Full English: Sinfonia of London provides sustenance at Snape

This second Aldeburgh Festival concert by the Sinfonia of London and conductor John Wilson was devoted to English music of the last century, focussing on just two years: 1941 for Walton and Britten, 1911 for Delius and Elgar. They make unlikely stylistic bedfellows, for this programme was a good illustration of the range of styles often lumped together as an “English Musical Renaissance”.

Walton’s “Comedy Overture” Scapino is a brilliant Scherzo, played swiftly with alert articulation rather than headlong abandon, and none the worse for that. The more relaxed middle section featured a fine solo from the Principal Cello. Delius’ Summer Night on the River has the ideal title for this location, as the River Alde flows through the reed beds adjoining Snape Maltings, and this week that glorious landscape was warmed by afternoon sun. But art surpassed nature on this occasion, for the work’s evocative pointillism was deftly etched by the Sinfonia players (more fine cello playing).

It is a good idea to bring a Britten rarity to this place, and the Scottish Ballad is hardly a central work in his oeuvre. The composer liked it enough to play it himself twice (with Clifford Curzon) and later to conduct it at Aldeburgh, but it will need new champions. The advocacy of the Pavel Kolesnikov and Samson Tsoy piano duo will certainly help. Their thunderous announcement of the opening theme (Dundee from the Scottish Psalter) was a call-to-arms and the central funeral march, with many a Scotch snap and more Scottish tunes, was steady and stoical in mood, until a Reel brought a dashing conclusion.

Elgar’s Second Symphony is far from neglected, yet fully satisfying performances of this hour-long work with its varied demands are not so common. Perhaps the sheer richness of ideas can seem, as someone remarked of history itself, “just one damned thing after another”. Not so here, as Wilson’s emotional and intellectual grip on the score ensured that Elgar’s prodigal invention was delivered in a compelling narrative arc from first bar to last.

The first movement is especially demanding in this respect, but Wilson's tempo was just right, fast enough to maintain the sense of energy the composer himself remarked upon, at times rising to exultation, but broad enough to allow lyrical moments to register. The sublime Larghetto was as noble and sorrowing as could be wished. The return of the main theme was a particular highlight, the long oboe cantilena keening over the elegiac trudge. The playing of the Rondo’s moment of madness – Elgar called it “a dreadful beating... in the brain” – was unrelenting in its intensity.

But the autumnal glow and “elevated mood” (Elgar’s phrase) of the Finale were unerringly captured, and offered reconciliation and fulfilment without any of the anticlimactic mood the first audiences found compared to the stirring close of the First Symphony. Both symphonies have been played in the 2023 festival and this splendid account of the Second is the one audience members – though not the handful driven from the hall by the heat and humidity – will recall. If the Sinfonia of London can play like this in full concert dress, it is worth some discomfort to experience the result.