★★★★☆ New WASO concertmaster’s solo debut with the orchestra is a thing of beauty.

Perth Concert Hall
April 23, 2016

This concert was chiefly remarkable for new WASO concertmaster Laurence Jackson making his solo debut with this orchestra in Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E Minor. Such was Jackson’s confident, understated virtuosity and lithe, clean articulation of the work’s firmly Classical Romanticism that one almost wished conductor Johannes Fritzsch – who himself is hardly prone to musical affectation – didn’t take a similar approach, certainly to Weber’s Euryanthe Overture but even to Dvořák’s Symphony No 6 in D. Such a cohesive, overarching argument would have made an admittedly exciting concert on a visceral level more cerebrally stimulating.

It’s always fun to note such intersections as those passages in Weber’s overture which recall Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream Overture, written three years later in 1826 – the year Weber died. Here, despite some uncharacteristic heavy-handedness on the part of Fritzsch (you could almost hear him shouting, “Wake up and pay attention! You’re in for a real treat tonight!”), such passages acted as little signposts to the following work. A genuine overture indeed.

Jackson is a former member of the acclaimed Maggini Quartet and former Concertmaster of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, with whom he also regularly appeared as a soloist. Here, he took his cue from Mendelssohn, who disdained empty virtuosity. Playing a JB Vuillaume from around 1850, Jackson negotiated the still considerable technical difficulties with a genuine sprezzatura and unforced elegance born of deep musicality. Fritzsch and WASO responded in turn with playing of great warmth and delicacy. The overall effect was intimate, chamber-like, yet shot through with humour and pathos.

Following the interval, we heard a spirited account of Dvořák’s Symphony No 6 in D, Op. 60 which nevertheless could have benefitted from bringing that great Romantic Classicist Brahms just a little more out of the shadows. Fritzsch conducted with forthrightness and vivacity. WASO responded with gusto and, in the Adagio, an expansive lyricism. But the night belonged to Jackson and to Mendelssohn.