Marathon effort by orchestra with technically challenging programme

THE Hexagon in Reading on Sunday evening was the setting for an extraordinary musical experience with the Henley Symphony Orchestra, who were celebrating their 53rd season with new musical director and conductor Leon Bosch.

The programme comprised three well-known European classical romantic pieces from Smetana, Beethoven and
Rachmaninov.

Bosch said that each piece was technically demanding, requiring sustained concentration by the whole orchestra for long periods.

The 70-odd musicians certainly rose to this challenge, so that it was difficult to believe that they were not professionals.

Smetana’s Vltava from Ma Vlast (My Country) opened the evening with its delightful evocative tones representing the national river flowing through rapids and pools of contrasting calmness on its journey to join the River Elba. The string sections played particularly vigorously throughout without a rest.

Then it was straight to Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No 5 in
E flat major, better known as Emperor, composed when Vienna was under an invasion by Napoleon’s forces.

The orchestra were joined by the gifted pianist Martin Roscoe. His great rapport with the orchestra was immediately apparent, helped by his 40 years of friendship with Bosch as they sought successfully to bring all sections of the orchestra to prominence through the three contrasting movements.

There was momentous opening music with brilliant cadenzas, slow serenity in the second movement followed by the final section’s opening romping rondo.

This then led to a deceptive calm between just the piano and timpani before building to its fiery dramatic conclusion.

The sustained applause given to both pianist and orchestra was testimony to the genuine joy experienced by those listening to this spectacular music. The interval allowed both the audience and the orchestra to recover their emotions before the final 60-minute piece of the evening, Rachmaninov’s Symphony No.2 in E minor in four contrasting

The first opened with sober melodies led by the cellos and double-basses, followed by the rich sounds of brass and horns. A beautiful solo on the cor anglais then introduced the violins, with all sections soon returning to a resounding climax. The second was a lively scherzo ending with haunting melody.

Romance flowed strongly throughout the third movement with its repetitive six-note melody played by each section of the orchestra in turn to lull the listener into a dreamy conclusion.

The finale in the fourth movement soon awoke all with a huge cacophony of explosive sounds, fuelled by frenzied playing from all sections to its exciting
climax.

This was a truly marathon effort by every member of the orchestra and rightly received sustained applause.

Terry Grourk