Sinfonia Viva, Royal Concert Hall, Nottingham, 29 October, 2023.

4****: William Ruff

Last year’s experiment at the Royal Concert Hall (two Sunday concerts separated by time for lunch) worked so well that it was definitely worth repeating. For this year’s afternoon concert Sinfonia Viva once again took to the stage to provide an hour’s worth of favourite music for strings. And this time conductor Matthew Lynch not only directed perceptive performances but also provided helpful introductions to the three works on the programme.

Vaughan Williams’s Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis is one of classical music’s perennial favourites, at least in the UK. When it was first performed in 1910 some listeners didn’t know whether they were hearing something very new…or very old. Vaughan Williams takes Tallis’s Tudor hymn tune and makes something entirely new from it: something which seems to reach deep into the national soul. Just as Tallis originally wrote for antiphonal voices in resonant churches, so Vaughan Williams writes for the unusual but highly effective combination of full string orchestra, small string ensemble and solo string quartet. The acoustics and layout of the Royal Concert Hall aren’t at all like a cathedral’s, but the orchestra still managed to capture something of the spaciousness of Vaughan Williams’ conception. The delicacy of the quieter moments and the creation of mystical beauty were notable but so too was the orchestra’s impassioned approach to the Fantasia’s rapturous moments.

Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings must be one of the sunniest pieces he ever wrote: not a trace of the doom and despair which pervade his later symphonies. Sinfonia Viva brought a warm, rich tone and a dancing lightness to the opening movement and an elegant lilt to the Serenade’s irresistibly hummable waltz (unsurprisingly encored at the first performance back in 1880). Tchaikovsky spoke of the ‘inner conviction’ which prompted him to write this piece and its unashamedly heartfelt nature. Both terms could apply to Sinfonia Viva’s approach to it: elegant, thoughtful, its projection of both extrovert good humour and tender intimacy the result of tight ensemble and precise phrasing.

Intimacy was also key to the orchestra’s performance of George Walker’s Lyric for Strings, a piece which started life as the second movement of a string quartet and as a memorial to the composer’s grandmother. It’s an eloquent, highly emotional piece which grows slowly to an impassioned climax before returning to a mood of quiet serenity. It needs a tightly disciplined approach to do it justice - and this is what it received at the hands of Sinfonia Viva.

Sinfonia Viva

Matthew Lynch, conductor