REVIEW: Worthing Symphony Orchestra – Russian Romantics
WORTHING Symphony Orchestra, Nicola Benedetti (violin), John Gibbons (conductor), 'Russian Romantics' concert at Assembly Hall, Sunday, October 11.
SHE came, she re-conquered.
For the second time this year, but in separate concert seasons, Nicola Benedetti drew the crowd.
This time she got them 'Glazunoffed' and 'Massanayed'.
And she'll be back to do more.
This is an instant love affair in the Assembly Hall.
The hugely talented Italianate Scot already cherishes its acoustics and admires the Worthing Symphony Orchestra – the former BBC Young Musician of the Year is now playing with most of the best in the world.
And the almost 750 music lovers who packed the place can't get enough of her ravishing playing.
She played Glazunov's searching and colourful Violin Concerto, amid a schedule that includes a performance of it recently with the Philharmonia, and Vladimir Ashkenazy, and she'll do it again with them soon in London.
Then she soothed the stunned Worthing audience with Frenchman Massanet's trascendental operatic interlude from Thas, the Mditation.
Conductor John Gibbons' control and direction ensured her Glazunov reading had a substantial platform.
And the heavenly accompaniment of harpist Isobel Frayling Cork, plus the consoling warmth of the WSO, especially their excellent strings, made the Massanet feel like sinking into a deep, warm, fragranced bath.
Benedetti has played it already for years, of course, but I sensed a special dimension of feeling drawn from her by the WSO – more so than on her recent radio broadcast.
She had two ovations from the throng, plus two kisses and a huge bouquet from the 190-strong Worthing Symphony Society's chairman, bassist Eddie Hurcombe.
"I'm sure there will be plans for me to return here," were Benedetti's parting words.
Gibbons opened with Rimsky-Korsakov's masterly arrangement of Modest Mussorgsky's Night on a Bare Mountain.
This showcased the fullest force and vitality of the WSO but also transported us on a gradual journey towards the contemplative closing solos of clarinettist Jon Carnac and flautist Graham Mayger.
And the WSO concluded with Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony, featuring a new timpanist with an eye-catchingly high backlift, Leslie Hammett, and the famous horn solo, from David Lee.
Gibbons' conducting was architecturally surefooted.
His reappearances of the fate motif were notably harsh with the tormenting trombones allowed ferocious dynamism.
It was an inexorably driven interpretation and, even as the heart-on-sleeve slow movement concluded, there was no true repose in Carnac's final word on the matter.
After Tchaikovsky's triumphant four final hammer blows, cheers and whistles billowed around the auditorium for each section of the orchestra, following initially Lee himself, as Gibbons brought them each to their feet for just acclaim.
The WSO, its ever classier and friendly programme booklet, too, are the real thing.
Their Remembrance Day concert brings them back on November 8 (2.45pm) with Walton's Spitfire Prelude & Fugue, Elgar's deeply nostalgic yet hopeful First Symphony, and the No 1 in romantic piano concertos: Rachmaninov's Second.
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Weather for Worthing
Wednesday 30 May 2012
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