Even those who don’t think of the “Knights of the Coconut” first will admit: the inhabitants of the United Kingdom have their peculiarities. Maybe it’s the weather, maybe it’s the cuisine, but more likely it’s the island’s location, which is quite literally eccentric compared to the rest of Europe. This is no less true for music history. Two bars and you can see the “Britishness”. The Isartal Philharmonic Orchestra and its chief conductor Henri Bonamy have taken on this musical tradition to celebrate their return to the stage – for the first time in two years with a full cast. At the same time, the orchestra took the opportunity to formulate a reaction to the war in Ukraine. The concert is linked to an appeal for donations to the Eastern European Aid, which has been supporting needy people in the states of the former Eastern Bloc for more than thirty years, including Brody in western Ukraine, which is linked to Wolfratshausen by a town partnership.
With Jakob Spahn, the Isartal Philharmonic have found a top-class partner to support them. Spahn is the solo cellist of the Bavarian State Orchestra and also teaches as a professor at the Nuremberg Academy of Music. And it doesn’t disappoint, although Edward Elgar’s Cello Concerto is always a gamble because of the legendary recordings that many have in their ears; but also because there are few concerts that combine such a simple form with the highest demands on the soloist and, on top of that, demand enormous expressiveness from the accompanying orchestra. From the first note, the powerful bass tone, soloist and orchestra enter into an intimate communication. Spahn keeps looking at Bonamy, who directs the ensemble of connoisseurs and enthusiasts with clear, slim, precise movements.
The result is a heavy, tragic first movement in which Spahn gives decisive impulses with a large, never intrusive tone. This is one of the reasons why Spahn is the ideal cast for the Philharmonisches Orchester Isartal: Because his playing, despite all the outward restraint, has an expressive excess that touches everyone around him, especially in a receptive ensemble like this, with a long-suppressed joy of playing. This also applies to the wild second movement, in which the orchestra and soloist deliberately hold back the tempo so as not to endanger Bonamy’s analytical approach. This does not detract from the expression, on the contrary. Spahn and Bonamy cheer each other on with almost youthful vigour. But the short, slow movement becomes the secret center of the concerto. Solo cantilena and orchestral accompaniment are intricately interwoven, organically merging. Spahn listens carefully to what is happening around him and in turn translates the tutti phrases into noble singing. The finale converts these knightly gestures into subtle humor, which the Isartal Orchestra secondes in style. Bravo shouts accompany Jakob Spahn’s bows, to which he responds with an enrapturingly melancholic “The Fall of the Leaf” by Imogen Holst.
With a Swiss-British cultural transfer, the orchestra shows that it is capable of great expression even without an eminent soloist. Frederick Delius’ “The Walk to the Paradise Garden” comes from the opera “A Village Romeo and Juliet”, modeled on Gottfried Keller’s novella “Romeo and Juliet in the Village”. The piece is presented as an orchestral intermezzo with a double bottom. On the one hand, pastoral idyll determines the scene, on the other hand, the catastrophic finale sounds through, because the opera couple ends in a double suicide. The orchestra finds its way between these poles, reliably following the lush melody and playing out the late-Romantic, ambiguous harmonies.
The final piece of the evening rounds off the British program in an almost sympathetic way. Benjamin Britten’s “The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra” is a piece with educational aspirations. Young listeners should be shown all the groups in the orchestra one after the other. A good opportunity to (re)discover an ensemble that had to pause for so long. And so trilling flutes, cracking timpani, nobly singing brass and parbling clarinets appear in an authentic way. Not every approach is crystal clear, not every intonation perfect, but that doesn’t spoil the overall impression one bit. The Isartal Philharmonic Orchestra is back, with a passion for making music and a will to express themselves. So it’s only right that there’s a lively encore at the end: Elgar’s first “Pomp and Circumstance” march, not without reason a secret British anthem. Because this lively celebration is contagious, in the Royal Albert Hall as well as in the Loisachhalle.