Review of Basel Symphony Orchestra, Leeds Town Hall

IN 1921, five members of "Les Six" composed movements for the ballet Marriage at the Eiffel Tower. Auric, Honegger, Milhaud, Poulenc and Tailleferre each contributed quirky miniatures. These were played with evident enjoyment and amusement by the superb Basel Symphony Orchestra conducted by Dennis Russell Davies.

Elizabeth Leonskaja has long been acclaimed as one of the great pianists of our time. The first notes of her opening solo intervention in Mozart's Piano Concerto No 9 in E Flat immediately made the listener sense that her interpretation would be a revelation. Leonskaja's sense of the musical line, her gift for shaping a phrase and applying dynamic shading of the utmost delicacy underpinned a magical performance. The dialogue created by Leonskaja and Russell Davies achieved perfect balance between the piano and individual instrumental voices in the orchestra.

Russell Davies' meticulous attention to textural clarity revealed the innermost strands of Stravinsky's seminal masterpiece The Rite of Spring. The visceral excitement and raw energy of this tumultuous score was conveyed with luminous virtuosity by the 108 musicians of the Basel Symphony Orchestra.

by Geoffrey Mogridge