Richard Morrison from The Times gave our “Journey to Haydn” with Royal Northern Sinfonia, Rachel Redmond (soprano) and Steffan Morris (cello) a 5 star review!
Here it is:
★★★★★
Richard Morrison
After two tough years the Royal Northern Sinfonia is clearly on a fast track back into the premier league. Now it’s up to audiences in northeast England to sustain its rebirth by getting their posteriors onto the pews in big numbers.
There’s an exciting new conductor, the Portuguese but British-nurtured Dinis Sousa, and new faces all round the band, not least the superb Polish leader Maria Wloszczowska — remember the spelling! — who directed a scintillating Bach Brandenburg No 3 here, showcasing her own mercurial playing skills with a slow movement interposed from a Bach violin sonata.
That was just one delightful item in this cleverly curated concert, leading chronologically but far from pedantically through the century before early Haydn. I usually hesitate before raving about an event I experienced only on a live stream, but I can’t imagine it made any less impact in the glorious acoustics of the Sage Gateshead. The only sadness is that by the time you read this the streaming will have been removed from the Sage’s website. Put it back!
First up was a revelation, to me at least. The mid-17th century Leonora Duarte was the daughter of a Jewish Portuguese diamond merchant who escaped persecution by moving his family to Antwerp. She clearly studied composition to a high level: the gently interlaced counterpoint of her viol fantasy,Sinfonia No 4, stylishly revived here, could easily have passed for Gibbons.
Slightly more familiar but no routine choice, CPE Bach’s Cello Concerto in A minor struck me as a Sturm und Drang masterpiece, especially with Sousa encouraging such incisive, ultra- passionate playing all round the band but particularly from the soloist, Steffan Morris, the Sinfonia’s principal cellist. Similar drive also brought to life a selection of pieces from Rameau’s operas, with another terrific young soloist — the Paris-based Scottish soprano Rachel Redmond — injecting melodramatic verve into the spitfire Aux langueurs d’Apollon from Platée, and then beauty and grace into the sublime Tristes apprets from Castor et Pollux. She ought to be lured back from France a lot more often.
Fittingly, though, it was Haydn’s Symphony No 8, Le Soir, that capped the evening with some wonderfully lithe solo playing all round the orchestra. Haydn is so often used as a warm-up for bigger repertoire. Sousa’s joyous, detailed but not fussy interpretation proved that this composer needs no main course to follow.