Britten Sinfonia at Milton Court: inventive collaboration, strong musicianship, and a Holst reworking where ideas occasionally outran focus.
Britten Sinfonia’s Milton Court Earth concert on Wednesday promised an interesting multi-genre collaboration with fresh takes on familiar works — something off the beaten track. At times, the abundance in the programme risked conceptual blur. The range of contributors on stage resulted in inevitably slower stage moves; in those pauses when the energy dropped, the evening’s thread momentarily loosened.
Committed playing from the ensembles often resulted in dynamics in need of more rigorous direction from conductor Clark Rundell. In Grainger’s Lincolnshire Posy in particular, the brass frequently masked the detail in the woodwind, making those moments when the woodwind played alone gratifying. In the opening, Britten A Time There Was, muscular strings stirred the heart, though the timpani needed to be lower in the mix. At times, it felt as though the ensemble was adjusting in real time to a fuller acoustic shaped by a near-capacity audience, with enthusiasm occasionally outpacing control.
Stevens and Pound’s musicality and virtuosity made for energising vignettes, first in a medley of Britten and Grainger folk-song settings, and later in the ingenuous reworking of Holst’s The Planets, combining a cut-down chamber ensemble with tuned percussion, harmonica, and melodeon. Here, the work of orchestrator Ian Gardiner brought cohesion to the duo’s ideas, picking out sufficient references in Holst’s original score whilst allowing for folk-infused riffs to take hold. Where the work stumbled was the confusion of astrology with cosmology — a common trip-up with Holst’s work, meaning the addition of an entire movement dedicated to the Earth – Earth: The Silent Planet – an awkward adjunct.
Robert McFarlane’s poetry was well-meant throughout, but needed more animated delivery; the music stands without the text, though presumably has more appeal and relevance with it. Had the Holst included other movements – Neptune for example, would have been a fascinating inclusion for these cut-down forces – then the additional movement could have been made as a standalone work. Arguably, this would have been preferable.
Combining multiple ensembles in one concert is a Britten Sinfonia calling-card, similar to that seen in the orchestra’s successful Classical Mixtape series. It worked here, though clearer positioning in print might have managed conceptual expectations. Stevens & Pound’s vibe made this their night with Britten Sinfonia adopting a sophisticated supporting role, though I suspect that as a format it worked better at the more spacious Saffron Hall in Cambridgeshire, where stage moves were likely swifter. This was a sophisticated hybrid of commissioning, collaboration, and new audience build. It landed well, but might have done better with being tighter on runtime.
