Issue 65

23 June - 10 August 1998

Concert review: A perfect prelude, precursor and premiere

Review by Dr Trevor Bacon, Department of Physics

Sinfonia 21, Imperial’s orchestra in residence, concluded its inaugural series of concerts on Sunday 14 June in the Great Hall with a programme containing a wide range of musical styles.

David Matthews’s Introit was an appropriate prelude; the strings, playing slow-moving but florid music, were joined by antiphonal exchanges between two well-separated trumpets. Written for a specific occasion in Gloucester Cathedral, it nevertheless makes an effective concert piece.

Sinfonia 21’s principal conductor Martyn Brabbins

Haydn’s Symphony No. 40, written in the simple form of his early career, was given a crisp performance. The surprise came in the finale, which turned out to be a miniature precursor (by about 30 years) of the astonishing finale of Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony.

Calling Across Time, by Jonathan Harvey, the composer in association with Sinfonia 21, was commissioned by the British Library to celebrate the opening of its new building. We were privileged to hear the first public performance. As in previous concerts, the conductor, Martyn Brabbins, discussed the music with the composer, making it easier to appreciate.

The music consists of exact canons based on an original chorale and played at different speeds.The antiphonal effects were enhanced by positioning some of the players around the Great Hall. It was designed for the large foyer space of the British Library but the composer observed that the different strands can be better perceived in the Great Hall.

Benjamin Britten’s Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings provided a splendid end to the series. The scheduled horn soloist was indisposed and his replacement was Michael Thompson, whose purity of sound was displayed particularly by Britten’s requirement of the use of natural harmonics only in the prologue and epilogue. The tenor, Ian Bostridge, has a voice of matching purity and expressive power, further enhanced by a spell-binding presence. This was a perfect performance, moving beyond words.