Our 27 March 2022 concert in Lavenham was probably one of our best evers, though we say it ourselves. The concert featured Thomas Isaac as our soloist in Elgar's Cello Concert and Malcolm Arnold's 5th Symphony. The acoustics in Lavenham Church really suited the concert programme, in the Elgar our soloist was able to play so very quietly that you could hear a pin drop while in the Malcolm Arnold we absolutely filled the church with sound to the rafters and beyond.
The Elgar cello concerto is very well known but the soloist and the orchestra together made it a revelatory performance with the orchestra following Thomas Isaac's every nuance. It was a refreshing and daring interpretation - daring because the quiet passages were SO quiet while the stronger passages showed off Thomas Isaac's mastery of the instrument. A great performance.
Not many people know the Malcolm Arnold 5th Symphony, which is a shame because it is a great piece. It uses a large orchestra, probably the largest we have ever assembled. We had three trombones, a tuba, two percussion players, a timpani player, a harp and a celeste (well to be honest it was a keyboard masquerading as a celeste). So the loud passages were REALLY loud while the quieter passages with the harp and celeste tripping out their notes made a lovely silvery shimmer to the sound of the orchestra. This symphony has some lovely tunes, the sort you wake up humming the night after the performance. The audience, who had mainly come, truth be told, to hear the Elgar could not stop saying how wonderful the Arnold was - a great compliment to this underplayed composer.
All in all, a night to remember.