An article providing a preview of the WSO's 2007-8 season. To read the article please click on the image to the left.

Warwickshire Symphony Orchestra, Guy Nelson Hall

"He's so unshowy-offy", remarked a hugely delighted audience member after Peter Donohoe's remarkable playing of Mozart's Piano Concerto No 20.

"No histrionics with Donohoe - he just gets on with the music", she continued. And so he did.

As one of two patrons, Donohoe delighted in playing the new Steinway presented by his colleague patron, Sir John Egan. Donohoe's lightness of touch is legendary, but when required, there is a very strong left hand.

With just five weeks of rehearsals (one evening per week) one of these attended by Donohoe, the Warwickshire Symphony Orchestra should be thrilled with the effort in performing to a full house Wolfenden's Divertimento, starring strong oboe, clarinet and flute contributions. Indeed the woodwind section excelled throughout the evening.

Pride of place was given to the new Steinway and Donohoe followed the Mozart with Bach's Piano Concerto No 1, originally arranged for harpsichord from a violin concerto. Some may consider this an odd choice to open the second part of the programme, but two of the evening's violinists insisted how much they enjoyed the opportunity to accompany the Bach concerto as part of a near-full orchestra.

I suppose I still have Trevor Pinnock (harpsichord) performances in my memory. He, too, however, would have enjoyed the well-rehearsed orchestral support.

Schubert's Symphony No 8 The Unfinished, again showed the competence of the wind section, the cellists and the majority of the brass section. Guy Wolfenden (conductor) in this the week of his 70th birthday, has much to celebrate.

Clive Peacock

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The Brühler Chorvereinigung and the Warwickshire Symphony Orchestra perform a concert demonstrating musical friendship.

By Frank-Uwe Orbons

Bruhl - A double anniversary was celebrated on Friday at the hall of the famous Max Ernst Gymnasium. For almost 30 years Brühl and Leamington, a town in the English Midlands, have shared twin-town status. For 25 of those years a musical friendship has existed between the Brühler Chorvereinigung and the Warwickshire Symphony Orchestra who renewed their ties in a large-scale choral and orchestral concert.

The main work of the evening, Luigi Cherubini's Requiem in C Minor, was in the best tradition of the European ideals which provided the impetus to meet in 1978 for the first of nine collaborations under the theme "Music knows no Borders". An English orchestra performed with a German choir the work of an Italian composer which was written in Paris.

Something of a rarity, the Mass was written in 1816 in memory of the French King Louis XVI. It was joined by another item of rarely perfomed funeral music by Robert Schumann, whose Requiem for Mignon portrays in musical terms the funeral of Mignon, a literary character in Goethe's "Wilhelm Meister".

Siegfried Bernhoft, the music director of the choir, conducted the large-scale choral works following Olympian ideals - the fact of playing together was of greater importance than the artistic accomplishment of the performance. The soloists Yuriko Bernhoft, Andrea Nanke, Tijana Grujic, Martin Kellenbenz and Alexander Trauth provided professional support to the accomplished amateur musicians. Guy Woolfenden, well known as a composer of music for the theatre, and who has conducted the English orchestra for over 30 years, produced a dramatic contribution to the sonorities of the evening with his orchestra of dedicated amateurs. Franz Schubert's Symphony in B Minor, "The Unfinished", performed in a characteristic English manner, made a thoughtful addition to the choir's performance.

A review of the world-premiere of Guy Woolfenden's Bassoon Concerto