Category Archives: In concert

In concert – London Schools Symphony Orchestra @ Fairfield Hall – Voyages and Visions

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London Schools Symphony Orchestra / Enyi Okpara / *Sitali Dewan

Smyth The Wreckers (1902-04) – Overture*
Pickard Sea-Change (1988-89)
Clyne Restless Oceans (2018)
Rimsky-Korsakov Scheherazade Op.35 (1888)

Fairfield Halls, Croydon
Tuesday 15 September 2026

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse

Ever enterprising, the London Schools Symphony Orchestra ended its season with this wide ranging exploration of music inspired or pervaded by the sea. Conductor in residence Sitali Dewan duly took the podium for a performance of the overture to Ethel Smyth’s opera The Wreckers as more than made up for what it lacked in cohesion with vibrant characterization of its thematic contrasts – energetic, introspective and hymnic – towards a culmination that accorded the ultimately redemptive essence of what is a very human drama tangible focus.

Preferable though it might have been to place Anna Clyne’s Restless Oceans next instead of at the start of the second half, this brief if eventful celebration of female identity lacked nothing in presence. Its alternating rhythmically incisive and harmonically expressive ideas, building to a tersely unequivocal close, was enhanced by a contribution from the musicians that made for a vividly theatrical conclusion. The sort of piece, moreover, that doubtless left its mark on those participants at the World Economic Forum in Davos – where it was first heard in 2019.

Enyi Okpara had been no less assured when directing John Pickard’s Sea-Change. A typically unequivocal instance of his early music, its title refers less to Shakespeare than to the layered eddying of waves, currents and tides; their contrasts in motion given focus by consistency of pulse and a tonal trajectory centred, however obliquely, around E. Music which is visceral as well as inevitable in its progress, this demands a committed response and the LSSO was not found wanting; whether in its impetuous opening phase, mounting aggression at its centre or that remorseless accumulation whose ultimate catharsis is shot through with ominous import. This is a piece written for while making no concessions to younger players, and those tonight clearly enjoyed the encounter as much as Okpara relished making it his own interpretatively.

If it inhabits far more descriptive terrain, Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade was not without its formal and emotional subtleties in this insightful reading. Thus there was no lack of drama in The Sea and Sinbad’s Ship to offset its repetition of motion and material, while The Tale of the Kalender Prince had no absence of pathos to balance the quirky humour of its call-and-response between brass or thrilling defiance of its last crescendo. Nor was The Young Prince and the Young Princess less than rapturous in the coming together of its contrasted melodies.

A culmination in every respect, The Festival at Baghdad brings back earlier ideas in varied and ingenious guise; all the while generating a momentum that made its seismic culmination the more impressive and the enfolding resignation of those closing pages the more affecting. Throughout this performance, the LSSO principals were heard to advantage – none more so than leader Erin Healy, her rendering of the violin solos that punctuate each movement of a poise and eloquence such as endowed Rimsky’s technical wizardry with unfailing humanity.

A fitting conclusion, then, to a memorable concert that the LSSO rounded off with a lively medley of maritime melodies that evidently went down a storm on TikTok and in which all participants (not least both conductors) gave their collective all in what was a heady encore.

You can read more about the orchestra at the London Schools Symphony Orchestra website – and click on the names to read more about conductors Enyi Okpara and Sitali Dewan and composers Anna Clyne, John Pickard and Dame Ethel Smyth. For concert information you can also visit the Fairfield Halls website

Published post no.3,020 – Thursday 17 September 2026

Last Night of the Proms 2026 – Barber: Piano Concerto

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by Ben Hogwood

The BBC Proms came to a close last night with the feverish excitement of the Last Night. As ever it offered a huge range of music, but one performance in particular drew the eye – a spectacular account, from Yuja Wang and the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sakari Oramo, of Samuel Barber‘s Piano Concerto, completed in 1962.

Difficult to reconcile that this was the same composer of the Adagio for Strings, and the melt-in-the-middle Violin Concerto – this was forthright pianism, terrifically played but still with a deeply emotive heart.

You can watch Yuja Wang’s account here…but below is the premiere recording made by John Browning, who Barber had in mind when he wrote the work. Here he is with the Cleveland Orchestra and George Szell:

Published post no.3,316 – Sunday 13 September 2026

Arcana at the BBC Proms: Simone Lamsma, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra / Andrew Manze – Vaughan Williams, Britten & Smickersgill

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Simone Lamsma (violin), Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra / Andrew Manze

Vaughan Williams Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis (1910)
Britten Violin Concerto in D minor Op.15 (1938-9)
Smickersgill A Brick Thrown with Love (2026) [BBC co-commission: World premiere]
Vaughan Williams Symphony No. 9 in E minor (1956-7)

Royal Albert Hall, London
Friday 4 September 2026

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse Photos (c) BBC / Chris Christodoulou

Andrew Manze’s eleventh appearance at the Proms, during which 28 years he has moved from being a Baroque violinist and director to a symphonic conductor, drew on just over a century of British music for what proved a typically thoughtful and absorbing programme.

Not consistently successful, though – hence an account of Vaughan Williams‘ Tallis Fantasia whose avoiding of old-school eloquence leant it a certain uniformity of expression. In particular, the second (nine-piece) orchestra sounded rather un-atmospheric placed just behind the main body, leaving it to the solo quartet to instil a degree of intensity as the piece built toward its fervent if generalized climax before heading into subdued retrospection. Assured playing among the ranks of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra strings did not make it other than an unexceptional reading.

The surprise about Simone Lamsma’s Proms appearance was this being her first, but anyone having heard her in Saint-Saëns’s Third Concerto knows her to be a soloist of the first order -as was the case with Britten’s Violin Concerto. The Moderato’s alternating of enervation and incisiveness was deftly handled, then the Vivace’s impetus did not omit a soulful response in its central episode with a magical transition on piccolos and tuba back to its initial animation. Nor was the cadenza other than integrated thematically into an overall structure as concludes with one of Britten’s most deeply felt passacaglias. Spanish elements which keenly offset any formal severity with expressive spontaneity bring about its powerful climax; the equivocation between hope and resignation unerringly judged at the end of what was a memorable reading.

Those responsive to her earlier ensemble works should have found Carmel Smickersgill’s new Proms piece no less intriguing. Its three (more or less) continuous sections of A Brick Thrown with Love provide an unforced trajectory where reckless negativity is countered with diverse responses, before the coming together in a mood of determined positivity. Lucid textures and iridescent scoring banish any hint of agit-prop with an appealing demonstration of orchestral prowess; one whose warm reception the composer chose to acknowledge from the rear stalls.

Vaughan Williams’s Ninth Symphony receives more hearings than ever in the seven decades since it premiered to a lukewarm response. Manze had the measure of the opening Moderato with its luminous scoring for three saxophones and a restiveness allayed if not resolved by its twilit coda. The ensuing Andante drew potent contrast from its hieratic and human elements, thrown into relief by a flugelhorn refrain (evocatively played by Tom Fountain) that reaches back into the composer’s distant past, then the Scherzo purposefully offset its capricious and militant aspects with a haunting lyricism as comes into its own in the finale. Less protracted than on Manze’s recording (Onyx), this unfolds in ever more elaborate arcs of accumulating activity to what is less a coda than an apotheosis which here was inevitable and unequivocal.

Just what those closing bars are conveying has been the subject of considerable speculation over time. Without overstating his case, Manze allowed this ‘journey of a life’ to envelop the Albert Hall’s expanse in what was an affecting end to a memorable evening’s music-making.

You can listen to this Prom on BBC Sounds until the end of September 2026.

Published post no.3,012 – Wednesday 9 September 2026

Arcana at the BBC Proms: Julie Roset, Sinfonia of London Strings / John Wilson – Britten, Berkeley, Bridge & Imogen Holst

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Julie Roset (soprano), Sinfonia of London Strings / John Wilson

Berkeley Serenade for Strings Op.12 (1938-9)
Bridge Lament H117 (1915)
Britten Les illuminations Op.18 (1939)
Imogen Holst Suite for String Orchestra (1943)
Britten Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge Op.10 (1937)

Royal Albert Hall, London
Sunday 6 September 2026, 11am

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse Photos (c) BBC / Chris Christodoulou

Just weeks after the heady excess of Respighi’s ‘Roman Triptych’, John Wilson and Sinfonia of London were back at the Proms with a typically resourceful programme of British works for and with string orchestra. One which opened with the fourth appearance at these concerts for Lennox Berkeley’s Serenade for Strings, its modest dimensions belying an intensifying trajectory from the high-spirited Vivace, through a suave Andantino then impetuous Allegro, to a Lento whose inward plangency is a sure reflection of events in the latter months of 1939.

Following on naturally, Frank Bridge’s Lament – remembering a nine-year-old girl drowned with the sinking of RMS Lusitania in May 1915 – found a more apposite context than its two previous Proms appearances; not least as Wilson drew such fastidious poise from his players.

Although hardly ineffective given with tenor, Britten’s Les illuminations conveys its essence more fully as conceived with soprano and Julie Roset’s rendering (above) of Arthur Rimbaud’s often disquieting texts was nothing if not idiomatic. From the insistent activity of Villes, via the suspenseful Phrase and elegant Antique to the portentous Royauté and playful Marine – this was a reading to savour. As enticing were the yearning sensuality of Being Beauteous then capricious contrasts of Parade; this latter’s climactic setting of lines first encountered in Fanfare then Interlude as if completing a circle, from where Départ brings the whole sequence to a resigned though fulfilled conclusion. Roset’s insights were ably underpinned by the strings, even if a slightly more visceral response would at times have been welcome.

Her output can suggest an ambition waylaid if not frustrated at every turn, but Imogen Holst left numerous works of intrinsic as opposed to practical worth. Not least her Suite for Strings, its inquiring spirit evident in a restless Prelude then taciturn Fugue with a tellingly queasy final cadence. Despite its title, the Intermezzo that follows makes for a slow movement of unforced eloquence; one whose barely concealed depths inform the final Jig such that the latter’s impetus is not without a growing ambivalence only just dispelled towards its close.

Commemorating Britten at these concerts in the 50th anniversary of his death means, almost by definition, focussing on those works for orchestra largely absent from his post-war output. Among which, Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge remains among the most impressive – not least in a performance as finely conceived and executed as this. As if mindful of an early comment that ‘‘neither [Britten’s] seriousness nor his levity is intense enough’’, Wilson duly pushed expressive contrasts across its 10 variations to their limits. Characterful as were those earlier vignettes, it was in the sequence of glowering Funeral March, ominous Chant then closing Fugue and Finale that his approach came into its own – not least in the way that the latter’s animation came to a standstill before its belated if impulsive surge to a decisive close.

A pity that Wilson did not consider including an encore (one or other of Bridge’s Two Old English Songs would have been ideal for this context) but the all-round excellence of what was heard, at what might be thought a ‘Proms matinee’, was assuredly its own justification.

You can listen to this Prom on BBC Sounds until the end of September 2026.

Published post no.3,009 – Sunday 6 September 2026

Arcana at the BBC Proms – Augustin Hadelich, Berliner Philharmoniker / Kirill Petrenko: Beethoven & Scriabin

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Augustin Hadelich (violin), Berliner Philharmoniker / Kirill Petrenko

Beethoven Violin Concerto in D major Op.61 (1806)
Scriabin Symphony no.3 in C minor, Op.43 ‘Le poème divin’ (1902-04)

Royal Albert Hall, London
Thursday 3 September 2026

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse Photos (c) BBC / Chris Christodoulou

Their second appearance this season saw Kirill Petrenko and the Berliner Philharmoniker tackling pieces that, written almost a century apart, could hardly have offered greater contrast in terms of their aesthetic and which made the cohesion of tonight’s programme the more impressive.

His fifth visit to the Proms in just a decade found Augustin Hadelich giving a performance of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto full of interest if on occasion neglecting the wood for the trees. Not that, other than momentarily in its development, the opening Allegro hung fire but this most spacious such movement in Beethoven’s output lacked an underlying impetus without which it all too easily loses focus. The (unexpected) highlight was a Kreisler cadenza which renewed respect for its motivic ingenuity then segued into the coda with acute seamlessness.

There was little to fault thereafter. The Larghetto duly emerged as the most eloquent of those variational slow movements that Beethoven favoured at this time, with orchestral playing of fastidious poise then an ideal transition into the final Rondo – the incisiveness of whose main theme threw into relief its genial secondary idea then the plaintiveness of its central episode. It rounded off what was a never less than perceptive reading, and Hadelich returned with his own arrangement of Träumerei from Schumann‘s Kinderszenen as a raptly affecting encore.

Some 98 years after Beethoven’s most intrinsically abstract symphonic work found Scriabin flexing his extra-musical muscles in the last if most ambitious of his numbered symphonies. Given its UK premiere at these concerts by Sir Henry Wood in 1918 and repeated three years later, The Divine Poem had to wait nine decades for its Proms revival but has now secured its place in the repertoire. Certainly there was no element of ‘special pleading’ in an account as underlined that structural integration between its three (continuous) movements as across the work overall. However overreaching Scriabin’s theosophical aspirations may have been, his musical instinct was such that nothing is left to chance in a design as surveys the ‘tragedy to triumph’ trajectory beloved of late-Romanticism from an arresting and productive vantage.

The defining motto drawn unerringly into its evolution, the opening Luttes made a virtue of its discursive unfolding with a sure balance between its agitated and ethereal themes; building to a resplendent if short-lived climax in its development then methodically retracing its steps. There was no lack of sensuousness in the central Voluptés, offset by an ominous undertow resolved in the final Jeu divin with its capricious trumpet idea and its pointed revisiting of earlier material as made the eventual apotheosis not just inevitable but necessary as a formal and expressive QED. Felicities of phrasing and of texture abounded in an interpretation that demonstrated the rapport of conductor and orchestra, now at the start of their eighth season together, at its most tangible with music on the cusp between Romanticism and Modernism.

As on their earlier visits, there was no encore with Petrenko’s blowing a kiss to the audience his most overt acknowledgement of what seemed a genuine enthusiasm for the piece as heard in this performance. Their next Proms appearance (in 2028?) can only be eagerly anticipated.

You can listen to this Proms concert on BBC Sounds until the end of September 2026.

Published post no.3.007 – Friday 4 September 2026