JESS GILLAM AND THE EUROPEAN UNION CHAMBER ORCHESTRA
January 31st - tonight’s concert ended with Haydn’s ‘49th Symphony’ – but should it really have been his 45th? The latest in the admirable concert series at the Corn Exchange featured the wonderful European Union Chamber Orchestra, certainly not playing for the last time though this was Brexit night. Their programme was fascinatingly different but one with an overarching sense of melancholy: the aforesaid Haydn – furious in pace, stark in contrasting mood but above all, wallowing in its minor keys.
Yet nothing, and no one, can be less mournful than the wonderful young saxophonist, Jess Gillam. She bounded on stage – her gold fringed jacket matching the shining gilt of her soprano sax. She beams with energy and charisma and played the first piece with immense power and fizz. The concerto by Marcello (a contemporary of Vivaldi) was a revelation with its bouncy joyful melodies and a beautifully languorous adagio. Gillam totally in tune with the chamber band danced and bobbed around the playful composition.
Next up was a fine rendition of a relative rarity from Mozart – the ‘Cassation No. 1’ which gave conductor, the violinist Eva Stegeman a chance to shine in many lovely solo parts. The centrepiece of the concert came next: Glazunov’s ‘Concerto for Saxophone’ described by Gillam as a great work among a very narrow repertoire for the normally jazzy instrument. I hadn’t heard it before but am keen to get to know it. Written in 1934 at the height of Stalin’s tyranny, the work is dreamy, romantic, and oddly English pastoral in feel. Gillam was stunning in the fiendish cadenza leading to a bright and optimistic finale. As the applause died down, she offered a wonderful encore – Duke Ellington’s bluesy ‘Sentimental Mood’ which ends with a sustained note that seemed to defy normal lung capacity. The second half of the evening opened with Tchaikovsky’s ‘Elegy for Strings’. It was quite exquisitely played – sad but lovely especially with its repeated simple melody, haunting in tone, the orchestra in perfect balance. A delicious programme came to a powerful close with Haydn’s 49th symphony. Perhaps given this was the EU orchestra, it should have been that 45th – the so-called ‘Farewell’!
