Cheltenham Music  Festival 2007  (1) : Copland, Bernstein, Barber, Gershwin, Chloë Hanslip (vln) Joan Rodgers (sop) BBC Concert Orchestra / Rumon Gamba, Town Hall , Cheltenham. 6.7. 2007 (BK)

Copland:Fanfare for the Common Man
Bernstein: Overture: West Side Story
Barber:Violin Concerto, Op 14
Barber: Knoxville: Summer of 1915, Op 24
Gershwin arr. Robert Russell Bennett: Porgy and Bess, A Symphonic Portrait

Just how wrong can anyone  be? Deprived of  live music as I often am here in  the UK's far south-west, the prospect of a concert  of 'popular' music  felt no more than moderately appealing. I knew all   these pieces  very well (so I thought)  and the programme looked like offering a pleasant  evening out at best. Relaxing maybe, as they say on Classic FM.

Relaxing? Hah! This was one of the most exciting and thoroughly dynamic concerts I can remember,  played (and sung) so  marvellously  that  Cheltenham  2007 hit the ground  not just  running, but dancing.

The BBC Concert Orchestra is too easy to take for granted. Smaller than the symphony groups, it's actually a national treasure with its own distinctive sound and style of playing.  What its members clearly know is that 'lighter' music - though the Barber pieces and the Gershwin are substantial of course - can sometimes  also be great music, when approached with due  care and respect. It's an important message too easily overlooked.

In the hands of Rumon Gamba, the message came through loud and technicoloured. Every note  - and  every rhythm - of the entire programme was handled with consummate care, so attentively in fact that from time to time the orchestra was simply permitted to play, with only the most minimal direction:  even none  in some sections of the Gershwin. The result was a genuine partnership between conductor and players that revealed a wealth of nuance in all of the music: real  art at its absolute best.

The phenomenon that is Chloë Hanslip  - can she really be only twenty? - gave a ravishing reading of the Barber concerto,  meltingly beautiful in the great melodies of the first two movements and dazzlingly accurate in the fiendishly difficult third. It has been my privilege this year to hear two brilliant young women soloists in violin concertos  - Alina Ibragimova in Sibelius - and now Chloe Hanslip in this Barber. What struck me about each of  them is that their talents are so prodigious  that they seem able - apparently without effort -  to win such respect from both orchestras and conductors - Osmo Vänskä at the Birmingham concert - that they respond with supportive accompaniments but also allow the soloist  maximal artistic freedom.  That was certainly the case here.

Soprano Joan Rodgers (a substitute for Nancy Gustafson who was ill) gave a fine and sensitive reading of  Barber's Knoxville Summer of 1915 where James Agee lived, 'so successfully disguised to myself as a child.' What a lovely piece this is with its soothing rhythms describing 'people rocking gently and talking gently'   contrasted later with  more agitated sections containing  the declamatory prayer for the  people's well-being. Ms Rodgers managed each with tastefully dramatic conviction and with exemplary singing.

To round off  this tremendous concert, Rumon Gamba and  the orchestra mined every bit of the  riches hidden in   Robert Russell Bennett's symphonic portrait of Gershwin's 'Porgy and Bess'. From seamlessly singing strings in 'Summertime'  - like a soprano with inexhaustible breath, I remember thinking -  through to an achingly funny and raunchy 'Boat leaving soon for New York' - where Mr Gamba's bumps and grinds were (ahem) quite remarkable - this was a truly masterly performance providing a great  finale to a superb Festival opening.

The whole concert was recorded by the BBC for  broadcasting later. Do look out for it - you can hardly be disappointed.

Bill Kenny