The Southbank Sinfonia is the resident band in St John’s Waterloo, it’s ‘snail-mail’ address being that of the actual church*. On Thursday, 10 May 2007, at 6pm it gave one of its regular Rush Hour concerts.

It consisted of Tchaikovsky’s Variations on a Rococo Theme, and Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. The band’s concerts always have a concerto, or concertante works, its members being partway between college and full time professional jobs. The Southbank Sinfonia (“Britain’s Orchestral Academy”) is a voluntary equivalent of the BBC’s 1960s innovation the ‘Training Orchestra’, which was based in Bristol. It was dissolved in a round of cuts.

Jamie Pringle played the solo part in the Rococo Variations, a title which seems whimsical, the music of the early 18th century is usually called ‘baroque’. Both words refer to architectural forms. The Variations are in a Haydn-Mozart mode rather than those of Bach or Handel. Despite the comparatively mysterious designation, it iSean elegantly lovely piece of music. – ‘elegant’ is not a word that is often applied to Pyotr lIych’s work – it is not quite Tchaikovsky at his most inspired.
A diverting aspect of the SbS’s method is that members of the orchestra introduce the individual items Edward Furse (judging from the mug-shot in the SbS handout) introduced the Variations and Jamie Pringle. Who seemed to me particularly effective in Andante passages; Variation V: Andante grazioso and Variation VII: Andante sostenuto. The very lightly scored accompaniment, (and that is what it was, this is Romantic music – the solo line is what matters) was beautifully handled by the orchestra.

The soft voiced Audrey Barr introduced the Beethoven saying it needed no introduction, she then gave us one. It ended with a jest to the effect that at a, (presumably apocryphal), concert some people left after the opening ‘Da, da, da dum’ on the grounds that the rest of the piece was just repetition.

The symphony is certainly a fine use of short, very similar, themes. This beautifully played (there was one rather muffed entry towards the very end) interpretation leaned towards the poetic. I must confess to coarse tasteSeand would have liked something a bit wilder. An actual youth orchestra might have made such a noise – these young people, while not yet jaded ‘old pros’ – are thoroughly professional. They assiduously served Beethoven’s score as interpreted by David Corkill, an Artist in Association.

Incidentally, St John’s is the place to go if you want to hear every note of a score clearly and cleanly. It has a beautiful, clear (and for musicians probably quite frightening) acoustic.

[Dee Flatt]

* St John’s Waterloo
Waterloo Road London
SE1 8TY
Phone: 020 7921 0370 Fax: 020 7921 0371