Janet Banks visits London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall on 29 June 2025 for the performance of Berlioz and Mendelssohn
The Aurora Orchestra seemed ready to play when suddenly the lights went out and, instead of the meandering opening line of Harold in Italy, a spotlight appeared on actor Charlotte Ritchie, reading from Berlioz’s memoirs.
The spotlight soon moved to violist Lawrence Power, sharing a raised podium with the harp, ruminatively playing Harold’s opening theme, then conjuring a wonderfully distant pianissimo for its whimsical repeat.
What followed was a very well-conceived ‘musical and dramatic exploration’ of the work, linking it also with Mendelssohn’s ‘Italian’ Symphony, completed the same year (1834), through the readings describing the composers’ meeting in Rome.
Power’s magnetic playing and wonderful sound drew the audience right in. He proved himself quite the actor, taking on the part of Berlioz in some of the narration, to Nicholas Collon’s Mendelssohn. In character as he was, the changeability and passion in Power’s solo viola line made perfect dramatic sense. He played the false starts to the second theme humorously as if conceiving it there and then and fully communicated Berlioz’s extraordinary pleasure in the theme of the Serenade.
After the interval the Aurora played Mendelssohn’s euphoric symphony standing and entirely from memory, visibly enjoying the extra freedom of movement this gave them in a scintillating performance.
Janet Banks
Read: Lawrence Power: life lessons from lockdown
Read: Violist Lawrence Power receives 2023 Cobbett Medal
Watch: West Wycombe Chamber Music Festival: Masterclass with Lawrence Power
No comments yet