Photo credit: Chris Christodoulou
Sinfonia of London plays Bacewicz, Rachmaninov and Rimsky-Korsakov,
Royal Concert Hall, Nottingham | 29 October 2026
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Review by William Ruff
“John Wilson’s super-orchestra on superlative form.”
The Sinfonia of London and their founder-conductor John Wilson represent something very rare in the world of classical music. Or perhaps I should say ‘unique’. For each recording and live performance project Wilson handpicks his team from the best of the best: soloists, principals from other orchestras, top chamber musicians etc. They are one of the most exciting ensembles in the UK, with a world-wide reputation.
They started with a piece they recorded to great acclaim two years ago: the Concerto for String Orchestra by the 20th century Polish composer Gražyna Bacewicz, a work grounded in the past (with plenty of nods in the direction of Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos) but with a sharper, more modern edge. It’s a piece that cries out for the sort of razor-honed, split-second timing of a group of virtuoso string players and the high definition acoustics of the Royal Concert Hall.
The opening movement’s forward momentum was irresistible: its sweeping, swinging theme in the violins rocking backwards and forwards; the solo violin and cello stepping forward as individual voices, sharing confidences while the rest of the strings kept that mesmerising rhythm going. The calm, flowing second movement was the piece’s calm centre, the solo cello singing above a softly rocking lullaby motion, swelling to a powerful climax before disappearing into silence. The finale was exhilarating: its bouncing, dance-like main theme; its irregular accents; its sharp contrasts between extrovert passages for everyone and calmer interludes for soloists; its breathtaking race to a high-voltage conclusion.
It was a dazzling start to the evening, but there was no time for the SoL’s strings to rest on laurels, or even to get their breath back. And that was because the next work on the programme was perhaps the most famous piano concerto ever written, the one everyone in the audience must have had an opinion about: Rachmaninov’s No 2. And the soloist was Benjamin Grosvenor.
The challenge with this work is that everyone has their own favourite interpretation: a special recording that they may have lived with all their lives. So how do you inject new life into such a concert warhorse? The secret goes back to John Wilson’s conducting creed: ‘Honour everything on the page. If it’s not on the page, why are we doing it?’ And it was this rigorous attention to the composer’s wishes that informed this performance. Benjamin Grosvenor’s performance was everything you could desire: intelligent (all the speeds sounded just right), deeply emotional and technically brilliant. The ways in which he shaped and coloured all those famous tunes made the concerto seem new minted – and for one of the most often performed of all concertos, that’s really saying something.
After the interval came Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade, another piece tailor-made for the SoL’s sharp-focus treatment. Its four movements conjure up in Technicolor lusciousness the exotic world of the Arabian Nights. Rimsky attached titles to the four movements suggesting magical sea voyages, fantastical characters, the romantic love of a young prince for a princess, a spectacular shipwreck and a festival in old Bagdad.
In some ways, it’s like another giant concerto for orchestra and it turned the SoL into an orchestra of soloists, each colourful thread being sewn precisely and sensuously within a huge, vibrant tapestry. The role of Scheherazade herself (the princess who saves her life by telling the Sultan nightly stories with cliffhanger endings) was taken by the SoL’s leader, solo violin Charlie Lovell Jones, magnificent throughout and especially at the magical ending when the whole tumultuous work comes to an end on a high, serene pianissimo. Scheherazade has made her point and saved her life – and it’s only taken her 1001 nights to do so.
John Wilson’s Sinfonia of London made their point in just one concert: that they are one of the very finest ensembles in the world.
Sinfonia of London
John Wilson (conductor)
Benjamin Grosvenor (piano)