SINFONIA
OF BIRMINGHAM
CBSO
Centre, Birmingham *****
Perhaps it is indeed something in the water, but Birmingham
is more than well blessed with amateur orchestras of the highest calibre. I
have long hailed the Birmingham Philharmonic Orchestra as one of the finest
amateur orchestras in the land, but recently I have noticed coming up on the rails
the Sinfonia of Birmingham. Sunday’s concert confirmed its position as one of
the front-runners.
The programming itself was worthy of much praise, well-loved
repertoire works framing a neglected masterpiece and the world premiere of a
substantial work especially written for the occasion.
This latter was Christ on the Road to Emmaus, a concerto for
viola and strings by the prolific composer, author, reviewer and editor Robert
Matthew-Walker, and composed in memory of Gwyn Williams, Sir Simon Rattle’s
principal viola in the CBSO. The soloist was Christopher Yates, Gwyn’s
desk-partner, and the conductor was Michael Seal, another string colleague of
Gwyn’s in the CBSO.
In three continuous sections, the concerto opens with the
solo viola musing lyrically, almost pastorally, quietly supported by the orchestra
moving with a simple, effective sense of harmonic direction. A dance-like episode
follows, now delicate, now sturdily folklike (another side of pastoralism),
before the conclusion brings a consummation of the music’s melodic reachings-out,
the soloist adding a most beautiful halo of beatification, crowning all the
subtle interplay which has gone before.
Yates’ noble, elegiac tone was delivered with a gripping
sense of concentration, and Seal’s orchestra provided devoted and
precisely-placed collaboration.
And then Yates went on selflessly to perform Britten’s
Lachrymae, a John Dowland-derived work originally written for viola and piano,
and poignantly arranged for viola and strings by the composer during the last
year of his life, a gem we hear far too rarely.
Yates was gently formidable in this gamut of viola
techniques, dark ruminations, mercurial pizzicato among them, and the Sinfonia
strings added rich accompaniments until we reached the simple, heart-catching
homage to unadorned Dowland which brings about the quiet close.
The full orchestra (and a sizeable one it is) opened with
Mendelssohn’s Hebrides Overture, flowing, richly textured, and with the most
gorgeous contributions from solo flute and duetting clarinets.
We ended with Brahms’ Symphony no.4, impressively structured
under Seal with an irresistibly onward sense of line. So many wonderful
contributions here, supple strings, surging and passionate, the Andante’s warm,
consolatory horns, singing violas and cellos, a blazing, bracing Scherzo galvanising
all concerned, and a finale highlighting tremendous playing throughout the
whole orchestra range, from the lamenting flute to the imperious trombones. One
could sense how impressed was the entire audience.
All proceeds from the concert have been devoted to the Gwyn
Williams Bursary Fund, which has already assisted viola students at the Royal
Birmingham Conservatoire and which is now endowing chairs in the viola section
of the tri-annual courses of the CBSO Youth Orchestra.
Christopher Morley