Brighton Philharmonic Orchestra
Conductor: Joanna MacGregor
Pianist: Junyan Chen
Brighton Dome, 28 September 2025
Entitled “A New World” the opening concert of BPO’s new season featured three works by 20th century composers, all delivered with the orchestra’s usual panache. MacGregor beats time firmly but expressively with commendable clarity and complete lack of histrionics. She must be good to work with.
First up was the notoriously challenging Rachmanoff Piano Concerto no 3 with the charismatic, gloriously talented Junyan Chen at the piano. You can see her breathing and feeling every note of the music even when she’s not playing. And she made the first movement cadenza sound like a series of passionate but effortless improvisations until the flute, oboe and clarinet solos lead to the tender conclusion. The middle movement brought lush lyricism interspersed with drama and jazzy insouciance – and a great deal of palpable, careful concentration in the orchestra because, although it has gone mainstream in recent years, this concerto is still less familiar than the composer’s second one. As we segued into the finale the chemistry between MacGregor and Chen shone though as, between them, they balanced the grandiloquent piano passages with the woodwind entries which included some lovely oboe work. The many dramatic contrasts in the piece were highlighted right through to the high octane final pages.
Chen concluded her fine performance by whisking us off to a totally different sound world in her encore: a short Gershwin arrangement.
After the interval came the always unsettling La Valse which Ravel began before the 1914/18 war and finished after it so it connotes the collapse of the old Viennese world. In this performance MacGregor and the BPO stressed the sense of a musical way of life breaking down even as we admired all those virtuosic solo parts – especially notable work from bass trombone and percussion section – and the well managed rubato.
The final work was Bartok’s Suite from The Miraculous Mandarin which tells a story very descriptively just as, for example, Paul Dukas’s The Sorcerer’s Apprentice does. Famously, the ballet was performed only once in Bartok’s lifetime because the critics slated it. But he salvaged a narrative suite from the score. BPO made the busy beginning – not a million miles from Gershwin’s An American in Paris – sound vibrant. Other high spots included the clarinet solo which depicts an old man lured in to be robbed, followed by off beat col legno from the strings and snappy trombone work as the crime is committed.
Generally speaking I loathe talks by conductors at concerts. Anyone who wishes can read the programme notes. Otherwise let the music do the talking. Joanna MacGregor, however, is exceptionally good at it. So I’ll forgive her.
