Review: Brighton Philharmonic Orchestra Britten’s Serenade, Saturday 8 November 2025 Corn Exchange 7.30pm
The Corn Exchange is part of the Brighton Dome, in a separate building round the corner in New Road; it completed a six-year refurbishment in 2023. Raked seating ensures that every audience member can see down to the extended stage area below. An enormous capacity and room for everyone.
This time, the orchestra was pared down to just the string sections: violin, viola, cello and double bass. Led by Ruth Rogers - not only capable, but charming.
The programme: a selection of composers across the centuries: Benjamin Britten 1913-76); Purcell (1659-1695) arranged by Britten and James MacMillan, going back to the 17th century with John Dowland (1563-1626).
Our Artistic Director, Joanna MacGregor multi-tasked on this concert - playing piano, conducting and declaring that she and composer James MacMillan, sharing birthdays, could well have been twins!
And so some of the time Joanna played piano, sometimes conducted and occasionally even played with the right hand while conducting with the left - the grand piano placed sideways front of stage for that to happen. Occasionally she tapped on a little drum by her side.
The programme opened with the 26-year-old Benjamin Britten’s “Young Apollo,” written during a hot summer in Woodstock, New York, and premiered by Britten himself. Tuneful, comforting and, I think for some of us, in a way, familiar.
Our 20th century Britten then went on to arrange the 17th century Henry Purcell’s Chacony in G minor.
That took us to Britten’s 'Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings.' We were honoured to have tenor Mark Padmore, one of the most highly respected performers of his generation. He has a voice that captures the soul and draws us in. He sang five emotive night-themed poems, by well-known poets. Charles Cotton’s Pastoral; Alfred Lord Tennyson and his famous line ‘dying, dying, dying; William Blake’s ‘The Sick Rose’, and an eleven-verse Dirge by an unknown 15th Century poet, each verse ending ‘And Christ receive thy saule’. Ben Johnson’s ‘Hymn to Diana’ and John Keats’s ‘To Sleep’ finished the sequence with Alexei Watkins expressive on horn.
The whole set of poems, with Watkins fluent on horn and Mark’s remarkable voice, soothed us and pulled on our heart strings.
Joanna MacGregor’s arrangement of ‘Mr Dowland’s Midnight’ brought us into the second half of the evening. Dowland, whose life spanned the 16th into the 17th centuries, is a favourite of mine. Known to be of a melancholy disposition, yet writing exquisite melodies for lute.
This was an unusual and flawless concert, typical of Artistic Director Joanna MacGregor’s imaginative programming for this season. She also compiles the programme notes, and one wonders if she ever gets any sleep! Thank you, Joanna, for this series of innovative concerts. We now look forward to the next one:
Sunday 7 December 2025; A Fairytale Christmas; Brighton Dome 2.45pm: including a fairytale accordion concerto and Ukrainian Christmas carols.
Tickets from £13, with selective concessions, researched at the back of the BPO concert season brochure.