BELLA BARTOCK reviews last night’s concert at Fairfield Halls
This concert certainly started with a bang – the opening timpani solo which inspired the nickname for Haydn’s Symphony No103, “The Drumroll”.
The London Mozart Players and their new Music Director, Gerard Korsten, gave a splendid performance which brought out all the nuances of the symphony.
There is a musician’s joke that the oboe is “an ill wind that nobody blows good”.
Francois Leleux gave the lie to this with a virtuoso rendition of the Oboe Concerto by Richard Strauss, a challenging work which showcased the soloist’s superb tone and technique; soloist and instrument appeared to be a single entity bent on giving the best possible rendition of this masterly piece while the orchestra revealed the beauty of the orchestration.
After the interval the quiet English pastoral of Elgar’s Serenade for strings was followed by Mozart’s Symphony, No 35, K385 Haffner, bringing a thoroughly enjoyable concert to a close.
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