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Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra Strings play at Perranporth Memorial Hall

30th March 2017 Perranporth Memorial Hall part of the Cornish Week Residency of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra

The Memorial Hall is laid out for the String Section of the BSO sideways on.  The crescent shaped comfy seats the length of the hall draw the packed audience close  to the orchestra on a level into the intimate performance we are to attend.

The programme begins with Grieg's Holberg Suite and the easy familiarity and the work does not disguise the care that has gone into the preparatino.  There is no schmaltz or rubato here, Victor Aviat, the French born conductor (an oboist in Berlin and organist) has a very subtle precision to his approach - he is precise, stylish and graceful in his movement and well rehearsed.   The interpretation is  nearly self-effacing in its restraint, but Grieg's glorious melody and bitter sweet reflection glows like a jewel as a result.   The hall is pleasingly dry making a challenge to the ensemble of the strings which apart from the occasional reediness in high register they rise to.  The first fiddles   sound a little underweight as if  we might like another desk to fill out the top line (the room also slightly accentuates the bass line (we have two double basses) .   We then turn to the 12 year old output of Mendelssohn's Sinfonia.  Its sweet, its arpeggiated but it is not yet a masterpiece.  He was a prodigy but this is no way in the class of the Octet written a few years later.   Mozart's K.285 Serenade however is a piece unknown to me.  It requires a string quartet in concertante playing with the string orchestra - this is a very subtle piece of music with lovely transparency and remarkable poise  and its use of timpani unusual - reflecting the likely use in an outdoor entertainment.   It demonstrates that wonderful innocence but invention that Mozart somehow conjures with the merest turn and some lovely instrumental playing unfurls across the floor of the hall.

The audience are very well schooled (a pin could drop in the movement pauses)  and appreciative of this wonderful demonstration of a purring Rolls Royce beautifully turning over in this Cornish coastal backwater and surf heaven..

The second half features a beautiful rendition of Borodin's Nocturne - the first cello - again beautifully rhythmic and technically faultless playing and answering solo lead violinist  with admirable lack of ego.  The ensemble here again beautifully balanced in a hall completely unfamiliar to the orchestra.   The last work is Tchaikovsky's Serenade for Strings.   Watching the audience from my grandstand view I see local farmers, hospital workers and villagers willing the wonderful richness of Tchaikovsky's imagination and emotional intensity to continue forever.      But all good things come to an end.  The audience erupts in enthusiastic applause.....the conductor takes several bows ...but no encore ..... everyone dissolves into happy chatter as the orchestra make their way through chair stackers up behind the stage curtains to their makeshift changing rooms and the maestro recovers in the table store cupboard (his temporary dressing room).  What a remarkable evening in Perranporth - well done Barbara, Gerald and team  at Perranporth Hall  and Carn to Cove for booking it...thank you BSO for a jewel of a musical evening. with many members of the audience remarking how extraordinary to host the orchestra in their village hall.

30th March 2017 Perranporth Memorial Hall part of the Cornish Week Residency of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra



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