CLASSICAL MUSIC REVIEW - Manchester Camerata with the RNCM Chamber Orchestra - The RNCM, Manchester.

 

It is becoming something of a pain, with many companies moving away from printed programmes, not having anything to hand in order to reference during the concert. For those, like me, who either do not own a smart phone or prefer to have it firmly switched off and out of temptation's way whilst in a theatre or concert hall (as it should be!) we have no way of knowing what the programme of the concert is.. and this is most annoying. Yes, we can - if we remember - print the programme from home before coming to the theatre, but even that is onerous and prone to disaster. I was therefore listening to the three pieces performed this evening, without any knowledge of what they were or who the soloist was. There was no screen above giving the programme details as there sometimes is, and there was no announcements during the concert either.

The first piece was a modern piece in three short movements by Grazyna Bacewicz called 'Divertimento'. Performed by the string section only, they were highly contemporary and discordant, with the occasional tune.

Following this was Mozart's Piano Concerto No 23 in A Major. Again 3 movements but this time the strings were ameliorated with a couple of French horns, a few wind instruments, and of course a piano! To play the piano solo this evening was Ethan Gillespie, a young pianist who played the concerto with simplistic ease. I did feel that in the second movement, he tried to put more meaning and emotion behind the notes than necessary, and it tended to slow it down and lose the flow of the piece because of this. Mozart's ebullience was not present in this movement. The third movement however was light , frivolous and nicely showy. 

After the interval, and we returned to a full chamber orchestra including timpani. This was Dvorak's 7th symphony. Lush and Romantic it was, but sadly it was not very clean. The dynamics in the piece were not picked out sufficiently, and the melody was not clearly signposted at times with the harmony and bass notes being louder than the tune. Dvorak is one of my favourite composers and unfortunately I was rather disappointed with this interpretation.

A rather mixed bag of a concert, with three pieces spanning three different compositional eras, all under the baton of RNCM student conductor Agata Zajac. 

Reviewer - Matthew Dougall
on - 23.9.23