Geoffrey Mogridge was in the audience at the King's Hall on Sunday 29th June for Airedale Symphony Orchestra's performance 'Forbidden Love'.
Every seat in the house sold out in advance. There was a returns waiting list of those still to hoping to attend this eagerly anticipated concert.
The programming of any new piece usually halves the potential audience. However, the Airedale Symphony Orchestra’s seductive strapline of Forbidden Love undoubtedly fuelled a clamour for tickets.
Ben Crick, at the helm of the 82 players of the Airedale Symphony Orchestra, began with the explosive forbidden passion of Romeo and Juliet, as realised by Tchaikovsky in his searing 20-minute-long Fantasy Overture. Surely one of the best loved orchestral showpieces in the entire repertoire.
Shakespeare’s immortal love story shows that life is a storm of contradictions - grief and joy, violence, peace and eventual healing. A philosophy embodied in Anna Clyne’s “Dance” composed in 2019. This is a concerto in all but name, for solo cello and large orchestra. Its London born composer was inspired by the poetry of Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī, a 13th century Persian mystic. Rūmī exhorts everyone to dance. “Dance in the middle of the fighting, dance when you’re broken open, dance if you’ve torn off the bandage and dance when you’re perfectly free.”
Clyne’s melodic ideas pick out Jewish and Irish influences. These are blended with classical and baroque elements. The musical scheme of things is predominantly slow and reflective in mood. A huge orchestra creates a richness of textures that is always beautiful and sometimes compelling.
Following weeks of intensive rehearsals, complex instrumental strands were carefully delineated and balanced at this performance by Ben Crick and his orchestra. The virtuosic solo part was performed by ASO cellist Adam Cathcart. He was required to play for much of the time in the tricky, glacial upper register of his instrument.
Leanard Bernstein famously transports Romeo and Juliet to New York’s steamy east side in the 1950s. The Symphonic Dances from West Side Story condense the story into just 25 minutes of breathtakingly brilliant orchestration. Ben Crick and the ASO wondrously captured the kaleidoscopic colours and above all, the infectious crackling energy in Bernstein’s Latin jazz infused music.
After ecstatic applause from a capacity house, what better way to end a stunning evening than with the vibrant, storming Conga del Fuego by Mexican composer Arturo Marquez.
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