The LGSO (London Gay Symphony Orchestra)’s Summer Concert (Sunday, 8th July, 2007) consisted of three works by Dmitri Dmitrivich Shostakovitch
, it being his hundredth birthday year. The works were, the Festive Overture, the Second Piano Concerto and the Tenth Symphony.
The conductor, Simon Bowler’s handling of the Overture almost convinced me that it was worth listening to. Towards the end it became clear that it shared some DNA (to use a current Irish phrase) with Tchaikovsky’s 1812. I also learned from the Programme Note that Dimitry Dimitrivich composed and scored this work, for a very large orchestra, in – essentially – two days. I still think it is loud and empty but Mr. Bowler and the LGSO are the best advocates I have ever heard of its claim to a place in the repertoire. After this performance half the band appeared to go home – something of an optical illusion. The next item was scored for a small ‘chamber’-like ensemble.
It was Piano Concerto No. 2 in F major, op. 102, a present for Shostakovitch’s son Maxim on his nineteenth birthday, May 10th 1957. Maxim’s playing of it got 
him into the Moscow Conservatoire ‘ bet he was popular. The outer movements are both marked Allegro and are – spritely – is the word. They are also finger twisterSeand the soloist Peter Austin didn’t miss a note. More to the point, he handled the Andante middle movement like a genuine poet. It would have been quite easy, and forgivable, to slacken the pace and turn the thing into an exercise. The band handled its (very lightly scored) end of the matter poetically too. The LGSO, and its conductors, are very good at the poetic end of their job.
They’re not bad a keeping vulgar person like me happy, there being no less than four people in the percussion section and Sheila Nolan (this person is not being mentioned just because she haSean Irish name ” honest) on the Timpani, in the Tenth. The second movement, an Allegro, is allegedly a portrait of Joe Stalin. (I recalled an aside of Brendan Clifford, in the Irish Political Review, to the effect that one should always contrive to have ‘an intelligent enemy write your biography’). This rasping scherzo (which could, just about, be a grim joke) is quite abrupt.
The final two movements both begin, and this is a Shostakovitch characteristic, very slowly, and quietly. The third movement, which features his ‘signature tune’ DSCH or D, E flat, C, and B, also ends rather quietly. The last movement ends in ‘up beat’ fashion, nearly but not quite, a Romantic apotheosis. The entry of the brass is somewhat too abrupt for such a thing. The above probably leaves the impression that this was a jerky, possibly scrappy, and abrupt performance, it was in fact largely poetic and – as ever with this band – committed to the service of the composer.
I was meaning to mention the Leader of the Orchestra, Jo o Carniero, as I did not do so in reviewing the Spring concert. He is leaving this post, as (this is the good news) he can’t fit the job into an increasingly busy schedule. Peter Austin the pianist “decided not to pursue a professional musical career”, though how he makes his daily bread is not vouchsafed. Maybe he does the bins in Croydon, his home town. Simon Bowler is a very energetic teacher and conductor of school, amateur and professional orchestras.
Dee Flatt
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