WILLIAM Walton's centenary this year has been celebrated up and down the country but little of Walton's music has been performed in this area. Trianon Music Group started the local celebrations a few months early with a performance of Belshazzar's Feast last September at Snape Maltings and on Saturday evening at the Corn Exchange Ipswich Orchestral Society played another of Walton's major works the Viola Concerto which he composed just two years earlier.
WILLIAM Walton's centenary this year has been celebrated up and down the country but little of Walton's music has been performed in this area.
Trianon Music Group started the local celebrations a few months early with a performance of Belshazzar's Feast last September at Snape Maltings and on Saturday evening at the Corn Exchange Ipswich Orchestral Society played another of Walton's major works the Viola Concerto which he composed just two years earlier.
This may have been the first performance of the concerto in the Ipswich area – a pity there were not more in the audience to hear it.
The soloist was the youthful Lawrence Power who has already won several prizes in international viola competitions. He caught perfectly the subdued mood of the first movement right from the start then showed us his technical prowess in the witty scherzo-like second movement. The Finale is the climax of the work and soloist and orchestra combined most effectively to give this movement its energetic drive moving powerfully towards the return of the first movement theme. Congratulations to I.O.S. for putting on a performance of this rarely heard work! The concert opened with the Waltz from Murder on the Orient Express by Richard Rodney Bennett, the best known part of a great score he wrote for the classic 1974 film of Agatha Christie's thriller.
After the interval the orchestra under the expert guidance of conductor Adam Gatehouse gave us a masterful performance of Tchaikovsky's fifth symphony. From the dark brooding of the opening through the sunlight of the horn solo in the second movement the graceful waltz and onto the majestic finale the orchestra deserved their tremendous ovation at the end.
DAVID RUDDOCK.
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