Orchestra is still top of the pops

Halle Orchestra, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester
THE Halle Orchestra ended its season of pops concerts with a flourish, and a pit-stop journey around the world.

The razor-sharp orchestra plucked music from across the globe in a fantastic programme which showed the versatility and skill of some of the finest musicians around.

Under the accomplished baton of Bury-born Stephen Bell, the Halle began its journey on British shores, with Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance, a lovely, much more melodic and less brash version than that made famous by the Proms concerts.

Orchestra and conductor sent the audience around the world, calling in at France, Italy, Germany, Finland, Mexico and the Czech Republic to name but a few.

The first port of call was across the channel, where they chose Faure’s Pavane, a piece of music easily recognisable from many sources — from the 1998 World Cup to TV adverts, computer game backing music and adapted by numerous artists from S Club 7 to Jethro Tull.

The programme was littered with tasters from foreign shores, including Finnish composer Sibelious’s seductive Valse triste, a Russian offering with Rimsky-Korsakov’s arrangement of Mussorgsky’s A Night on the Bare Mountain, the Saturday Night Waltz and Hoe Down from Copeland’s ballet Rodeo, and master of the Viennese march Johann Strauss’s rousing Radetzky March.

The music was introduced by the easy patter of Tom Redmond, who is a horn player with the orchestra, but laid down his instrument for the night to act as tour guide for the finale of the pops series.

The programme ended with a fabulous selection of Great Songs of Great Britain, which brought some of the best-loved music from these shores, with the hauntingly beautiful Danny Boy, followed by All Through the Night, the pipes and drums of The British Grenadiers and Bluebells of Scotland.