Summer concert...

Review by Louise Dumas

4th July, 2026

St Mary's Church, Horsham

Conductors: Steve Dummer
Leader: Rachel Ellis

Sibelius Symphony No.6

Rimsky-Korsakov Sheherazade

Montague Introit St John's

Stephen Montague provided the perfect overture to an evening of nationalist music, the familiar and the much less well known.  His Introit St. John’s, written just ten years ago for an academic anniversary, has been expanded and adapted for both institutional and personal use -  tonight’s version was for his own 80th birthday concert in 2023.  It is stirring stuff:  traditional brass fanfaring develops nicely into some stridently scrunching harmonies before going completely off the rails and exploding into a cacophony of earsplitting sound, much enjoyed by orchestra and audience alike.  Tom Sangster, student conductor, led the charge with youthful enthusiasm and grown-up talent, aware that the composer, Stephen Montague himself was among the listeners in a packed St Mary’s church.

In contrast to Scheherazade, music which is very much about something, Sibelius Symphony No. 6, is often described as abstract. It features short motifs with terse, often scalic, development and few obvious melodic lines: it has  attracted labels such as Bardic, postromantic, anachronistic and it is not often performed today.  It might be possible to imagine the shimmering sounds as the wind in Finnish forests and the overall serenity as a reflection of country peace, but strong imagination is required.  Only in the final Allegro did musical drama reach a familiar rhetoric before subsiding once again into tranquillity.  I suspect that real pleasure in this music comes from better acquaintance with it: here, the orchestra have the advantage, and played it from their hearts. Added benefit comes from the performance of a masterpiece for which most of us have few points of comparison.  Who knows if the LSO or the Berlin Philharmonic could have played it better?  Steve Dummer has a personal affinity with Sibelius, who has frequently featured in the HSO repertoire, and future symphonies are planned.

Scheherazade, Rimsky Korsakov’s fantastic evocation of the Arabian Nights is a masterpiece of orchestral colour and picture painting in music. Characters are given themes – the solo violin is Scheherazade herself – and there is never much doubt about the events portrayed, from storms to shipwrecks to love.  This marvellous suite is an orchestral tour de force, just as much as the tales themselves. Rachel Ellis, as Scheherazade, has brilliant solo passages as well as difficult tutti: there are wondrous solos from flute/ piccolo Rachel Sherlock, Ruth Binns and Claire O’Brien, oboe/cor anglais from Clare Thornton Wood with Rebecca Goffey  and Adrian Murrell, cello.  Steve Dummer achieves miracles of dynamic contrast and sharply pointed phrasing in a composition that never fails to delight and enchant.

It’s always difficult to think of the Horsham Symphony Orchestra as anything other than a professional ensemble: the standard of performance, musicianship and repertoire are as high as any.  Amateur, strictly speaking, means playing for love and they do that, too.