Westminster Abbey provides a magnificent setting for a concert, visually speaking. Acoustically, the building is a mixed blessing. Sound is absorbed, echoed, dispersed or reverberated depending on the weather, time of day, the phases of the moon. Under such circumstances Mendelssohn can mutate into Mahler.
Fortunately, this was not the case with the Hebrides Overture. This can be a tedious piece at the best of times. Once you've spotted the main tune, very little happens to further excite the imagination. You just keep listening for it to turn up again.
Guy Hopkins conducted in a sprightly and elegant fashion: more surprisingly, the orchestra responded with sprightly and elegant playing. Although the Abbey muddied the strings a little, the woodwind was audible, accurate and convincingly bracing. From first to last, the piece remained energetic.
John Baird's Passacaglia - Carnival Time was an ambitious piece: eclectic, intelligent and entertaining. It opened with an arresting solo for tenor (Toby Benton) which floated cleanly above. As the orchestra picked up the passacaglia theme, the noise became dense and constricted. The quality of the invention was self-evident but the Abbey churned the detail and what emerged was a sort of Tippet-Sibelius gloomy soup. Through this the Greensleeves melody shimmered 'like a good deed in a naughty world'.
The next movement, Samba, surprised with its vibrant cacophony. The percussionists propelled themselves through the audience with dancing relish. For once, the Abbey helped, throwing the noise out into the distant arches and returning it to a bemused audience. Great fun.
The last movement restored calm as the tenor contemplates the future. The music is slow and introverted, quietly ending on notes of unambiguous sadness and regret.
Mozart's C minor Mass transcended the Abbey's worst intentions. Guy Hopkins conducted another graceful and swift programme as the choir sang with great enthusiasm producing blocks of sound that shook the stonework. There was also much beautiful singing in the solos: Kendal Gaw, Edwin Cook and Max Grender-Jones all phrased their contributions with charm and delicacy. The Mass, which can sound like a lump of mock-baroque fancywork with solemn doodlings for extra emphasis, came across as a genuinely religious experience. And you can't say (or review) fairer than that.
As ever, the Music Department must be congratulated on producing a concert that was both exciting and varied. What will it do next?
Gavin Griffiths
An awed hush filled School on 20 April as Westminster's finest soloists prepared for the most prestigious concert in the calendar. Concerto playing is no easy task at the best of times, and these young players had the added pressure of knowing that this was their last big chance to show what they were made of before leaving school. What followed was a fine display of musicianship and, perhaps more important, showmanship.
The evening got under way with Brahms's Overture in D minor (Tragic), with Clemmie Burton-Hill leading the orchestra and Kenneth McAllister wielding the stick. There were some very well controlled dynamics here, and excellent woodwind playing. The band soon found its stride, and delivered a dramatic build-up to a spirited climax.
Now that the orchestra was warmed up, it was time for Miles Copeland to take centre stage for the first movement of Matthias Monn's 'Cello Concerto in G minor. Sinan Savaskan conducted a confident and well-balanced string orchestra led by Max Grender-Jones, and Copeland put on a fine show. After one or two initial signs of nerves, he swept through this rarely performed work with panache.
Flanders and Swann afficionados can seldom listen to Mozart's Horn Concerto in Eb, K495, without imagining the lyric 'I lost that horn'. Jonathan Monroe, however, gave the Finale a serious and accomplished performance under Kenneth McAllister's baton. The orchestra, too, was sounding very polished with Michael Garnett in the driving seat.
Following seamlessly on from the Mozart came Haydn's G major Violin Concerto - the whole thing. Considerably shorter than later concertos, this slotted neatly into the programme and featured the excellent solo playing of Florrie Evans. Guy Hopkins directed and Clemmie Burton-Hill took her turn leading the string orchestra, which seemed to be going from strength to strength. The piece had the intimacy and precision of a chamber work, with Evans executing every detail with verve and conviction.
After the interval, a change of musical scene came in the form of Bruch's G minor Violin Concerto. Guy Hopkins and Clemmie Burton-Hill resumed their positions, this time with Laura Bender soloing. This is a very difficult piece, and an ambitious choice for a young performer, but she assaulted it bravely and with no apparent signs of nerves. The band provided an accurate accompaniment in spite of the technical challenges of the tutti passages, offering the soloist some much-needed support in such a tricky work.
Violist Adam Kaye took to the limelight for Ralph Vaughan Williams's Suite for Viola and Small Orchestra. This was a thoroughly enjoyable performance, with a great deal of sensitivity and, in the last movement, humour. The viola is a notoriously difficult instrument to get a good sound from, but Kaye seemed to rise above any potential problems with it.
Meera Kumar sang Richard Srauss's Allerseelen and Zueignung, with the orchestra led by Florrie Evans and conducted by Sinan Savaskan. The orchestration of Allerseelen was a little unsympathetic to the soloist - Strauss himself had only written a piano accompaniment - and Kumar's softer low register was a little swamped once or twice. The second song, however, sounded much happier, with the singer getting a chance to show off her higher range. Interestingly enough, this was Strauss's own orchestration, and seemed to work far better than the first.
To close the evening's proceedings, the orchestra played Puccini's Intermezzo from Act III of Manon Lescaut, with Meera Kumar now leading and Guy Hopkins back at the helm. This was an apt finale to a very entertaining concert - everybody simply enjoyed playing a good, very hummable tune, and it sounded self-assured and triumphant. There was a richly deserved torrent of applause, and an all-round sense of a job well done.
Christian Vaughan
