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Works of Adès and Walton – both of special significance to The Cleveland Orchestra – precede a lush Sibelius 5 at Severance Music Center. 

Sounding under-rehearsed and unloved, these performances of two great works made for a frustrating evening that could have been so much more inspiring.   

James Ehnes was an ideal soloist in Walton's Violin Concerto, well partnered by John Wilson and the BBC Philharmonic, with atmospheric Bax and a powerful Vaughan Williams 4.

The final pair of Sibelius symphonies is memorably performed by the LPO under Osmo Vänskä, with Tasmin Little as the authoritative soloist in Walton's violin concerto.

Canadian soloist James Ehnes and guest conductor Andrew Litton gave an unsentimental and appealing performance of an all-English programme.

Inspired by the sight of sixteen swans in flight, the great swinging horn call in the final movement of Sibelius Fifth Symphony is one of the most life-affirming moments in the composer’s output. If this ‘Swan Hymn’ glowed rather than blazed brightly last night, it was the journey there which impressed in the hands of Thomas Søndergård, Principal Conductor of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales.

An 'immense glow and sumptuousness' were the words that Richard Strauss, aged just twenty-four, chose to describe the sound at the première of his tone poem, Don Juan, in 1889. 122 years later another young conductor found similar qualities with his orchestra.