An inspired Beethoven performance

10:56am Friday 14th February 2003

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IT HAS been my privilege over some years now to review concerts given by the Kew Sinfonia at St Anne's Church Kew.

In that time I have recorded the steady development and growing artistic structure of this ensemble.

Nothing that has ever gone before however could have prepared us for the performance of Beethoven's Eroica which brought last Saturday's concert to a memorable close. From the arresting opening chords to the wonderful and so characteristically Beethovian final coda, this performance was inspired.

Conducting without a score Orlando Jopling set a daringly fast tempo for the first movement which I did not believe could be sustained. But sustained it was; with soaring dramatic intensity through the gigantic climax of scrunching dissonant chords at its heart (how astonishing this must have sounded when conducted by the composer to an audience whose musical lore until then had been the courtly elegance of Haydn and Mozart) through to its long and elaborate coda.

This absolute dramatic commitment was sustained through the second (funeral march) movement with its superb central fugal section where the theme rings out on all of the horns; through the scherzo where the busy rustling string playing at the beginning was so right. Again there was superb horn playing in the trio section.

For the Promethean finale Mr Jopling again set a strikingly fast tempo again sustained with total conviction. The finale is basically a set of variations on a country dance. William Mann wrote of the coda that ... this modest tune gathers stature until, at last in the pace andante section'' (lovely oboe solo here) its expressive zenith is revealed and then its majesty''.

And so it was on Saturday as a great musical creation received a worthy and unforgettable performance.

Earlier we had heard a moving performance of Berlioz's song cycle Les Nuits d'Ete' given by the mezzo soprano Serena Kay.

Miss Kay has a naturally beautiful and opulent voice of great expressive power which, for the most part served her wonderfully well. Only in Villanelle' and A cimetiere: clair de lune' where a light and poised mezzo-voice is paramount did she fall a little short of the high quality set in the other songs. The diffuse textures of Berlioz's orchestral writing were exquisitely realised by Mr Jopling and his players. There was some really lovely woodwind playing here.

The concert had opened with a performance of Gluck's overture Iphigenia in Aulis. Gluck was a great composer of music drama (later admired by Wagner) of an earlier epoch. This performance of vivid dramatic contrasts and great nobility set the stage perfectly for what was to come.

At the end it is Beethoven's Eroica Symphony which stays in the memory. For this Orlando Jopling and all of his players deserve the highest praise.