SALISBURY SINFONIA

St Martin’s Church, Salisbury

SALISBURY Sinfonia really started the year with a bang, opening their first concert of 2015 with a fiery performance of Rameau’s explosive Overture and Suite from Acante et Céphise.

Rameau’s wildly virtuosic writing gave many of the orchestra’s excellent soloists a chance to shine – not forgetting David Beaton as a one man firework-and-cannon display on the timpani!

Outstanding young pianist Edward Reeve joined the orchestra for Mozart’s Piano Concerto No 27, his poised, passionate playing a delight to hear.

The orchestra, under Tim Murray’s empathetic direction, accompanied their soloist with immense sensitivity and some beautifully phrased ensemble playing in the orchestral passages.

The Sinfonia always put together inventive and unusual programmes, and the inclusion of Charles Ives’s The Unanswered Question was a highlight.

In St Martin’s resonant acoustic it was a haunting and atmospheric experience with a real sense of dialogue between Madeleine Ellis’s fine solo trumpet, placed high above the orchestra, and the jagged responses of the wind section, the disparate elements held together in perfect balance.

The evening ended with Haydn’s Symphony no 61, full of humour and panache.

Tim Murray conducted with precision, wit and an unerring sense of pace and balance, particularly in the pin-drop perfection of the Adagio and the delightful final rondo that sent us all out into the chilly night with a smile.

Lindsay Bramley