Sarah Connolly in America ran the title of this Britten Sinfonia programme. But for once, the chamber orchestra, ever expanding its artistic and geographical horizons, was not crossing the Atlantic with its guest star, but presenting a domestic mini-tour, performing in Leeds, Cambridge and Norwich as well as in London’s shiniest (and probably best) concert hall, Milton Court.
Designed around Connolly (who also rather gamely gave the pre-concert talks), the programme centred on five of Aaron Copland’s Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson, rounded out by Appalachian Spring, Elliott Carter’s early Elegy for Strings and Ruth Crawford Seeger’s Andante for Strings (adapted by the composer from her 1931 string quartet). Richard Rodney Bennett was also recruited as an adopted American, with Connolly presenting his rarely heard nostalgic song set A History of the Thé Dansant (recorded by Connolly for Chandos a couple of years ago).
Soloist and orchestra alike were on rivetingly gorgeous form, Connolly slinking through the Bennett songs with the kind of restrained smoothness that suggests she could simply eat her audience, if the desire took her, before pulling back to the nostalgic tenderness that frames the set. In the Dickinson settings, she sang with a cool, equal directness that perfectly offset the rush of subtly shaded passions rising through the orchestra (Copland transcribed eight of the original 12 songs for small orchestra). And in an encore, so clearly anticipated that the orchestra forgot to bow before setting up for it, Connolly took the microphone for two numbers from the American Songbook (Blues in the Night and But Not for Me, in superb arrangements by Nelson Riddle and Benny Carter), the Sinfonia strings oozing a shine and depth of tone that belied their modest numbers.
The strings also shone in Carter’s Elegy, an early five-minute weave of exquisite silks, and, as ever, the orchestra, led and directed by Jaqueline Shave, seemed faultlessly aligned to the flow and character of each score, soaring and swinging in Appalachian Spring and breathing powerfully through the plaited dissonances of Crawford Seeger’s Andante.
