Sir Colin Davis' relationship with the English Chamber Orchestra goes back a long way - he led their first tour and recording over forty-five years ago and was at the helm for their magnificent anniversary concert in 2005 - and his rapport with the ensemble is considerable. At its best, this concert demonstrated the intuitive musicality and instinctive emotional bond of their collaboration.
Programme-wise the concert was imaginative, juxtaposing two Mozart works in the first half with a Bach concerto and a neo-classical pastiche by Stravinsky in the second.
Mozart's sublime Symphony No. 33 in B flat major was a safe beginning. The first movement showcased the abilities of the exceptional bassoonist and horn player, characteristic of Colin Davis' focus on wind colours throughout the piece. He also brought out the witty trills that open each phrase of the development section, and the descending chromatic bass line during the dynamic climax was beautifully phrased. Warm and placid, the second movement was notable for the pair of oboes intermingling with sensitivity. The Minuet and Trio is one of Mozart's most inspired symphonic movements: two contrasting opening statements, an angular slurred figure and frequently shifting tonalities characterise a dance movement high on surprises, all of which the ECO and Davis revelled in; and the hilarious repeated triplets and staccato jokes of the tarantella-like finale, as well as the outstanding hunting horns, finished the piece with a flourish.
However, it has to be said that some of the work's invention was not brought out because Davis doesn't divide the violins into two sections either side of the stage, allowing passages where the first and second violins are playing contrasting lines to be clearly defined; and the strings' vibrato was at times both excessive and ill-coordinated, especially in the faster movements.
Mozart's Concerto No. 10 in E flat for two pianos, K.365, is a popular vehicle for star performers (I've heard it three times in the last year in London alone) that was originally written for Mozart and his sister Nannerl to play in Salzburg; later, he enlarged the orchestration for performances in Vienna. In this concert, another pair of siblings filled these illustrious shoes: the Istanbul-born twin sisters Guher and Suher Pekinel. In the event, it was a little strange that the pianos were placed in a parallel diagonal arrangement on the platform, so that there was no physical communication between the two; yet the seamless ease with which they passed the solo lines from one to another showed how closely connected they were emotionally. Guher gave the most technically proficient performance, while Suher made several mistakes in prominent passages; however, Suher's tone quality was more evocative of a fortepiano and was more suitable for the music than Guher's sometimes uneven touch.
Impressive though their flashy performance of the dashing arpeggios of the first movement was, the twins came into their own in the second. One of Mozart's ideas was particularly beautiful in their hands: one pianist plays a trill while the other plays a theme in thirds, and here their articulation was spot-on. Meanwhile, the jollity of the third movement was infectious; a shame that Suher made one or two serious slips, but their double cadenza was virtuosic perfection.
However, the highlight of the concert was their rendition of Bach's Concerto in C minor for two keyboards and strings, BWV.1062. Perhaps it's a musicological travesty to use pianos instead of harpsichords but the twins' performance was so technically brilliant that it didn't seem to matter. The piece is a reworking by the composer of his own more familiar earlier Concerto in D minor for two violins, BWV.1043, and it was fascinating to observe how inventively Bach elaborates the two violin lines into more densely-packed piano parts. The orchestra played superbly throughout both concerti, and, both spirited and manageable, Davis' tempi were finely judged.
The careful articulation and precision of the pianists' performance was extraordinary in the first movement. For the slow movement, they carefully made sure the melody always stood out while enacting careful dynamic shifts, and the third movement really wowed the crowd, the twins coping well with the texturally dense writing, frantic pace and closely matched melodic lines.
It was an early peak, however, in a concert that only went seriously downhill in the final piece. Stravinsky's Danses concertantes was the result both of the composer's increasing interest in neoclassicism and of his move to Hollywood, where the work was written in 1941-2. Although Stravinsky had considered writing it as a ballet - and it was later choreographed by Balanchine - the dance element of the piece has more to do with the stylistic procedures the composer followed (such as writing a March and a pas de deux) than in its dance-like quality. After all, the numbers flow from one to the other rapidly and the piece is far less starkly punctuated than The Rite of Spring or The Firebird.
This sense of flow was where Colin Davis surprisingly failed to deliver in this piece. Very often, he and the ECO seemed all at sea, as if both conductor and orchestra were sight reading. Without doubt, the witty discordance of the Introduction was vividly communicated, with excellent solos from the clarinet, trumpet and leader; sharp accents provided strong shocks and surprises, and the spikiness of the piece was captured.
But none of the reflective or sensuous elements were in place. Stravinsky intermingles pairs of solo instruments in the pas de deux, for instance, to symbolise a musical version of a dance duet, yet there wasn't enough focus in the playing or conducting to do justice to this surprisingly elusive work.
A shame to leave the worst till last - especially when what came before was often so inspired.