Press Reviews of the Brunel Sinfonia

John Packwood, Bristol Evening Post, Monday 23 June 2008

Programme: 
Wagner- The Ride of the Valkyries 
Messiaen – L'Ascension
Bruckner – Symphony No. 7 

Crackerjack rating: 8 / 10.

Brunel Sinfonia’s concert offered  a challenging programme yet again.
After a rather rocky Ride of the Valkyries, the orchestra came into its own with Messiaen’s L’Ascension. In the first movement, the brass and wind played in a slow and reflective manner while the second meditation had the strings to the forefront after some soulful intonation from the woodwind. The third section had some loud brass while in the finale the strings play in a slow, tuneful fashion before rising to a sudden conclusion.

To take on a large work such as Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony is a challenge to any amateur orchestra. This did not deter Brunel Sinfonia who rose to the occasion with great success.

The symphony opens with one of the composer’s most expansive melodies, full of tone-colour and a flexibility of rhythm and phrasing, and continues in this manner before reaching a shattering climax. The beautiful adagio, written in memory of his mentor Wagner, contained some inspirational string playing. Their control and discipline throughout was one of the highlights. The quartet of Wagner tubas excelled in their difficult role. After the perky scherzo, the beginning of the finale is perhaps the lighter part of the whole work, but it then builds to a triumphant conclusion.

Tom Gauterin, the ebullient conductor, deserves high praise for producing such excellence from his players.

Jamie Caddick, Clifton Chronicle, Saturday 25 March 2006

Programme:
Mozart Overture to The Marriage of Figaro, K492
Deegan Beginning (first performance)
Debussy Prelude a l'apres-midi d'un faune
Mussorgsky Pictures at an Exhibition (orch. Ravel)

EVERYTHING about the concert was theoretically perfect. The program was a delicious mix of old favourties (Mozart's Marriage of Figaro, Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition), with the premiere of a new work by one of the orchestra members.

The venue was ideal – Clifton Cathedral, with its expansive, beautifully unique and unusual interior and top notch acoustics. All performed by an up-and-coming orchestra still in its infancy but blessed with a fine track record of previous concerts and a feather-in-the-cap sell out performance of Handel's Messiah in 2005.

And it did NOT disappoint.

Opening with the toe-tappingly hummable Mozart favourite, The Marriage of Figaro overture, the Brunel Sinfonia launched in to vigorous, spritely, and enthusiastically cheeky interpretation of the repertoire classic. It served as a fine curtain raiser and and a mouth-watering taster of the orchestra's undoubted talents.

Next up was the premier of a piece composed by one of the orchestra's bassists, Matt Deegan, entitled Beginning. Alternating between modernistic, romantic, lush, repetitive, dramatic, tender, thunderous and moving, the piece could probably be best described as an interesting orchestral experiment – different, fresh, original, and drawing on Deegan's experience as a jazz musician with its shifting, improvisational, schizophrenic nature. The trumpet player slipped on a few key solos, but nevertheless Deegan is clearly a man with talent who has to be admired for his 12 minute musical endeavour.

Debussy's Prelude a l'apres-midi d'un faune led us in to the interval – a flute-heavy, atmospheric, dreamy, ahead-of-its-time, ten minute tone poem that was lyrical, free flowing and magical.

In the finest tradition of audience-pleasing, show-stopping porgamming, however, the best was saved til last – Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition.

Inspired by an exhibition of paintings by Mussorgsky's friend, Viktor Hartmann in St Petersburg in 1874, comprised of ten movements linked by the main Promenade theme, this orchestral barnstormer of a piece musically tells each paintings' story, evoking a varied and flavoursome musico-representation of Russian life. Originally composed for solo piano, the piece was the version orchestrated by Ravel – the general favourite – and exercised the full skills and musical muscle-flexing of the Sinfonia players.

Bold, imaginative, thrilling, moving, wistful, declamatory, crammed with rich, exotic instrumentation, fiery rhythms, and frequent splashes of the spectacular, this was without doubt the orchestra playing at the tops of its game. The deafening, triumphant finale was met with the enthusiastic cheers, clapping and appreciation the players so deserved.

Conductor Tom Gauterin introduced a couple of pieces by way of providing musical and historical context, only let down in the second half by a techie problems with the microphone.

Brunel Sinfonia is an orchestra to look out for – only a few years old (founded in 2004), but possessed with the combined talent, skill, professionalism and edge to rank alongside some of the country's finest.

Their next concerts are on Saturday 10 June (Shostakovich, Beethoven, plus a newly commissioned Brunel 200 piece), and Saturday 11 November (Arnold, Shostakovich, Beethoven), both at 7.30 at Clifton Cathedral. Based on this performance, you'd be hatter-mad to miss them.