Proms Saturday Matinee 3 - 10.08.13: Camerata Ireland

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

3.00pm – c. 4.30pm
Cadogan Hall

Britten
Young Apollo (8 mins)
Berkeley
Serenade for strings (13 mins)
Shostakovich
Concerto for piano, trumpet and strings (Piano Concerto No. 1) (21 mins)
Rainier
Movement for strings (6 mins)
Britten
Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge (27)

Alison Balsom trumpet
Camerata Ireland
Barry Douglas piano/director

Pianist Barry Douglas directs Camerata Ireland in its Proms debut with a programme continuing the season's focus on the music of Benjamin Britten and his contemporaries. Withdrawn from performance for 40 years after its 1939 premiere, Britten's Young Apollo opens a sequence of works of brittle, edgy beauty, including the world premiere of Priaulx Rainier's 1951 Movement for strings. Lennox Berkeley's Serenade for strings and Britten's Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge frame a performance of Shostakovich's Piano Concerto No.1, whose witty trumpet part is played by Alison Balsom.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

A really interesting Prom. A pity it has been closetted away as an "extra" in the Cadogan HAll

[Tony Halstead]

A really interesting Prom. A pity it has been closetted away as an "extra" in the Cadogan HAll

Yes but the Cadogan Hall is pretty well ideal for a chamber orchestra, so it will sound much more 'impactful' and detailed, at least to the listeners in the hall, than it would have in the RAH.

[edashtav]

I'm surprised that nobody has commented on this afternoon's Cadogan concert by the enterprising Belfast pianist, Barry Douglas and his Camerata Ireland string orchestra. I was at a book launch this afternoon so I missed the live relay but I've started to catch up this evening - listening to the Shostakovich piano and trumpet concerto, first - simply because I was bowled over Alison Balsom a week ago in "Gabriel" at Shakespeare's Globe and wanted to hear her in different repertoire. She and Douglas excelled at finding the many witty moments in Shostakovich's score. Their performance was a treat and a tonic. Maybe, I had one or two reservations about the violas and celli - but that was probably because I'm more used to hearing a full symphony orchestra's complement of strings in this work. Do give it a listen - it'll save you cracking open the champagne!

[bluestateprommer]

This was indeed another excellent Saturday afternoon matinee Prom from Cadogan Hall, with Camerata Ireland, Barry Douglas and Alison Balsom all on splendid form. The sound did indeed seem rather 'forward' on iPlayer, giving a very extrovert sheen to CI's ensemble playing, unless perhaps they're just naturally that way. The one mild disappointment was the Priaulx Rainier Movement, which started off fine, but then for me turned into somewhat generic grey-ish note spinning. However, she was definitely owed a premiere, and several decades too late, she finally got it, so hats off to CI and BD for agreeing to do it, and for RW to program it. No such reservations about the more established string orchestra works by Berkeley and Britten, of course. BD was a very fine soloist in the DSCH, with AB terrifically nonchalant in the all-important trumpet part.