Huddersfield Philharmonic Orchestra
Archive reviews
- 1998/1999 season -
An underlined composer's name indicates an mp3 sound clip.
November 1998 : - Brahms, R. Strauss Orff
February 1999 : - Wagner, Tchaikovsky, Dvorak
April 1999 : - Berlioz, Mozart, Mahler
Saturday, November 14th, 1998
"Not afraid of challenges..."
Concert review by Patric Standford, Yorkshire Post
Rupert D'Cruze has a strong command over the forces he brings together for his enterprising concerts. He is not afraid of challenges, and leads his performers into them with enthusiasm and a distinctly alert musicality.
The orchestra's principal horn and clarinet dealt extremely well with the difficult and prominent solos in Strauss's Till Eulenspiegel, which despite some frayed edges was an enjoyable performance.
Dispensing with the scores of both that piece and the Brahms Tragic Overture, D'Cruze was able to give his full attention to the orchestra which demonstrated very effective shading, control and discipline.
D'Cruze is also director of the Portsmouth Festival Choir which joined forces with Leeds Philharmonic Chorus and Wakefield Girls' High School Choir for a thrilling performance of Orff's Carmina Burana
They also had three excellent soloists. The baritone Gwion Thomas took the heaviest role in this huge and naive score, giving just the right display of doleful humour and comic tragedy the part required, and tenor Stephen Crook was superbly painful as the roasting swan. Soprano Annette Wardell emerged in the final part to flirt mischievously in the Court of Love.
Saturday, February 13, 1999
"A night of emotion..."
Concert review by Matt Wright, Huddersfield Examiner
On the eve of St Valentine's Day, the Huddersfield Philharmonic Orchestra shared an intensely emotive programme with a warm, receptive audience in the Town Hall.
Beginning tentatively with the sparse woodwind threads of Wagner's Prelude from Tristan and Isolde, conductor Rupert D'Cruze soon ushered the orchestra towards a well-rounded sound with robust double basses and tuba and entwined harmonic knots from clarinets and bassoons.
The Liebestod was taken at a majestically slow pace, with mid-range strings and wind suspended above whispering lower voices, before the trumpets lightly glazed the final chords with a straight, radiant timbre.
Continuing with the theme of emotional excess, Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No1 is a work guided more by the heart than the mind, but is full of arrogant charm, and pianist Martin Roscoe negotiated the first movement with effortless precision.
A luxurious flute solo, hanging sensually in the acoustic, gently opened the Andantino semplice.
Dvorak's Symphony No7 followed; its dark, processional qualities perhaps dampening the euphoric wake of the concerto.
Some very convincing stuff from an orchestra displaying a complete awareness of its own strengths.
Saturday, April 24, 1999
"Confidence and vigour..."
Concert review by Patric Standford, Yorkshire Post
The region maintains an extremely high standard of non-professional orchestra playing, not least because their members accept a high level of committed responsibility and have the technical ability to deliver well to the team, keeping everyone else alert.
Take, for instance, the outstanding playing of the principal horn and trumpet in Saturday's performance of Mahler's Symphony No5, supported by the rewarding strength of strings and woodwind, all of whom had done their homework and managed the most difficult part of the exercise - maintaining musical and technical stamina to the end of this huge work.
Only in the percussion did occasional restraint in the first movement betray a lack of confidence. The strings revealed fine warmth and a fair balance in the famous Adagio.
Without the commitment and talent of players, a conductor cannot programme such exciting pieces, nor hope to succeed in presenting a worthy performance of them, especially in these days of artificially perfect CDs. There is no doubt that the Orchestra's director, Rupert D'Cruze (and no doubt his assistant conductor Peter Young) succeed exceptionally well. Where overtures are usually a nervous warming up, D'Cruze led his forces through Berlioz's Corsaire with surprising confidence and vigour.
Huddersfield Philharmonic Society is a registered charity