhythm; in significant passages the piano emerged, and led the others, out from the 'chamber' atmosphere to achieve considerable bite.
The second half of the concert was devoted to a complete performance of Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony in E minor, a work which surely few school orchestras would take on with any great confidence. It was clear that the major part of rehearsal time must have been spent on this work, and it was time well used by all those involved. Generally well prepared and 'safe' even in many very taxing passages, the performance had moments of enormous verve and excitement without any sense of insecurity. Here again the strings sounded exceptionally well, but there was some excellent sectional and solo playing from all parts of the orchestra - a truly moving and memorable horn solo in the Andante (this movement was perhaps the highest point of the evening), fine trumpet solos and brass ensemble, and the constant feature of excellent woodwind, especially the clarinets which figure so prominently in this symphony. (The beautiful opening clarinet passage of the first movement was well played but was effectively wrecked by a protracted, hideous and astonishingly unstifled cough somewhere in the ranks.) Guy Hopkins steered the orchestra confidently through this enormous work without taking any risks - he applied careful tempi that really worked, and well graded and controlled dynamics. This was a memorable concert, and an orchestra to be proud of.
Jonathan Katz