Airedale Symphony Orchestra, King’s Hall, Ilkley THE Airedale Symphony Orchestra’s string section could have been thinned down for a more idiomatic account of Schubert’s Rosamunde Overture.
Orchestral textures were too thick to capture the overture’s vivacious quality. The proportions were better suited to Beethoven’s piano concerto No 5 in E Flat the ‘Emperor’.
Young Yorkshire-born pianist William Green’s expressive playing in the central Adagio elicited a range of tonal colours. The transition into the Rondo finale was unduly prolonged but once there, Green was clearly in his element. This movement had rhythmic vitality illuminated by flashes of brilliance.
After the interval it was Brahms’ Symphony No 1 in C minor.ASO conductor John Anderson’s measured tempo sustained the insistent drum beat in the dramatic opening. The serene Adagio was embellished by orchestra leader Jacqueline Cima’s solo violin. A third movement led into the tension-building final movement with its brass chorales and grand coda.
John Anderson and the ASO return to the King’s Hall on Sunday, June 28 with Ravel’s Daphnis and Chloe, Dvorak’s Violin Concerto and Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition.
Geoffrey Mogridge
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