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Review: London Symphony Orchestra, Bristol Beacon – ‘A glittering occasion’
The concert explodes into life with the playful and triumphant Festive Overture by Shostakovich, the London Symphony Orchestra cantering through with vivacity and vigour.
It is the ideal welcome, a fanfare to the sparkling evening ahead. The orchestra is flawless, a multifaceted and complex organism, each symbiotic element perfectly balanced with every other.
The enraptured audience, almost breathless by the end, whoop with delight and settle in for the more serious business of James MacMillan’s Violin Concerto No. 2, and the much anticipated soloist, Nicola Benedetti.
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This piece, written by MacMillan for Benedetti herself, uses a smaller configuration of the orchestra. There’s a feeling of intimacy, privilege even, to see Benedetti play the piece composed especially for her. The music flows through her and she seems to perfectly embody it.
In quite a shift of mood from the bombast of the Festive Overture, this piece sets off with a delicate pizzicato, followed by querulous vibrato, and descending trills evoke an ominous dream state, increasing in urgency to chaos and crisis.
The smaller orchestra belies the magnitude of the piece and as the emotional intensity builds throughout, we hear shadows of some of the same joy of Festive Overture, but this is its emotional counterpart. There’s a tense fragility, beautifully expressed by Benedetti in the graceful, melancholic, soaring melodies.
At the end of the MacMillan the conductor Noseda, the first chair violinist and Benedetti embrace as if they have come through an ordeal together, the tension still palpable in their bodies.
Conductor Gianandrea Noseda and Nicola Benedetti following their performance of the same concert at the Barbican Hall in London, two nights before they appeared at the Beacon – photo: Mark Allan
The second Shostakovich piece of the night, Symphony No. 12, is everything we could have hoped for, from the opening strains of the deeper strings delivering the theme that is then picked up in conversation between the oboes and violins.
As the movements all run into one another there’s not a moment of repose, but after the MacMillan we are used to such building intensity. The foreboding funereal brass, pizzicato cellos and double basses bring a sense of turmoil underscored by a sudden crisis of cymbals, delivered with an endearing flourish.
Towards the conclusion, the brooding violins finally swell to their full potential and we are expertly delivered by the conductor Noseda and his orchestra to the safety of an exquisite resolution.
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We are treated during the evening to a couple of extra-curricular moments that add a special glamour to what is already a glittering occasion.
When Benedetti returns to the stage after her virtuosic performance in the MacMillan, she addresses the audience in her surprising Scottish lilt and tells us that her encore will be a piece by American composer Jay Ungar, as she and James MacMillan are from the same town in Scotland and this piece “is basically from Scotland”.
There follows an enchanting reel that one could almost imagine ringing out plaintively across loch and munro, until it finally resolves into a fragile harmony.
Another surprise comes after the interval when Jonathan Dimbleby arrives on the stage and speaks as chair of Bristol Music Trust to promote their laudable mission to make music accessible to people from all walks of life and ages.
He speaks movingly of a programme to help children in foster care have some continuity between settings by teaching their carers songs that they will carry with them. Then on to the Big Sing, bringing children together from primary schools across the region to sing together as a choir in Beacon Hall. And finally he talks of bringing music to elderly people in care, transforming “frail lives” with music.
Bristol Beacon and Bristol Music Trust run several inclusive music programmes including workshops, orchestras and initiatives for young and older people, people with disabilities and others in the community – photo: Soul Media
This was a special evening. The programming was inspired. MacMillan’s Violin Concerto No.2 is a pearl of a piece, and nestled between the two grandiose Shostakovich pieces it draws out the subtler elements of the music around it.
We were fortunate to be in the company of a world class orchestra and a stellar soloist in Nicola Benedetti. Their passion for this music is evident and contagious, and their skill is such that you can confidently allow yourself to be guided by them through the heart and soul of the music.
Main image: Lucy Langley-Palmer
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