Page 138 - FINAL_CBSO Media Highlights - Sept 2021 - Jan 2022_Neat

The opening concert of the CBSO’s 2022 Spring/Summer Season was a stunning
event, where two stalwarts of the orchestral repertoire – a concerto and

symphony – were given exciting and altogether fresh, new readings.

The concert opened with the not so well-known Solemn Prelude by Samuel

Coleridge-Taylor. Written in 1899 for the Three Choirs Festival, the piece clearly
carries the influence of Elgar, on whose recommendation Coleridge-Taylor was

commissioned to write for the Festival. It is a sturdy, workmanlike piece

displaying the composer’s talent for open-hearted, elegiac melody. The

orchestra delivered this with a warmth of tone conjured up by one of the most
promising and vibrant young conductors of our time, Ryan Bancroft, former

Principal Conductor of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, and Chief

Conductor designate of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic (2023/24).

The Mendelssohn Violin Concerto provided a superb example of a perfect union

of another astonishing young performer, German-Korean violinist Clara-Jumi

Kang, with the precise and incisive conducting of Bancroft, a totally attentive
orchestra, and the very special acoustics of Symphony Hall.

Here, as in the Sibelius Symphony to follow, the use of silence was as important

as the use of sound, and Symphony Hall was designed precisely for this. All

performers were at their most precise and shaped these ever-familiar pieces
into wholly new musico-acoustic experiences.

The conductor’s interpretation of these two pieces had the audience and

orchestra riveted. It was such a wonderful experience to see the eyes of every

player totally fixed on fresh readings of these scores by Bancroft who, in turn,
rarely looked at his score himself: it was clear he knew where every single note,

instrumental part and structural ‘downbeat’ lay. The players were totally under

his spell and this was, frankly, breath-taking. There was a unique sense of
journeying, storytelling and utter beauty of expression; what a way for the CBSO

to open its new season.