Review: Creative, glorious, exciting performances at Stratford ballroom

Never mind the short-notice move from the distressed Civic Hall to the sometime elegant ballroom at the Holiday Inn, the Swan team created an evening of achievement.

A world première of a remarkable piece of ‘music theatre’, three well-deserved patron recognitions and another Tamsin Waley-Cohen Mozart performance to savour were warmly received by a full ballroom. Let’s not forget Mozart’s works would have been presented in the ballrooms of many of the very grand properties in Salzburg and Vienna. How would he have responded to one of Stratford’s grandest?

A well established Orchestra of the Swan (OOTS) tradition to give young composers an airing provided Kirk Hastings with the ‘world première’ opportunity of his composition What’s Da’t? The creative thinking on which the piece is built is a young toddler’s early manoeuvres to explore Kirk’s bass guitar, and what happens over the next few minutes. Conductor David Curtis and a group of nine players replicate the ‘experience’ through ‘music theatre’ - testing the acting abilities of those holding instruments and David’s ability to interpret the ‘specifically random’ instructions by the composer. A good effort by all involved and, hopefully, another young composer will have been further inspired by the OOTS recognition.

The ever popular Tamsin Waley-Cohen overcame the ballroom acoustic challenge with the most tender of tender entries and glorious cadenzas at the end of the first and second movements of Mozart’s The Turkish Concerto. Her light touch is much admired. After the interval she returned to play Mozart’s Rondo for violin with themes reminiscent of one of the composer’s adored horn concertos.

Haydn’s Symphony No 22, The Philosopher, welcomes the-not-so-frequently-heard cor anglais, two of them in the capable hands of Victoria Brown and Louise Braithwaite, who showed great skill in echoing the horns in both exciting prestos, the second and last movements. The music takes its nickname from the early movements which evoke the image of a philosopher deep in thought while time passes.

Haydn, too, as Kapellmeister to Prince Esterhazy, would have been proud of the OOTS efforts to produce this modern ballroom-based concert – so should we all who enjoyed a very varied and exciting evening.

Clive Peacock