Review: "a concert well out of the mould" from Brighton Philharmonic Orchestra

The Brighton Philharmonic Orchestra never allows us to be complacent. Artistic Director Joanna MacGregor said she likes to mix things up and bring in new themes. And she did last Saturday 21 January.

So to begin, where were the orchestra seats? Just a few benches behind which was a large cinema screen. That was visual artist Kathy Hinde's doing - she projected and mixed the films that accompanied the music, all telling a story of nature, birdsong, their habitats and the way they melded with the 20th century music that made up the concert.

We opened with Ralf Wallin's - "Twine" 1996. Nothing said - just two men on opposite sides of a marimba and a xylophone, back to back, at right of an empty stage. Two streams of sound, Xylophone strident, the marimba softer. It was almost as though they were talking to each other - one plays a phrase, the other answers. This piece by the Oslo-born composer Rolf Wallin opened a concert featuring abstract works from 20th century composers dating from the 1930s onwards.

Continuing with John Luther Adams, Jonny Greenwood, Philip Glass's six-movement Glassworks, and the Finnish composer Rautavaara, this concert required a different ear. John Luther Adams and his Songbird Songs (1980): a collection of dancing vignettes capturing the delicate playfulness and freedom of birdsong. Marimba and xylophone again, accompanied by ocarina that somehow emulated the birdsong, while Kathy Hinde, on the sound and vision console at the back, controlled the bird visuals on screen. Four movements took us from hoarfrost, through spring-morning orioles, doves, wrens and a tufted titmouse. Adams, from Mississippi, lived and worked 40 years in Alaska, and from age 21 was passional about nature.

Adams crops up again with Drums of Winter after the six-movement Philip Glass. Snowy mountain scenes get swallowed into ominous volcanic cloud forms, influenced by the natural world. Philip Glass's Glasswork: a repetitive minimalist work in six-movements, engulfing our senses while we watch scenes unfolding on screen. It opens with one of the most famous pieces for solo piano, where Joanna MacGregor comes into her own. Orchestra joins piano after several minutes, with extended trumpet notes and flute, Sian Edwards conducting. On screen various forms of gushing water; then in the second half there's people milling about in a huge square, most wearing white and pairing up. Bizarre.

There was something comforting and relaxing, yet uplifting about the whole performance and it isn't surprising that an audience member texted in after the concert saying: "I cried, laughed, felt disturbed and in awe." Then there was Jonny Greenwood, lead guitar of the famous Radiohead band, and composer of film scores. We were privy to 16 minutes of the score he composed for the epic film "There will be Blood". Inspired by the parable of a silver miner turned ruthless oilman, we get the full orchestra, with Sian conducting strings, cellos, double bass. A full moon creeps across the screen and violins herald birds on branches while violins form glissandos. The four movements end with the lugubrious appearance of vultures ready to swoop on dead carcasses. A wonderful piece.

Einojuhani Rautavaara's Cantus Arcticus - this wonderful Concerto for Birds and Orchestra captured my imagination years ago, especially for the first movement's opening of real birdsong. Rautavaara was Finnish, and we lost him only six years ago, so a man of our time. The full orchestra assembled this time, including the harp, timpani and an upright piano instead of the keyboard and grand piano that Joanna had played for the other works. Orchestral textures interwove with migrating cranes in Sweden, which our audio visual artist Kathy Hinde had filmed from a small wooden hide surrounded by 10,000 cranes, remaining hidden so as not to disturb their milling about. The murmuration of starlings was filmed on the Somerset levels this winter, while Origami cranes floated across the stage.

A flute opened the theme, while on screen birds floated across; ducks and swans on a river; flightless emus. All of nature was in this closely observed Concerto for Orchestra Op, 61 by Rautavaara. It was certainly a concert with a difference, a full house and an audience that whistled, shouted and clapped throughout - even when not needed. Such was their enthusiasm for a concert well out of the mould.

Next Brighton Philharmonic concert: Sunday 19 Feb. 2023, Bach: St Matthew Passion with Brighton Festival Chorus. 2.45pm. Tickets 01273 709709 or online.