THE Spitalfields Festival may have become something of a home to several modern British composers, but it has not forgotten their predecessors. Like many other of the country’s musical institutions, this year it is celebrating Tippett’s centenary, and his music formed one thread of the Britten Sinfonia’s well designed and interconnecting programme.
Opening this concert of string works was Tippett’s Little Music, a suite of pieces harking back to the Baroque. Under Paul Watkins’s direction, the players brought attack to the opening Prelude before setting off on a quietly questing fugue. Watkins also injected energy into their performance of the searing finale.
Dating from only a few years later, the same composer’s Divertimento on “Sellinger’s Round” is more specific in its references. As the title indicates, William Byrd is the main source of inspiration, but in the movement played here, A lament, there is also an allusion to Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas. The nocturnal atmosphere was strongly evoked in Jan Schmolck’s filigree playing of the violin solo. Purcell’s presence was more obviously felt in Britten’s celebrated arrangement of his Chacony, played with rich string sound and plenty of feeling.
Britten’s Serenade for tenor, horn and strings was the biggest work of the evening. Mark Wilde used his smooth, lyrical tenor to expressive effect, phrasing beautifully in the Pastoral. In Dirge, he sustained his lines over a menacing orchestra. Stephen Bell’s horn was equally well judged.
Two composers who were once Soviet citizens completed the programme, with the Estonian Arvo Pärt represented by Cantus in memoriam Benjamin Britten. Building from unearthly opening sonorities to its sombre close, it paved the way for the premiere of a new Spitalfields Festival commission, the Duo concertante by the young Kazakhstan-born composer Artem Vassiliev. Scored for viola (Maxim Rysanov), cello (Kristina Blaumane) and strings, this 15-minute work made a strong impact, but raised the odd question.
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The title needs no explanation, but since the composer cited a Malevich painting as an influence, one expected the solo instruments to trace their own, contrasting geometric patterns. Instead, they shadow each other almost continuously. Their duologue begins alone, but the orchestra soon provides by turns a sustained bed of sound and taut, thrusting energy. Emotions run high with a stabbing climax before the work exhausts itself like an uncoiling spring.