EVERSLEY Choral Union's Spring Concert, directed by Stephen Carleston, displayed a pleasing variety of 19th Century music from France, Germany and Italy.
The highlight of the evening was provided by 15-year-old Sophie Rosa, playing Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto. A student at Chetham's School of Music and a semi-finalist in this year's BBC Young Musician of the Year, she stamped her immediate authority on the performance from the opening dramatic solo entry, displaying vibrant, luscious tone, rhythmic drive, musical phrasing and a beautifully paced first movement cadenza.
The orchestra, led by Wendy Cann, generally accompanied sensitively; although perhaps a little robust in the Andante, they caught the capricious spirit of the last movement well.
Two very contrasting choral items flanked the Concerto when the choir displayed good ensemble, generally good words and a pleasing blend of tone. Sadly, these qualities were nearly obliterated in Faur's Cantique de Jean Racine, together with much of the orchestral sound, barring the timpani, owing to the extraordinary use of an electric piano to substitute the harp, whose soothing sounds are the essence of this refined French music.
Jon English (tenor) and Jolyon Dodgson (bass-baritone) provided stylish, romantic solos in Puccini's student work, The Messa di Gloria, capturing well the appealing operative qualities of this Italian music. The choir provided some rousing moments and others of beauty, but the greater flexibility of both tempi and tonal shading, together with more heartfelt Maestoso passages, would have captured a more.
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