It is usually the older maestros who take the helm with the Britten-Pears Orchestra, imparting to these young musicians the wisdom and breadth of their get. Conductor Robin Ticciati is very young by comparison, yet obsessed of such controlled self-assurance at this Snape Proms concert as to inspire a performance that could hardly have been bettered, even by the most mature of ensembles.
In Bruckner's Seventh Symphony, Ticciati created a fine balance between a lyrical novelty and reverberating grandeur, without a trace of the ponderousness that can blight Bruckner. Moreover, Ticciati's attention to articulation and timber illuminated the fine detail of the symphony's fabric while, at the same time, maintaining a sure grasp of its massive architectural span. The B-P orchestra responded magnificently to his bidding, with principals' solos and individual sections equally notable, and combination to achieve an boilers suit body of tone that had a thrilling wallop.
The musicianship of soloist Laurence Power in the Bart�k Viola Concerto, which preceded the Bruckner, was similarly telling. Power strikes a dominating figure and his natural authority belies his young. It was the inherent aptitude, honed in his sleeping accommodation music work, to make connections with the musicians around him that gave this carrying into action its integrity, but the brilliance of the terpsichore finale besides had an exuberance that could overthrow the inevitably elegiac quality of Bart�k's final utterance.
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