Phibbs cello concerto anchors BBC Symphony Orchestra concert

Joseph Phibbs’s cello concerto, written for Guy Johnston and receiving its world premiere, provided musical cohesion to an otherwise uneven programme from the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Clemens Schuldt. Scrupulously crafted, the five contrasting movements basked in a warm tonality and showed multihued orchestration, with rich, fluent string writing and imaginative effects in wind, brass and percussion.

The work emerged from gentle double-bass pizzicatos and cushioned cellos, and Johnston’s solo line was pensive and unshowy, neatly framed by Clemens Schuldt’s mindful control of the orchestra. The movements ranged from a shimmering, shuddering Aubade full of light and dancing counterpoint to a mournful Elegy, a long cello threnody stretched over a pulsing orchestral heartbeat.

An eerie, tense Nocturne was haunted by cries of night-birds and "perhaps something more sinister", before a wistful Vocalise brought the attractive new concerto to a radiant conclusion. Elsewhere the programme was more mixed. Tchaikovsky’s Hamlet came across as a prolix tone poem with a stentorian ghost, Russian-accented Ophelia and a brusque military intervention; Schuldt’s clipped, brittle reading was exciting but low on warmth.

Mel Bonis’s five-minute Ophélie showed that less can be more, its rippling harp, sweeping strings and melancholy oboe cocooning the heroine as she drifted to her watery grave, though the performance was on the loud side.

Key Topics

Culture, Joseph Phibbs, Guy Johnston, Bbc Symphony Orchestra, Clemens Schuldt, Tchaikovsky