Brighton Philharmonic Orchestra

THE Russians gave the Brighton Philharmonic Orchestra's 2006-7 Dome season a rousing start on Sunday.Seldom can the BPO faithful have been so enraptured by an opening concert and they were quick to show their appreciation for all the major players.
By The Newsroom
Published 27th Sep 2006, 21:19 BST
Updated 8th Jun 2018, 00:48 BST

Chief among those, of course, was the BPO under the baton of Barry Wordsworth, who were both fully on top of their game. But equally deserving of glowing praise was 25-year-old Taiwanese pianist Chiao-Ying Chang who captivated what was virtually a full house with her powerful and yet effortless performance of Shostakovich's Piano Concerto No 2.

The composer may have considered the piece, written for his teenage son Maxim, of little artistic merit but the beautiful and dreamy slow movement is memorable and was played with flowing ease. The audience, Wordsworth and orchestra seemed equally enamoured with the young soloist, who herself seemed slightly overhwhelmed by the warmth of the applause in what was her second appearance with the BPO.

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All was unbounded joy from the start as the season opened with Prokofiev's delightful Suite from Lieutenant Kije. Written for a film about a non-existent army officer created by the slip of a pen by a military clerk, the piece is most famous for the Troika but the whole work is such fun it could not help but put the audience in a happy frame of mind.

This season the images theme of music evoking stories, pictures, people and places that has been so carefully planned by Wordsworth and general manager Ivan Rockey, was inspired by Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade and it was this which took up the whole of the second half.

Splendidly played and featuring the talents of BPO leader John Bradbury, it was guaranteed to whisk the audience off on a magic carpet ride to complete a memorable start to the season.

That continues on Sunday October 8 when the programme comprises Ives' Central Park in the Dark, Butler's Piano Concertino, Ravel's Mother Goose Suite and Saint-Sans' Carnival of the Animals. In this concert, which will be recorded by BBC Radio 3 for broadcasting on the following Thursday, the BPO 'Composer in Focus' performs his own Piano Concertino, conceived from a series of nocturnal tudes, and an American maverick provides an atmospheric night-time vision of New York's Central Park.