Darwin Ensemble

Lichfield’s artistic offering has been generous this week, beginning with the spectacular Lichfield Mysteries over the bank holiday and ending with DECO’s spring collection on Saturday.  The evening began with Handel’s Water Music suite number three.  This graceful piece allowed the strings, led by Alex Laing to show off their sweetest tones and most controlled pianissimo.  The dance like finale set many feet tapping.

In these times of economic depression, the opportunity to lose yourself in great music, expertly performed needs to be seized.

The setting of a great cathedral with a generous acoustic can create an atmosphere of awe and majesty.  Saturday’s offering from the Darwin Ensemble Chamber Orchestra was a perfect match with Lichfield Cathedral.  Soloist Jane Salmon’s mastery of the cello expertly captured the mood of Tchaikovsky’s Andante Cantabile with dark brown and even chocolaty resonances.  The muted strings of the orchestra were well balanced to the soloist who brought out the melodic and romantic sense of the piece.  The audience were completely spellbound and the silence at the end attested to the power of the performance.

Lichfield Cathedral Chorus
Lichfield Cathedral
Saturday 3rd December 2011

Beethoven’s huge Missa Solemnis attempts the impossible – and so does
any amateur choir that tackles it. It’s nothing less than one of the
greatest creative minds in human history talking directly and
intimately to his God. Even the most perfect performance is unlikely
to do it justice.

So this attempt by the Lichfield Cathedral Chorus, conducted by Ben
Lamb and supported by the expanded Darwin Ensemble Chamber Orchestra,
deserved respect. The Chorus has some clear weaknesses, principally an
underpowered tenor and bass section. But it also has some real
strengths; most notably a general spirit of real musicianship and
commitment.

Unsurprisingly, Beethoven’s insanely difficult choral writing claimed
a few casualties – at the end of the Gloria, it sounded like the
chorus was hanging on for dear life. Yet there were moments of real
hushed beauty, and in the opening Kyrie, warm lyrical waves of
expressive sound.

With a well-matched team of soloists - Soprano Rowan Baker, Mezzo
Ailsa Cochrane, an impassioned Hugh Hetherington (tenor) and a
sonorous Fran Ambrose (bass) - the spirit of this extraordinary work
shone through regardless. And when the flutes swirled around Alex
Laing’s heartbreakingly pure violin solo in the Sanctus, it came very
close to transcendence.

Richard Bratby

Darwin Ensemble Chamber Orchestra
Lichfield Cathedral
Saturday 29 October 2011
 
There’s always a buzz at any concert by the Darwin Ensemble Chamber Orchestra but even so, this concert felt special. No question: in bringing the Classical Brit Award-winning violinist Jack Liebeck to Lichfield, DECO had scored quite a coup. But in the event, Liebeck’s performance of the Mendelssohn violin concerto, under conductor Philip Scriven, might just have been the best thing we’ve yet heard from this spirited and resourceful ensemble.
 
Liebeck isn’t an overtly glamorous performer; the star-quality is in his playing. His sound is generous and lustrous, yet charged with real imaginative fire. It made for a passionate, sometimes dazzling, but always gloriously songful reading of the Mendelssohn – and the DECO players were with him every note of the way, accompanying with both precision and imaginative flair. It drew a standing ovation from a well-filled Cathedral.
 
The concert had opened with a deft performance of Mozart’s “Cosi fan Tutte” overture, and continued after the interval with another jolt of musical energy – Beethoven’s barnstorming Seventh Symphony. It’s a demanding play, but DECO went at it “con brio”; the sound of those horns blasting their high notes into the vaults of the Cathedral was like a musical firework display, a week early.

You could have heard a pin drop.  Where? In Lichfield Cathedral during Saturday’s performance by the star of the sound track of the new Holywood version of Jane Eyre.  Winner of the 2010 Classical BRIT award for “Young British Performer of the Year”, Jack Liebeck found time in his hectic schedule to treat concert goers in Lichfield to a stunning performance of Mendelssohn’s violin concerto.