The Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, 5th June 1999

 

Concert at Suntory Hall, Tokyo

 

Programme:

Wagner: Siegfried Idyll

Mozart: Piano Concert Number 23 in A major, K488, with Shigeo Neriki (piano)

Kodaly: Hungarian Rondo

Haydn: Symphony Number 48 in C major, 'Maria Theresa'

 

Encores:

Piazzola: 'Four for Tango'

Tchaikovsky: Waltz from Seremade for strings

Gershwin: 'He loves and she loves'

 

Not only do the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra do without with a conductor, but they rotate the leadership of the band so that different works are led in turn by different violinists. Music can't get much more democratic than that. Even the printed programmes have sections by individual members of the band. It's fascinating to watch and hear the subtle differences in performing style that follow the exchanging of 'musical chairs'.

 

On the 5th of June, they ended a brief tour of Japan in which they gave six concerts. They began with a dreamy and rather wistful account of the Siegfried Idyll. More nostalgia than celebration and with a few more musicians than the original 13, it was nevertheless performed with a seductively beautiful transparency of sound.

 

The Mozart 23rd Piano Concerto was to have been played by Richard Goode but he fell sick and was replaced by Shigeo Neriki. Neriki gave a self-effacing performance which suggested at times that the orchestra and the soloist had switched roles &emdash; that the pianist was accompanying the orchestra. Kodaly's Hungarian Rondo was played with terrific panache, a showcase for the virtuosity of the winds just as much as the strings. The advertized programme ended with 21 members giving a dashing account of Haydn's 'Maria Theresa' Symphony.

 

Dating back to 1972, the Orpheus are now a little greyer in the flesh than some of their CD liners would suggest. But they remain young at heart. The sight of the first first violinist's elegant orange and black striped socks sticks in the mind.

 

Simon Holledge