The Sinfonia of London remains an orchestra more often heard than seen: since its relaunch by the conductor John Wilson six years ago its recordings have come thick and fast, picking up awards at every turn, but live performances are a special occasion. Watching this orchestra, though, brings a whole new dimension to listening, the sheer physicality of the playing reinforcing the vigour of the sound – at least, that was how it seemed as the strings virtually headbanged their way through the start of Rachmaninov’s Symphony No 1.
The blistering performance of the symphony was this concert’s highlight. That ferocious opening heralded playing that was precise, poised and surging with electricity: how can Wilson’s almost nervy gestures, spiky but small and neat, conjure such a spectrum of colour and such enveloping extremes of texture and volume? I can’t remember an orchestra in this venue sustaining such a gloriously loud, rich sound as we heard here in the climax of the finale – but there was plenty of delicacy too, the transparency of the playing revealing the details Wilson drew out so joyfully in the countermelodies. Everyone on stage seemed to be having a wonderful time.
If the orchestra had anything to prove it had already done so in the opening work: PatterSongs, Kenneth Hesketh’s 2008 reworking of material from his opera The Overcoat into a brittle, brilliant 10-minute showpiece. Frenetic and on edge, like a kind of fast-forward Rumble from West Side Story, it is punctuated with tiny musical punchlines – a timpani note being tuned up; a splurge of trumpets; a whisper of drumkit – all dispatched here in a performance taut enough to snap.
There’s a different kind of brittleness to Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No 2, iciness next to tenderness – and Sheku Kanneh-Mason’s playing in the first movement didn’t try to raise the temperature to anything too comfortable. If it was a tense interpretation it was thoughtful too, and the recurring cello motto later on, rising and glowing for just a few notes, glowed all the brighter for it. His encore, Weinberg’s Prelude No 18, danced slowly and solemnly, a moment of soliloquy amid so much exhilarating ensemble brilliance.
