• Grieg, Four Norwegian Dances
• Rimsky-Korsakov, ‘The Snow Maiden Suite’
• Saint-Saëns, Danse Macabre
• Elgar, Enigma Variations
• Conductor, Hitoshi Suzuki
• Orchestra Leader: Marianne Sutton
• Narrator: Neil Howiantz

The Strode car park was full on a rose-skied afternoon. A constant movement of patrons streamed through the doors, many children among them. Taking our seats we were struck by the size of the orchestra, some new faces, and players wearing colourful jumpers instead of formal black. While we live in an age when music can literally be plucked from the ether, the packed house was testament to the magical aura of music played for us by excellent musicians.

For Grieg’s charming Norwegian Dances the MSO was quickly on song with the ‘halling’, the Norwegian folkdance. With a superb new First Violin in the hands of Marianne Sutton the strings seemed infused with new dedication and rich colour, as though they had themselves joined the dance. The more familiar second dance, melodic and again beautifully performed, highlighted the reedy oboe of Simon Naylor; then the talented woodwinds starred in the peppy third dance, joined by the brass but with strings sighing sweetly in the interlude. The fourth dance glided, and then fizzed, with strings and the hypnotic oboe again, counterpointed throughout with first class group playing and the delicacy of a flute solo! The orchestra seemed mischievously alive, error free, and already enjoying themselves.

To prelude the Rimsky-Korsakov fairy tale, a genial “host” appeared. Narrator Neil Howiantz advised us to discern – in the ‘Snow Maiden Suite’ – Nature interacting with mythical characters. Cool woodwind colours of Frost, for instance, contrast with the strings’ depiction of a mellow Spring; icicles are painted through piccolo and violins, while horns partner cellos to convey warmth. The ‘Dance of the Birds’ dazzled us, as he promised they would with chirping woodwinds and twittering strings, animated bassoon and clarinets.  The dramatic ‘Cortege’ evoked The Snow Maiden who, having fallen in love, must melt in a ray of sunshine: but in so doing, ends a long winter. Cue the marvellous percussion, booming into prominence, as the ‘Dance of the Tumblers’ celebrate and vivify the orchestra, thrilling listeners with their energy and joy.

Our last “European” stop was in Saint-Saëns’ France, though we might have been anywhere at this Hallowe’en time of year. In the “Dance of the Dead” the harp struck twelve to signal midnight, calling skeletons from their graves to dance for the Devil. And how brilliantly this was performed!! Even children in the audience recognised the eerie tune, as the newly confirmed Leader of the Orchestra tuned her violin down a half tone to achieve the unsettling sound of the diabolic instrument. Equally enjoyable was the xylophone imitating the skeletons’ bones as they danced, and the Judgement Day of the brass and wind instruments cautioning that death comes to paupers and princes alike. At length the oboe mimicked the cock’s crow, the arrival of dawn, the end of the revel.

I thought this might have been the slickest and finest ensemble playing I’ve heard from the MSO, though I hadn’t yet been treated to the excellence of the Elgar Enigma Variations, which concluded the concert.

Our narrator prefaced the puzzle. What might the “enigmatic” theme of this work have been? The enigma, Elgar once teasingly said, was the “nothingness” from which it came, which his wife had been so affected by. Toying with that opening refrain he gave us some of the most beautiful English orchestral work ever written. The MSO presented it back to us in like-beauty.

The exquisite opening theme indebted to his wife’s encouragement, the musical phrases which caught his friends’ moods and personalities in sketches, the memory of thunderstorms and sounds of a bulldog rambling down a river bank and shaking himself, were richly laid out for us by the MSO playing at the pinnacle of their craft. You could have heard that proverbial pin drop when Nimrod appeared. But something wondrous came with him. There was freshness, a professionalism, confidence and precision, in the MSO’s playing for this concert.  Patrons can truly look forward to Mozart in February.

Tania Hardie

• Mozart: The Magic Flute Overture
• Grieg: Piano Concerto: soloist: Vital Stahievitch;
• Nielsen: Symphony No. 1
• Conductor: Hitoshi Suzuki
• Piano Soloist: Vital Stahievitch

This was a nicely curated selection of works. Even the charming Mozart overture, written for his Viennese audience in 1791, sat companionably with the Scandinavian compositions from the second half of the nineteenth century when we think of Bergman’s excellent film of the opera.

The overture is introduced through its famous Masonic chords, everything in threes to delight the composer’s numerological fellow-Masons who knew what they signified. But the pacy, melodic, fantastical music was just the thing to inspire the orchestra to excellent ensemble playing right from the off. Hitoshi Suzuki’s tempo was delightful, giving the work all if its drama, its sense of atmosphere and fairy tale.

The focus for the evening was the much-loved Grieg Piano Concerto. It was bewildering to understand that the soloist, Vital Stahievitch, who flew in from Amsterdam for rehearsals only days before, learned this piece just to perform for the MSO concert. I say bewildering, because the performance was EXHILARATING.

Grieg’s concerto is often compared with Schumann’s in the same key, but Stahievitch’s delivery of the music expressed Rachmaninoff’s verdict that Grieg’s work was “the greatest ever written”. The electrifying opening chords, demanding instant audience attention, cascaded down the Steinway keys with smooth authority. Yet there was freshness, too. Each and every note had delicious clarity; every virtuosic passage had a steely strength behind it; and the lyricism never came at the expense of the dissonance and bitter-sweetness of the music. The adagio had such delicacy, the gorgeous melody caressed into being. Wonderful colours emerged in the exchanges with the strings, the horns and woodwind. In the final movement, we marvelled at the harmonious musical conversation between the soloist and orchestra, particularly the question-and-answer moments with the bassoon, the flute, the oboe and cellos. The audience was wowed, showing appreciation with a prolonged ovation and animated chatter which spilled across the interval at some length. We can hope Vital Stahievitch prolongs his relationship with the MSO, and hops on a flight from Amsterdam again soon.

The concluding piece was not widely known. Maestro Suzuki sought a show of hands from anyone in the audience who knew the Nielsen work, and numbers were small. The MSO’s programme notes explained that “not a bar could be by any other composer”; but an unfamiliar ear might detect wisps of Dvorak, rhythms reminiscent of Beethoven. The MSO must have been challenged by a piece less commonly performed, perhaps not in their usual repertoire. But the Danish composer’s symphony was delivered with vigour, shimmering colours, energy, and considerable feeling. It is easy to compliment the superb playing of the woodwinds, who never miss a step. But the violins were at their finest, too, and the brass flinty, while delicate passages from the darker strings, the violas and cellos, were a thrill. Thank you, MSO.

Deborah Losey