Guernsey Camerata - Romantic Masterpieces Concert Review

The Guernsey Camerata’s Romantic Masterpieces concert (kindly sponsored by BWCI) stood, in part, as a celebration of the bicentennial anniversary of Frederic Chopin's birth.  To mark the occasion The Royal Northern College of Music held a Chopin competition; the winner, pianist Ivan Hovorun, getting the opportunity to play in Guernsey with the Camerata.

Hovorun is clearly a Chopin aficionado, visibly entering into an intense relationship with the music from the moment he took his position on the stage.  Throughout the concerto Hovorun roused a distinct personality from the piano, from the sweeping romantic charm of Chopin’s characteristic phrases, to an utterly beguiling series of delicate, little trills lapping up against each other towards the end of the second movement.  

Hovorun and the Guernsey Camerata Orchestra’s performance served as a powerful reminder of the immediacy and compelling nature of live music, demonstrating that each performance is a unique moment of creation and interpretation.  Even the occasional misstep when, in the speed of flight stray finger struck unexpected key, added to the experience.  These are the moments that remind you that performance is an act of creation, rather than formulaic recitation and under the masterly control of conductor John Traill the concerto as a whole pulsed forward.

Despite the focus of the concerto being on the soloist the contribution of the orchestra should not go unnoticed.  Throughout there was a very satisfying interplay between soloist and orchestra, the orchestra providing a well-balanced refrain, taking the motifs created by the piano and quietly playing with them beneath the over-arching canopy created by Hovorun.

Robert Schumann’s Symphony No. 3 in E flat - ‘Rhenish’ Op. 97 formed the second half of Romantic Masterpieces. Composed in 1850 the piece was inspired by a visit to Cologne Cathedral and is influenced by the music of the Rhine valley.  Schumann was municipal music director in Dusseldorf when he wrote the Symphony and the first movement (Lebhaft) was full of confident vigour, built and guided by Traill, who appeared to have a symbiotic relationship with the orchestra, gathering the sound in his arms and offering it upwards in broad, generous gestures.

Each of the Symphony’s five movements had its own distinct identity.  The Scherzo: Sehr massig the air of a calm, meandering river, while the Nicht schnell was slower, demanding great skill and concentration from the strings as the violins mirrored the cellos pizzicato with carefully placed Louré bow strokes.  The forth movement, the Feierlich, was written after Schumann witnessed the Archbishop’s elevation to Cardinal at Cologne and the music chilled with its sense of restrained power, building to a series of brass fanfares that held forth the power and mystery of the church.

The final movement (Lebhaft) switched back to the irrepressible spirit of the first movement, almost as if Schumann could no longer restrain himself after the solemnity of the Feierlich.  Staggering volleys of horn fanfares rocked through the concert hall, while a trilling motif was passed amongst the orchestra, as surreptitiously as a note in class.  

Throughout the evening the whole orchestra not just playing tightly, but with a mastery that comes from experience and confidence in its combined abilities.  It is easy to see why an opportunity to perform with the Guernsey Camerata now attracts national attention.