Live, Video: Kritiken zu klassischen Konzerten, Opern, Ballett und Tanz finden | Royal College of Music: Amaryllis Fleming Concert Hall

Prokofiev’s Lieutenant Kijé Suite is a film score originally composed in 1938. It’s a piece with many contrasts, yet the recurring melodies and catchy rhythms make it a joy to hear. The first movement was introduced by Laura Gilroy on cornet, hidden in the wings of the concert hall, after which the percussion and flutes took over.

Keeping up their tradition of mixing contemporary repertoire and new commissions with early music, Fretwork presented an eclectic mix of Purcell Fantasias and a variety of modern works written or arranged for viol consort and soprano in tonight’s concert, part of the RCM’s annual viol festival.

New music sounds all the newer when played by new performers, and so the Royal College of Music’s New Perspectives concert was refreshing to say the least, with a programme played by the College’s own ensemble featuring two world premières and two more pretty recent works.

The opening theme of Bruckner’s Symphony no. 8 is announced in the depths of the orchestra; with the precise rhythm of the main theme of the first movement of Beethoven’s 9th and something of the character of the Siegfried motive from Götterdämmerung, it contains energy and heroic aspiration, but also a harmonic instability that gives it a searching and unsettled quality.