Musical revolution in the air! Causeway Chamber Orchestra concert at St Mary's Church, Horsham

In his pre-concert introduction Luca pointed out that the two featured composers, Ludwig van Beethoven and Franz Anton Hoffmeister were friends, with the older of the two, Franz, easing Ludwig’s transition into the musical circles of Vienna by acting as his publisher. Touted as the successor to Wolfgang Mozart, and a young performer in a hurry, Beethoven used the piano concerto as a display piece for his own abilities as a soloist.

Step forward Thomas Luke, who has been hailed as a “trailblazer” by the piano manufacturer, Steinway and Sons. In view of the graceful and expressive tonal range that he conjured from the Steinway grand at St Mary’s in Beethoven’s Second Piano Concerto, Thomas justified that billing, ably supported by Luca and concertmaster Maria Noskova in the meticulous direction of the chamber orchestra across the concerto’s three contrasting movements. In the expansive Allegro con brio, unruffled Adagio and playful Rondo, the essentially convivial relationship between piano and orchestra expertly conveyed Mozart’s continuing influence whilst hinting at how Beethoven would later break free from these constraints. These effects were dependent upon Thomas’s meticulous technique as cascades of scales, arpeggios and fugal patterns were interspersed with the prompting of new musical ideas from the strings, bass and woodwind for the piano to take up.

In a brief piano interlude of his own, All The Things I’ve Learnt Without You (well worth a watch on YouTube), Thomas showed his own prowess, in Jacob Collier mode, in a modern improvisatory style that nevertheless echoed the freewheeling of Beethoven’s piano cadenzas. Hoffmeister’s Symphony No 6, Festa della Pace (Festival of Peace) transported us back to 1791 Vienna in this four-movement work that Hoffmeister was asked to compose to celebrate the Treaty of Sistova that ended hostilities between Austria and the Ottoman Empire. The orchestra neatly foregrounded the occasional quirky episode, such as a duet between piccolo and bassoon in the Menuetto, that demonstrated Hoffmeister’s desire to pull off his own quiet revolution in subverting the ceremonial constraints of his commission. In the Turkish finale, Thomas Luke featured again, this time on the triangle, as part of the colourful orchestration with which Hoffmeister signed off on the treaty of peace in the grand style.

Luca Imperiale’s mission to perform works which, in his own words, are ‘often overlooked by the ensembles of today’, using small forces and engagingly non-conventional programming is progressing well. The early evening format running for an uninterrupted hour from 7pm to 8pm is a great inducement to try out less familiar works like the Hoffmeister symphony. Luca and the Causeway Chamber Orchestra return to St Mary’s on Saturday 25th October in a programme featuring Haydn, Delalande and Leclair. If you are new to this series, why not come along and join the experiment?

Reviewed by Simon Machin