Photo, BBC/Chris Christodoulou
REVIEWED FROM LIVE RELAY ON BBC RADIO 3
Sunday, September 6, 2026
Royal Albert Hall, London
John Wilson’s second Prom this season following the mixed first that included Respighi’s Roman Trilogy (below).
This second, which might have been termed “The Full English”, was a morning-through-midday affair, strings-only if with plenty of variety, plus a wonderful soprano. Lennox Berkeley’s Serenade is delightful in invention and craftsmanship, urbane in its first movement if unexpectedly angst-ridden in the fourth (final) to which Frank Bridge’s Lament (in response to the sinking of the Lusitania, a British ocean liner, sunk by a German U-boat in May 1915 with much loss of life) was more desolate, fragile, numbed. Opening the second half, Imogen Holst’s Suite (1943), as well-written and -performed as the other pieces, proved to not be especially characterful or compelling.
The rest was Britten. In Les illuminations, settings of Rimbaud, Julie Roset had a head start with the French language, and was totally engaging vocally, with much personality, singing with vibrancy and delicacy, communicating every syllable with meaning, and with a first-class accompaniment from SoL Strings and its maestro. The sheer ingenuity of the Frank Bridge Variations, and the compositional flair, is breathtaking. Having plucked the piece into place with certainty, Wilson then came across as impatient with the music leading up to the statement of Bridge’s Theme, rushing through the Variations at an alarming rate of knots. Only ‘Funeral March’ (VIII) took on its full gravitas. Played brilliantly, the tempo misjudgements were perplexing.
Lennox Berkeley: Serenade for Strings
Frank Bridge: Lament
Benjamin Britten: Les illuminations
Imogen Holst: Suite for String Orchestra
Benjamin Britten: Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge
Julie Roset, soprano
Sinfonia of London Strings
John Wilson
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0030v9k