Reviews: Regal understanding of demanding material

The X-factor which marks the Queen’s Park Sinfonia out from many of the excellent chamber orchestras springing up all the time around our region is clear. These young players, almost all products of Birmingham Conservatoire training, have the capacity to absorb information readily in rehearsal and to translate it into musical results with the minimum of fuss, and it showed triumphantly in Wednesday’s concert.

Holy Trinity Church can be a bit gloomy in its lighting, but it radiates an acoustic which sends the sound soaring high into the rafters and returns it glowingly, and the vibrant, alert QPS players added their own expertise to the picture. They performed with mutual attentiveness and unflashy self-confidence, leader Bethan Morgan a discreet intermediary between Rimma Sushanskaya, directing from the violin in Bach’s E major Concerto, and the rest of her colleagues.

With a crisp, subtle continuo from harpsichordist Martin Perkins this was an immensely stylish reading, Sushanskaya secure enough with the orchestra not to neglect her own performance, seamlessly bowed and with tiny inflections which made Bach’s melodic outpourings almost vocal in their articulation.

The rest of this short but rewarding programme saw Sushanskaya taking up the baton, presiding over an atmospheric account of Copland’s Quiet City. Manhattan loving Sushanskaya well understood the context of this piece, allowing due prominence to the voluable trumpet soloist (Mark Waltho) and his ruminative cor anglais alter ego (Natasha Wilson). Finally came an exhilarating Mozart Haffner Symphony, Sushanskaya’s well-chosen tempi (and the players’ awesome techniques) sculpting taut, zippy outer movements.  Balances were clearly defined, winds and timpani punctuating the textures without forcing, and it all breathed warm wit and tenderness.

Christopher Morley, 15 September 2006, © 2006 Birmingham Post & Mail Ltd