City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. Royal Concert Hall, Nottingham, 15 October 2025, 5☆☆☆☆☆. Review: William Ruff.

Photo Credit: Paul Ward.

City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. Royal Concert Hall, Nottingham, 15 October 2025,

5☆☆☆☆☆. Review: William Ruff.

“The CBSO surely wins new friends for classical music.”

The piece which opened this CBSO concert is one that always brings a lump to my throat: Benjamin Britten’s Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra.  It oozes nostalgia, of course, a reminder of childhood and learning about the instruments of the orchestra for the first time.  And there’s the music itself, especially the spectacular ending when Britten rounds off his variations on Henry Purcell’s grand tune with the most elaborate, tearaway fugue.  Just when you think that things couldn’t possibly get any better, Purcell’s mighty theme sounds out with full force from the trombones. It’s a real champagne moment, and the CBSO, under their conductor Michael Seal packed it with maximum tingle-factor.

Coincidentally Wednesday’s performance came on the anniversary of the work’s first performance, on 15 October 1946.  The reason it was written is also part of its emotional punch today.  The 1944 Education Act decreed that music is a vital part of every child’s school life.  Britten was commissioned to write the music for a film introducing children to the orchestra, which was then made available to every school in the land.  In our 21st century world, music has all but disappeared from the curriculum for many children – and Britten’s wonderful score is a poignant reminder of what they are missing.  On a much more optimistic note, however, it was heart-warming to see so many young people at this concert – and to hear them cheering the CBSO’s thrilling performance.

The concert ended with more sonic spectacle: Ravel’s orchestration of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, another piece packed with high emotion.  It commemorates the composer’s friendship with the artist Victor Hartmann, which had died at the age of 39.  After Mussorgsky had attended a memorial exhibition of Hartmann’s work, he decided to preserve his musical impressions of ten of the artist’s drawings in a piano cycle.  These piano pieces seemed to cry out for orchestral colour and many composers have turned their hand at orchestrating them, the most successful being Ravel.  He turned them into one of classical music’s supreme showpieces and a perennial favourite with audiences.  The CBSO rose to every challenge: the repeating Promenade (depicting the composer walking from one exhibit to another in varying degrees of grief for his lost friend) and then the pictures themselves, portraying everything from fairytale characters to the concluding “Great Gate of Kiev”.  Ravel turned the music into a huge concerto for orchestra, demanding huge virtuosity all round, using vast forces and turning the ending (complete with magnificent chiming bell) into one of the most spectacular you’re ever likely to hear.  Conductor Michael Seal brought every section to their feet to acknowledge the huge ovation.  And well they deserved it.

In between these two orchestral showpieces came something completely different: Mozart’s Concerto for Flute and Harp, in which the soloists were Marie-Christine Zupancic (flute) and Katherine Thomas (harp).  It’s music which smiles throughout and both soloists (together with a chamber-sized CBSO) gave it a poised, elegant performance, the soloists seemingly telepathic in their approach to the music.  The cadenzas in each movement were particularly well-handled, highlighting the silvery sounds of the solo instruments and their sensitive playing.  In short, this was a concert that provided plenty of musical detail for seasoned concert-goers to savour whilst opening doors for audiences of the future.

City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra

Michael Seal (conductor), Marie-Christine Zupancic (flute), Katherine Thomas (harp).