After 12 years at the helm of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Sakari Oramo can be forgiven for programming seemingly disparate works simply because they are close to his heart. None were what you’d call standard repertoire, and each posed different challenges, yet somehow this multifaceted concert added up to more than the sum of its parts.
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Symphonic Variations on an African Air is one of his most warmly appealing works, rooted in 19th-century Romanticism while paying homage to his paternal ancestry. Over 20 minutes, he puts the agreeably malleable spiritual, I’m Troubled in Mind, through its paces, from solemn dirge for the enslaved to cymbal-crashing Edwardian paean. Oramo’s flexible beat saved the work from ever getting bogged down, allowing the music room to breathe while avoiding potential longueurs. This was plain-speaking, big-hearted fare, full of luscious countermelodies, which the orchestra pulled off with appropriate swagger.
