Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
St Giles Cripplegate
Conductor: Gergely Madaras
Tuesday 16 June
The opening concert in the Summer Music in City Churches festival, now in its eighth year, was a pleasant and, at times, uplifting concert comprising four very familiar works. This year’s festival is badged “Around the World” and the music took us to Italy, France, Spain and Germany so it did what it said on the tin.
The heart of the concert, and very much its high spot, was Roderigo’s Concerto de Aranjuez with the impressive, charismatic Jack Hancher as soloist. Using a knee rest to keep the instrument at a 45 degree angle to his body he created vibrato to coax every ounce of anguish from the plaintive adagio. And the duet with the cor anglais was magically tender. In the outer movements he plays the strings like a pianist and every note rings. Perhaps isn’t easy to make a work as familiar as this sound fresh but Hancher delivers in spades.
For me this was the most interesting work in the concert for two other reasons. First, live performances of it seem suddenly to be proliferating. I heard Sean Shibe do it with the Philharmonia under Marin Alsop in February. Samrat Majumba is playing it with Maidstone Symphony Orchestra, where I review regularly, on 29 November. Second, the Hayes Symphony Orchestra in which I play second violin, is doing it with none other than Jack Hancher on 06 December. It’s a fine work and it’s good to see it getting about more than in once did.
Back at St Giles Cripplegate, the concert opened with a decent account of Rossini’s Barber of Seville overture – this is the RPO pared down to six first violins and two double basses (even fewer for the Roderigo) by the way so that it fits into the chancel. It needs some imported raked seating for players, though, because the winds are invisible to the audience in the nave which is frustrating. Conductor Gergely Madaras is evidently aware of the resonant acoustic and resisted the urge to run with exaggerated tempi but managed to find plenty of crisp wit in the music with some pleasing work from horns and cymbals.
Then it was off to the colourful but, for me, always waffly world of Ravel’s Pavane pour une enfante defunté. It was sumptuously played especially by the brass but I failed to warm to it because French impressionism in music simply doesn’t grab me.
After the interval we got a rousing performance of Mendelssohn’s decisively sunny Italian symphony. High spots included the lively contrasts in the opening Allegro vivace, nicely balanced “ticking” from lower strings in the Andante and some fine horn work in the third movement. The opening to the Salterello was slightly ragged (an acoustic issue maybe?) but soon found its feet and packed in plenty of excitement.
It is always a pleasure to attend a central London concert with a wide demographic in its audience. I sat alongside children, city workers of all ages, retired people and many who had travelled from other parts of London. Classical music is for all. QED. Hurrah.
