Another triumph for 'gypsy' orchestra

York Symphony Orchestra; Manor School Auditorium, York

THE York Symphony Orchestra’s search for a new home continues.
On Saturday, the choice fell on Manor Auditorium, the hub of the splendid new edifice known as MCE, alias Manor Church of England School, on the fringes of Poppleton, which opened last Easter.
Its potential was not fully exploited on this occasion, since most of the players were on ground level, largely out of view, with their sound partially muffled by the front rows of the audience.
Raised by two or three feet, the orchestra would surely sound clearer. Nevertheless, this Scandinavian programme, conducted by Alasdair Jamieson, continued the great strides the orchestra is making under his tutelage.
Franz Berwald was born a year before Schubert (1796) and died a year before Berlioz (1868).
The third, and best, of his four symphonies, the Sinfonie Singulière, is unusual in having an abrupt scherzo, with woodwind chirruping, plumb in the middle of its slow movement (though its start here was delayed here by a somnolent timpanist).
The sparkling YSO strings, unrecognisable from even two years ago, provided most of the symphony’s real drama, especially in its finale.
But it was the brass which carried the day in Sibelius’s Second Symphony. The ebb and flow of the opening Allegretto was neatly-painted; the driven second movement, while decisive, lacked flexibility.
Tension was satisfyingly released with the return to the major key at the work’s close.
Svendsen’s First Norwegian Rhapsody (1876) made a rousing intermezzo between the symphonies.

Martin Dreyer