Beethoven. Symphony No.1 in C Major
Tippett. Concerto for Double String Orchestra
Beethoven. Piano Concerto No.5 in E Flat Major

London Mozart Players/Andrew Parrott
Barry Douglas (piano)

Andrew Parrott prefaced the performance of the Tippett Concerto by briefly mentioning his days as a sort of ‘musical dogsbody’, working for Michael Tippett, a job that he had for several years, and by saying that this performance was the London Mozart Players’ tribute to Tippett in his centenary year.

The LMP contains many free-lance players from well known chamber ensembles and Andrew Parrott went on to say that many of the musicians had also, at times, worked with the composer.

So what of the performance of a piece that Mr.Parrott described as Tippett’s first indisputable masterpiece? The answer is that the LMP produced a triumphant traversal of this work. The performance brought out the rich melodic variety and the mastery of counterpoint that Tippett achieved. It also brought us a sense of the almost Bartok like spikiness and rhythmic sophistication that is at the heart, particularly of the first movement.

Parrott’s interpretation also allowed for splendid interplay between the different string groupings and presented opportunities for many of the orchestra’s principals, notably the leader David Juritz and cellist Sebastian Comberti, to lead their sections in spontaneous seeming directions to bring out the dance rhythms and sense of folk sensibility at different points in the piece. This excellent performance also won over the knowledgeable but conservative Fairfield audience.

The evening also featured two works by Beethoven, famously, Tippett’s great musical hero, and this evening again showed that Tippett and Beethoven programme very well together. The performance of the Symphony was an exciting one which emphasised the colour and playfulness in the work and the debt that Beethoven owed to Haydn. The piano concerto was powerfully performed in a grand romantic style by Barry Douglas, although at times his scintillating performance came close to eclipsing the orchestra. For encore Douglas played a Debussy Prelude; on the way out someone was overheard saying "I don't come to Classical concerts to listen to Tippett or Debussy"!

Mark Dennis