Friday 9th July 2010 may have been a disappointment for Saints fans, but lovers of good music hit the jackpot at St Helens Town Hall with a cracking performance from St Helens Sinfonietta, who brought a 47-strong professional orchestra to the Assembly Hall for a glorious finale to their Festival of British Music.
This fourth concert in the series celebrating British music in all its wonderful variety opened with Vaughan Williams’ Overture to ‘The Wasps’, in which the orchestra gave us a positive swarm of wasps before we reached the lyrical imagery of a fine English summer, very apt on such a warm night.
Elgar’s Cello Concerto followed, with memories of Jacqueline du Pre rapidly overtaken, as cellist Graham Morris took possession of the work and held us spellbound with his rendering of its emotional yearnings and struggles. As one concert-goer remarked, we’d already had our money’s worth before the interval, and the sustained applause clearly indicated that the appreciation was general.
But there was much more joy to be had. Holst’s 1907 ‘Somerset Rhapsody’ is a delightful fantasia on two very different folk-tunes, a haunting ‘Sheep-Shearing Song’, spare and simple, and a domineering military march, which seems to compete for attention – but ultimately the simple rustic tune prevails, peace and simplicity return.
Malcolm Arnold’s Second Symphony was largely unknown to the audience, though much-loved in the 1950s, but its dazzling tunes and exuberant dynamics, which the orchestra made the most of, left everyone bubbling and excited at the end of the evening, disinclined to leave.
The orchestra were in as fine form as I have heard them, bubbling with controlled energy, soaring from delicate whispers to massive crescendos in a wonderfully lyrical programme played with zest and joy.
Alan Free and his Sinfoniettaare one of the gems of our town. If you haven’t heard them yet, make a note for Saturday 18th Septemberat URC, King Street when you can hear a chamber group playing Beethoven, Spohr and Dvorak – much more intimate music, no brass, but the same skill and musicality.
See www.sinfonietta.org.uk/ for details of this and other forthcoming performances.
And please can we hear more of these wonderful young soloists? Graham Morris was inspiring!
J.C.