Music / Reviews
Review: Mozart, Arvo Pärt and Gavin Higgins, Bristol Beacon – ‘Unexpected moments of joy’
Forget about the Ibiza Final Boss; at the Bristol Beacon on Saturday afternoon we had the classical music final boss: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
As part of the second annual Proms residency in our city, Britten Sinfonia played Mozart’s Symphony No. 39 in E flat major.
Then, as the audience were leaving Beacon Hall, there was the added treat of a classical DJ set from Georgia Mann.
Mann, a Proms presenter and host of BBC Radio 3’s Essential Classics, dropped Eine kleine Nachtmusik and described the original performances of it as “a DJ set for the well-heeled in Vienna”.
Among the other tracks from Mann, assisted by Radio 3 sound engineer Rob Winter, were Spring 1 – 2012 from Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons recomposed by Max Richter, some electric cello from the Mercury-nominated Anna Meredith and a track from Bristol’s own Will Gregory.
The joy of the Proms is unexpected moments like this and the fact that these events are not just for the well-heeled. The DJ set in the stalls bar was a free show and you only needed to part with less than a tenner to stand in the stalls in the main auditorium to be part of the famous Promenaders.
It costs less than a tenner to stand in the stalls at the Bristol Beacon for a Proms concert
Britten Sinfonia had travelled across the country from their base in the east of England to play in this concert broadcast live on Radio 3, with the international audience told by presenter Sarah Walker that the newly refurbished Beacon was “a place of welcome, warmth and light”.
In the absence of a conductor for Rakastava by Jean Sibelius, the orchestra’s newly appointed leader, violinist Zoë Beyers, took the metaphorical baton for a tremendous start to proceedings.
Beyers and Miranda Dale then shone in Arvo Pärt’s Tabula rasa, described in the programme notes as a “cult concerto for two violins… (that) redefines sound, silence and the relationship between them”.
At times competing and at other times complementing each other, Beyers and Dale were both mesmerising.
A Promenader who was lying down on her yoga mat in the stalls during much of the first half was most definitely standing up for the start of the second.
Rough Voices by Gloucestershire-born Gavin Higgins, a musical response to the pandemic, saw conductor Tess Jackson as well as a brass section join proceedings, with crashing trumpets rudely interrupting the strings.
The music was Jaws-like at times, something dangerous lurking not too far from the surface, with the percussionist nearly knocking the skin off his drums during the most heightened moments.
After Higgins bounded on stage to much applause, it was time for the final boss, with the Britten Sinfonia filling Beacon Hall with Mozart’s magnificence before we were treated to an encore in the DJ set outside.
All photos: Jessie Myers
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