“Innovative Line” in TSO’s Success 

The role of a symphony orchestra is, primarily, to promote classical music. However, it sometimes has to bow to the desires of the paying public and perform music of a lighter genre. To this extent, Tayside Symphony Orchestra are victims of their own success, for after an extremely successful concert of light music last year, the formula was repeated in the Reid Hall on Saturday night with ‘A Festival of Light Music’. Once again it generated a large audience, and, in so doing,  it proved that folk don’t always want the usual mix of symphony, overture and concerto.

 It depends what one classifies as “light” music, but I reckon the music chosen on Saturday fell slap bang into the middle of this category. Not one so-called classical composer in sight, although sometimes alluded to, but lots of others that gave the evening a fine mix. And lots for the TSO to get their teeth into, as well. I thought their performance throughout was excellent.

 However, if you are going to present medleys of any type of music, the arrangements have to be of sufficient quality or the whole thing falls flat. I would say that Saturday’s concert was 90% successful in this, with only a Gilbert and Sullivan sequence lacking any real cohesion. I also thought the final ‘Fantasia on Auld Lang Syne’ was bit on the long side, even bearing in mind Ernest Tomlinson’s aim to cram in as many musical references as he could.

 On the plus side, there were many splendid orchestrations, some leaning heavily on brass and woodwind and others giving the strings their chance to shine. The medleys also tested the ability and versatility of the percussion section as they swapped roles with admirable fluidity and the minimum of fuss. Top of the pops for me were Calvin Custer’s ‘Salute to the Big Apple’ and Eric Fenby’s take on Ilkla Moor, which was Rossini to a “t”. And you can’t go wrong with contributions from Cole Porter and Rogers and Hammerstein, whose music has undying charm with every tune more or less a winner.

 Perhaps one of the most unusual parts of the concert that made it different from anything else I have seen was the inclusion of dancers Cally and Kyle Robertson, pupils of  Ballet Mistress Beryl Cooper who runs the Esk Academy of Dance in Montrose, dancing to Leroy Anderson’s ‘Blue Tango’. This underlined conductor Ron Walker’s innovative line, and showed the TSO’s desire to show-case local talent either instrumental or not.

 The orchestra will be back in the same venue in June, but the programme will be along more traditional orchestral lines containing music by Elgar and Richard Strauss.