Page 56 - Final_CBSO's 100th Birthday Celebration

rather more gravitas and less gush than mustered by any of BBC TV’s Proms presenters, by the
actor Adrian Lester, himself a Brummie.

One could have wished that the warehouse had warmer acoustics. At times it seemed as if the

centenary celebrations included recreating an authentic 1920s gramophone sound. And it also

seemed a shame that the historic films accompanying the music were too often seen from a

distance, projected behind the orchestra rather than directly to our screens. On the whole,
though, this was an effective portrait of an orchestra that has always been like an extended

family, with branches — its youth choirs and schools work in particular — enhancing the lives

of thousands.

And the music-making? Considering that these players have hardly raised a decibel together

since March, it was terrific. Schumann’s Genoveva overture and a wistful performance of

Elgar’s Serenade for Strings nodded back to that first concert in 1920, and a more recent “the

rest is history” moment was recalled by a brilliant account of Stravinsky’s The Firebird — with
which Rattle inaugurated Symphony Hall in 1991.

There were, however, nods to the present and future too. Another Midlander, Sheku Kanneh-

Mason, delivered his party piece, Saint-Saëns’s Cello Concerto No 1, with elan; and Hannah

Kendall’s The Spark Catchers, commemorating a strike by women in a Victorian match factory,

made a much more vivid impression in Rattle’s supercharged interpretation than at its 2017
premiere.

We even had film music. AR Rahman’s Slumdog Millionaire suite might not have been the

evening’s most profound piece, but it was a chance to enjoy the sitar virtuosity of Roopa

Panesar, and a reminder that the CBSO’s challenge for the next century is to stay relevant in one

of Britain’s most multicultural cities.
Available free to the end of September on the CBSO’s Facebook and YouTube channels