Page 210 - Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Coverage Book 2023-24

12 January 2024

Stunning Sibelius from Simone Lamsma in

Liverpool

By Peter Connors, 12 January 2024
In the 1990s, when Libor Pešek was the Principal Conductor the Royal Liverpool
Philharmonic Orchestra, they played a good deal of Josef Suk’s music. It was good to hear
this rather neglected composer once again in the orchestra’s latest concert with Domingo
Hindoyan. The Scherzo fantastique made a thoroughly enjoyable opener, delighting the
audience with constant shifting rhythms and timbres, sometimes dramatic, sometimes light-
hearted. A smooth waltz-like string theme and a section with harp and woodwinds were
particularly engaging. If the piece had a programme, we might have been thinking in terms
of telling a story; without one, our imagination was free to roam at will through our own
favourite fantasy worlds.

Simone Lamsma, Domingo Hindoyan and the RLPO
© Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra