Review: Airedale Symphony Orchestra, King's Hall, Ilkley, Sunday November 13, 2016

A WELL-filled King's Hall greeted the Airedale Symphony Orchestra's opening concert of their Ilkley season. It is hard to believe that Mendelssohn's Overture Ruy Blas was dashed off in just three days so carefully crafted is the orchestration heralded as it is by those stirring fanfares. The ASO's weighty brass and woodwind combined with supple strings to bring out the drama and grandeur of this splendid piece. It is even harder to believe that Dvorak's hauntingly beautiful Violin Concerto in A minor languished in relative obscurity for decades. Thanks in no small part to the advocacy of Dvorak's great-grandson, the eminent violinist Josef Suk, the work has become a cornerstone of the concerto repertoire. Kazakhstan born violin virtuoso Galya Bisengalieva delighted the Ilkley audience with her impassioned performance of this demanding piece. Her tone was warm and vibrant and the pitching of notes perfectly centred. Both soloist and orchestra were in tune with the folk idioms that informed the composition of this lovely concerto.

The second half opened with the Polonaise and Waltz from Tchaikovsky's opera Eugene Onegin. Both excerpts were played with panache and a degree of swagger by the ASO, conducted by John Anderson.

The Orchestra's poised performance of Schumann's youthful 'Spring' Symphony No1 in B flat banished the November gloom and thoughts of Christmas. Despite moments of darkness and foreboding, the Symphony contains some of Schumann's most joyful music - a characteristic certainly mirrored by the lightness of touch in the Scherzo's two trios and an animated account of the final movement.

by Geoffrey Mogridge