Wednesday 9 September 2009

Maxwell-Davies Prom/RAH

By far and away the highlight of the evening, Maxwell Davies's new violin concerto was a brilliant evocation of a windswept Orkney (I didn't see the programme notes so if it isn't about that it certainly sounded it) full of swoops, swirls and crashes - all sewn together by Daniel Hope's lyrical, sometimes folky violin that ebbed and flowed through Maxwell Davies's landscape of technicoloured darkness.

It's a pity Sibelius's 5 Symphony that followed contained none of the same drama. Of course it does but this account by Gary Walker glossed over much of the score's detail. Dull.

And here's what I said on the BBC Proms blog
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/radio3/2009/09/samara-catches-up-with-a-perfo.shtml

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