Page 268 - Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Coverage Book 2023-24

feature the quietly ecstatic Hymn of Jesus, and on the last day the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic
Orchestra took a deep dive into the English folk music of this many-sided composer.

If you’re allergic to self-consciously rumbustious evocations of “footing it merrily upon the village
green” then the prospect of three folk-influenced pieces by Holst in succession would be
unappealing. But these wonderful performances, vigorous without being yokelish and delicate
without being precious, might have won you over. Holst’s familiar St Paul’s Suite may have been
written for the young players of St Paul’s School for Girls but it requires a needle-point delicacy in
the diaphanous second movement, and a seraphic purity of tone from the orchestral leader in the
surprisingly sinuous, almost Arabic-sounding third movement, which they certainly received.

Throughout, conductor Andrew Manze showed a keen awareness of the harmonic and rhythmic
surprises under the music’s naive surface, and made sure we noticed them, too. The rarely-heard A
Fugal Concerto (1923) was an intriguing hybrid, as if the spirit of Bach had descended on that
village green, and the first of the Two Songs harked back to a different sort of Englishness, more
courtly than folk-like. The evening’s most emotive moment came in the slow movement of
Vaughan Williams’s English Folksong Suite, where the orchestra’s principal oboist unfurled the
melody My Bonny Boy with lovely aching nostalgia.

It would have been intriguing, after that folk-drenched first half of the concert, to see how British
composers have projected the folk influence onto a bigger symphonic canvas. But one could hardly
complain when the RLPO offered Mozart’s radiant Jupiter symphony instead. Andrew Manze is a
hugely experienced conductor of Mozart, and feels no need to make his mark with ear-seizing
oddities of tempo and phrasing. He allowed the music to breathe naturally, making sure there was
plenty of air and light in those pert, balanced phrases, and guiding our ears to the harmonic
surprises with the tiniest pulling-back, to set them in relief. The joyous apotheosis of the final
movement wasn’t always perfectly nimble-fingered, but it certainly blazed with glory. IH

No further performances

Classical Pride, Barbican ★★★★☆