The masterful musicality of the LSSO was a delight, the programme was well balanced, with a range of contemporary composers
It’s been a long time since I last went to a classical concert and the London Schools Symphony Orchestra (LSSO) was a wonderful reintroduction to the classical world.
The programme was well balanced, with a range of contemporary composers. The first piece, Nautilus by Anna Meredith (arr.Jack Ross), was a contemporary “genre-busting” introduction to the concert. This piece brought the Barbican to life with an energetic but sensitive performance from the young musicians. Enyi Okpara the LSSO’s Conductor in Residence for this year did a fantastic job of commanding the orchestra. With incredibly complex rhythms, the intense connection was evident between the orchestra and the conductor producing just the right dramatic effect. The booming brass and range of percussion made this a brilliant opener to the performance.
The second piece was Václav Talich’s arrangement of The Cunning Little Vixen. I had seen this opera when I was very young and was excited to hear this arrangement. Once again, the LSSO did not disappoint. Delicately and precisely conducted by Dominic Wheeler, it truly was a joy watching the bows of the perfectly timed string section move together during the emotive movements of this piece. This piece also demonstrated the thoughtful and brilliant skills of Amit Segev, the leader of the orchestra, during the call and answer moments between the strings and the wind section. The whole orchestra told the story delightfully and it was as thoroughly enjoyable.
Finally, after the interval, the audience was served with Bluebeard’s Castle by Béla Bartók. Unfortunately, I find Bartók to be notoriously inaccessible. The melodies struggle to carry such an elaborate story and the comparison to the fun and light pieces in the first half made this more of a struggle than a balance. The programme excelled in its variety between the first two pieces, but the gear shift to Bartok was not the way I would want a programme to end. I also felt that having a second half of a concert far longer than the first half was a dubious choice. You give the performers a harder battle to keep the audience engaged and by the end I was quite ready to get home rather than leaving feeling energised as I did at the interval.
Whilst the programme could have been improved, the orchestra and especially the singers did well to carry the Bartók along. The dramatics of Shana Moron-Caravel’s Judith were deliciously rich whilst being perfectly placed to keep the audience engaged in the challenging music. There were times where I would have liked the orchestra to be slightly more balanced with the volume of the vocals as it was easy to lose some of the diction over the accompaniment. This added to the inaccessibility of the music. By comparison Alaric Green’s booming and stoic Bluebeard was hard to miss. His ability to portray this cold, walking red flag of a pirate through the music was excellent and again helped to keep the audience’s attention. Whilst the music was not for me in the second half, the masterful musicality of the LSSO was not one to miss and they have a creative energy and spontaneity sometimes lacking in many larger professional orchestras. I would welcome hearing more of their repertoire in the future!