Britten Sinfonia at BBC Proms

Royal Albert Hall - 06/09/23

While the Britten Sinfonia’s sparkling performance of music connecting key moments from the Baroque era with 20th and 21st century elaborations took place in the grandeur of London’s Royal Albert Hall, significant Scottish – notably Edinburgh – connections lay behind another intriguing piece of Proms programming.   

In particular, the concert featured a segued performance of a standout work played in Edinburgh for the tercentenary of Corelli’s birth (the Concerto grosso in F major, Op. 6 No. 2), and another from Michael Tippett that premiered in Edinburgh at the same time, in 1953, which was inspired by the same concerto (the Fantasia concertante on a Theme of Corelli).  

This was followed, after the interval, by Max Richter’s not uncontroversial ‘Recomposed Vivaldi: The Four Seasons’. Though German-born Richter grew up in Bedford, England, his first studies were at the University of Edinburgh, and his other particular claim to fame is the motion picture soundtrack for Josie Rourke’s 2018 directorial debut, ‘Mary Queen of Scots’.  

The concert opener, Lera Auerbach’s stunningly delicate and evocative ‘Sogno di Stabat mater’ (2005-8), has no obvious Caledonian links. But on the strength of this work, which took selected movements from Pergolesi’s masterwork and wove contemporary dialogues around them, this reviewer certainly hopes that the Edinburgh Festival will give more space to the combined artistic talents of Auerbach as composer, poet and visual artist.  

In this work, she imaginatively and faithfully transcribes key features of the Pergolesi for concerto grosso form, featuring violin, viola and bell-like vibraphone. It begins and ends with haunting whispers from strings and metallophone, and in between builds conversational responses to the original which are at once consonant and contrasting, harking back to a past musical language while displaying unashamedly contemporary sensibilities. All told, a 12-minute revelation.       

The Britten Sinfonia, led and marshalled by charismatic violinist/conductor Thomas Gould, then gave a harmonically rich rendition of the Corelli. Published in 1714, this cleverly reprises material used by the composer elsewhere. It was (surprisingly) a first outing at the Proms for what is probably his best-known work. This concerto is the cornerstone of a 12-strong set, and a fine exemplar of the genre as a whole, splitting the orchestra into two distinct groups – one larger body, and a smaller soloistic one.  

Daringly, Gould and the Sinfonia moved straight from the fourth and final allegro of the Corelli into Michael Tippett’s vivid response, framed by his typically dense lyricism and complex counterpoint. Here the traditional continuo is replaced by a third group of string players, adding to the layered, stylised feel of this luminous single-movement (but multi-part) piece. The Fantasia became one of Tippett’s most popular earlier works, partly as a result of its use in Peter Hall’s film ‘Akenfield’, based on the Ronald Blyth’s classic book about rural life. Even so, orchestras once regarded it as ‘difficult’ in technical terms. The Britten Sinfonia was well on top of Tippett’s effusions, adding a conscious swagger to some of the fuller lines and emphasising mini-quotes from Bach and Beethoven. 

However, the main draw for a packed audience was probably Max Richter’s reworking of Vivaldi. Gould went for broke, trailing virtuosic lines across the stage. The performance was passionate and precise, amplified by lighting effects, including a repeated dappling of the audience, which worked the first time but then somewhat outlived its novelty, as with much of the music. Richter employs around a quarter of the original Four Seasons material but expands it through various (post)minimalist tropes, shifting rhythmic patterns and variations.  

There are some interesting moments, such as the suspended harmonics behind the redolent violin solo in the final movement. But other techniques, such as abrupt endings of movements, seem a little formulaic. For me, the piece lacks shape and interest. All the best bits are Vivaldi. The audience burst into applause when the lights suddenly dimmed after two of the fast movements, and the dramatic performance was received rapturously by the Richter devotees at the end. But it left me unmoved. Forced populism can ultimately feel rather insubstantial and uneventful.  

Cover photo: Mark Allan