Winter Concert - Lewes Concert Orchestra

In the programme notes to the Lewes Concert Orchestra’s Winter Concert, conductor Adrian Shepherd MBE writes that the evening will be a ‘concert at Christmas, not a Christmas concert… the musical antidote to tinsel and mince pies’. To which the perfect response might be ‘hallelujah’, and perhaps, ‘Hosanna in Excelsis’. The concert certainly steers away from the obvious seasonal clichés. It starts with the overture from Engelbert Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel (the 19th century composer rather than the 20th century singer) and ends with Suppé’s cheeky Banditenstreiche overture. In between it takes in pieces by Massenet, Schubert, both Strausses, Mozart, McCunn, Arnold, and Coleridge-Taylor. Local soprano Marian Jones will perform three solos, Mozart’s Exultate Jubilate, Schubert’s Ave Maria and Strauss’ Laughing Song, from Die Fledermaus.

It’s an exciting bill then, from this exciting orchestra, which features no fewer than sixteen violinists. The choice of the overture from Hamish McCunn’s Land of Sea and Water is perhaps the boldest choice, one which reflects the twenty years Shepherd spent as principal cello of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. One nod to Christmas, perhaps, is that the words to Ave Maria are sung in Latin, not in vernacular Scots. Schubert originally rendered to the tune to a hymn by Sir Walter Scott. That version might have been more apt for a New Year concert. AG