PROBABLY the item most reminiscent of winter waltz time in Vienna at the WSO's traditional New Year concert this time was the Austrian cold of January.
An unusually sustained sequence of dry days with temperatures around freezing took a toll on what has been the most enthusiastically supported concert of recent WSO seasons.
Conductor John Gibbons remarked in the interval that a large proportion o
f his audience live on fixed incomes and that the economic downturn has been exacerbated for them by the current need to bump up their heating at a time of increased fuel prices.
Already, careful housekeeping by Gibbons meant that if the weather had been milder, the remaining redolent factor at work would have been the size of the WSO.
With only six first violins and three seconds, it almost certainly resembled the initial scale of the orchestra Strauss the elder formed in 1825 after studying the violin and joining a popular dance orchestra.
Gibbons' programme notes bring his audience such insights and his wit and humour in introducing the pieces did much to warm cockles in the stalls and on the balcony.
It is his informative and often amusing chats with the audience from the rostrum that have gained his election to the Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in respect of audience communication.
Audience reading matter this time included a newsletter from the supporting Worthing Symphony Society which was written by its new chairman - none other than double bassist and WSO librarian, Edwin Hurcombe.
Of the Strauss household, it was Johann the younger who provided the bulk of the WSO ballroom content this year with the exception being Josef's "Feuerfest (Firework] Polka" and dad's concluding Radetsky March.
Franz Lehar's The Merry Widow provided its own selection for the programme and Gibbons introduced for the first time Johann the younger's "Fairytales From The Orient" Waltz.
Thankfully, after the concert, there was no ice to make hazardous any invigorated audience waltzing out into the free car park.
The first half of the concert contained the contrast from a Viennese era earlier – that of Mozart. The use of Strauss II's Fledermaus Overture set out the stall for the afternoon but its use before Mozart's popular A Major Piano Concerto gave me a slight misgiving.
The feel of the first movement of the concerto did not seem to be taught enough and I wondered if an earlier Mozart overture with a trifle more gravitas would have been better preparation, and for the strings in particular.
I have heard German solo pianist Florian Uhlig in more compelling form at these concerts. Maybe the dressing room had been still chilly – Gibbons assured the fans that rehearsing at 10am had not been in the warmth built up by the Assembly Hall heating by concert time at 2.45pm.
Whatever, Uhlig's right-hand articulation seemed to be suffering. I craved it crisper and more distinct and I felt the outer movements were deprived of some of their verve and bite.
But his slow movement conveyed Mozart's astonishingly clinical conciseness in such emotional music, there was beauty in its coda, and he gave the finale its rattlingly heartwarming effect.
Clarinettists Jon Carnac and Ruth Buxton made their star moments count, bassoonist Gavin McNaughton too, and it was both remarkable and delightful to see Carnac at one point bursting out with laughter at the comic operatic fun Mozart was having with his wind writing.
Next three concerts (each 2.45pm) – February 1: Worthing Youth Prom with Gibbons conducting Worthing Youth Orchestra with soloist the sensational Russian, Boris Brovtsyn in the virtuosic Vieuxtemps Concerto No 4 in D minor. Also included: Brahms' Academic Festival Overture and Cesar Franck's Symphony.
February 14: "Melodies For You" with the Alassio Concert Orchestra, Marcus Martin conducting: Offenbach Overture "La Belle Helene", Luigini Suite "Ballet Egytpien", Mascagni's Intermezzo from Cavalleria Rusticana, Elgar's Salut D'Amour, plus vocal items by Handel, Lehar and Ivor Novello featuring soprano Marilyn Hill Smith and tenor Harry Nicoll.
March 8: WSO with Nicola Benedetti, the 2004 BBC Young Musician Of the Year, playing the Beethoven Violin Concerto. John Gibbons conducts also "A Tribute", to Vaughan Williams, by fellow British composer Edmund Rubbra, and Mendelssohn's Scottish Symphony.
Click here to go back to classical music news.Click here to go back to dance.Click here to go back to leisure.Where are you? Add your pin to the Herald's international readers' map by clicking here.Email the Herald: letters@worthingherald.co.ukWant to read this page in French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Urdu or 48 other
