Christopher Hogwood
The Sunday Times
Review
by Paul Driver
1st November 2009
At Queen Elizabeth Hall, the Britten Sinfonia, playing a work by each of the year's five main anniversary composers, was conducted by Christopher Hogwood, hardly a young thing, though still youthful-seeming, and indelibly associated, for me at least, with that marvellous educational programme he presented on Radio 3 throughout the 1970s, The Young Idea. When he spoke about the items - telling us that they were not thematically linked, but offered a journey through period interpretation from the baroque style of Purcell and Handel to the classicism of Haydn, Mendelssohn's romanticism and the 20th-century neoclassicism of Martinu - well, it was just like another thought-provoking episode of The Young Idea.
The concert's unassumingness, the joy these splendid players evidently take in their work, were refreshing after all the self consciousness and grandiosity at the Festival Hall. They do not have a permanent conductor, but choose someone for each project. This was Hogwood's first appearance with them, and the relationship is clearly productive. The six bright minutes of Purcell's Fairy Queen overture, followed by Handel's Concerto Grosso in F, Op.3, No.4, encapsulated his gifts as a baroque specialist, and valveless brass and olden timpani were retained not only for Haydn's Symphony No. 70, but also for Mendelssohn's Fair Melusina overture, giving the latter a surprising and fabulous crackling edge. For Marinu's Sinfonia Concertante, using four soloists from the orchestra, Handel's harpsichord continuo was replaced by a grand piano, and the music bristled with life.
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Next Production
BBC Proms Saturday Matinee 3: I Fagiolini & Britten Sinfonia
London
21 August 2010
Britten Sinfonia returns to the BBC Proms in a programme including contemporary works based on the madrigals of Monteverdi and Gesualdo juxtaposed with the original music.
City of London Festival 2010
Mansion House, London
05 July 2010 7:30pm
Bach meets Brazil in this concert given by the outstanding pianist, Joanna MacGregor, and one of the UK’s most dynamic and musically inquisitive chamber orchestras, the Britten Sinfonia. This programme crosses the invisible divide between the classical and popular Brazilian music, and the concert is sure to sell out fast.
