Turning Points is the London Sinfonietta’s occasional series at Kings Place, focusing on some the 20th century’s most important composers and their key works, and designed to bring newcomers to modern music. Certainly the audience for the latest concert, which was introduced by Sara Mohr-Pietsch, contained few of the familiar faces seen at the Sinfonietta’s Southbank Centre dates. But then the programme that Gerry Cornelius conducted, containing short pieces by four of the indisputably great figures of the last 100 years, was much more like the kind of concert that was once the orchestra’s bread and butter, and which it plays all too rarely nowadays.
Mohr-Pietsch’s thought-provoking introduction talked of “listening rituals”, likening the modern concert hall to the sacred spaces of prehistoric cultures, though whether drawing such parallels helps to break down barriers between new audiences and new music is debatable. But the choice of works provided a showcase for the range of contemporary styles.
