Young violinist Hannah Medlam with her joie de vivre

Newbury Chamber Choir: Beethoven Comes to Highclere

Thorngrove School, Saturday May 8^th 2007

Three hundred good souls filled the cavernous new hall at Thorngrove School, which was the setting for a grand Beethoven concert. Brilliant he may have been, but that night the great composer was forced to share the honours with the 18 year-old violinist Hannah Medlam.

But first to the Mass in C which the chorus opened with confident restraint. The orchestra also displayed great sensitivity and the two combined well, creating ample space for the superb soloists Clare Bessant, Jeanette Ager, Ben Alden and Ian Caddy to work their magic on the piece. The choir were in better shape than I have ever seen them before, moving and breathing the music with a dynamic control that was not there a few years back. I can’t relax in a concert until I know that the performers are reliable but I was at ease within seconds here. The Mass has many high spots, but for me I particularly liked the gentle softly-sung dialogue between the choir and the soloists in Benedictus.

Hannah Medlam then played the violin concerto. She was serene, played sweetly, in complete control and to damn it all, she was enjoying herself! The orchestra were on a light touch and Hannah enjoyed the freedom to lead from the front. With a sensitive cantabile style, perhaps found from a love of singing, Hannah worked gracefully through the concerto. She exercised rare judicious restraint that I associate with, dare I say it, the English. She put me in mind of Tasmin Little.

You never felt that Hannah was in a hurry or that she was troubled by the piece in any way. Such was her quiet confidence that she could flirt impishly with the music, as in the return from the cadenza where she reluctantly, cheekily hung on to her note when the orchestra had already picked it up and moved on.

Strange it was to try and follow that performance at all, but with the rather peculiar Fantasia for Piano, Choir and Orchestra, perhaps we got a better impression of the Beethoven. Like the violin concerto, this too was bashed out on the first night with practically no rehearsal. The piece is a slightly chaotic energetic fantasia on the piano played with zesty freshness by Nigel Dickinson. He rightly managed to keep the audience on their toes by keeping the piece edgy and less reverent than most Beethoven interpretations.

PHILIP BROWN