Good to report that this was a concert of entirely British music (hence its patriotic title); great to report that every piece had been written by a living composer. What’s more, each of them had actually turned up in person to hear their works played with attentive diligence by the BBC Concert Orchestra, conducted by Robert Ziegler.
But it’s depressing to report that the scope of all four pieces in this showcase of home-grown talent seemed quite so limited — not least when it came to Jonny Greenwood’s Popcorn Superhet Receiver, performed only hours after it had claimed the BBC Radio 3 listeners’ prize at the British Composer Awards.
I wish I could be as enthusiastic, but nothing in the Radiohead guitarist’s musing down memory lane — the piece apparently recalls his memories of childhood car journeys — ever went beyond first gear. Scored entirely for strings, the piece soberly alternates between thickly buoyant sonorities and, sparser, nervier textures, demarcated by some anxious pizzicatos and snatches of almost-melody from one independent-minded cello.
Bland, inoffensive stuff, and in that respect the piece neatly took its place in the evening’s line-up, which had begun with another piece for strings, Steve Martland’s Crossing the Border. Better focused than Greenwood’s effort, this homage to Bach split the ensemble into four groups that clashed and interlocked with each other, opening spaces filled by vigorous solos and energetic tuttis: a vigorous if samey workout for the BBCCO ensemble.
From there to the cellist Thomas Carroll, furiously embedding himself in the harmonic lines of Joe Duddell’s Shadowplay. Unchanging in mood but flexible in colour — the instruments playing shadows with Caroll included the harp, drum kit and horn — Duddell’s two-movement work again failed to progress much beyond its initial foundations.
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Anyone wondering if we would finally crash through the safety net with the concert’s last offering, Anne Dudley’s Northern Lights, would have been disappointed. As an exercise in pictorial orchestration, Dudley’s twinkly representation of the Aurora Borealis at least gave us a destination to aim for, but its placid, predictable pace didn’t put the sparkle in a humdrum celebration marked by too much good taste and not enough risk.