Review by Geoffrey Mogridge: Ilkley Philharmonic Orchestra, All Saints Church, Ilkley, Sunday 9th March 2025
Music by Mozart, Dvorak, Handel and Haydn attracted a near capacity audience to All Saints Church last Sunday afternoon. Mozart’s ‘Haffner’ Symphony No 35 in D - so named after the wealthy Salzburg merchant for whom it was composed - launched the Ilkley Philharmonic’s Spring concert. Conductor John Anderson captured the forward momentum of the outer movements and the elegance of the adagio in this crisp performance of one of Mozart’s most exuberant symphonies.
Sally Robinson, leader of the Ilkley Philharmonic, then stepped forward as the soloist in the lovely Romance in F minor for violin and orchestra by Antonin Dvorak. This is quite short - just fifteen minutes of emotionally intense music. The Romance was filled with sweetness of tone by all sections of the Ilkley Philharmonic: an enchanting backdrop for Robinson’s soaring solo line and yearning phrasing.
After the interval came a Suite from Handel’s Water Music arr Hamilton Harty. The most remarkable thing about this music is a dramatic entrance for the horns - at the time, their first use in an English orchestra.
Sunday’s concert ended with Joseph Haydn’s exhilarating and rapturous Symphony No 99 in E flat - the 7th of the twelve ‘London’ symphonies composed by Haydn between 1791 and 1795 and which unleashed a louder, bolder and more intensely dramatic sound.
Gone are the more sedate qualities of Haydn’s earlier symphonies written for the Court of Prince Esterházy. Symphony No 99 was premiered at the Hanover Square Rooms in London, on 10th February 1794 and directed by the composer who was seated at a forte piano. The instrumentation comprises two each of flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, horns and trumpets, plus timpani and strings. Haydn uses clarinets for the first time in No 99. This broadens the spectrum of woodwind tone colours and suggests the influence of Mozart.
London’s Morning Chronicle review of the premiere stated: “This is one of the grandest efforts of the art that we have ever witnessed. It abounds with ideas, as new in music as they are grand and impressive; it rouses and affects every emotion of the soul”. Ilkley Philharmonic Orchestra’s finely judged performance of this great symphony, conducted by John Anderson, evidently vindicated that 1794 review. The warmth of audience response at All Saints Church last Sunday afternoon said it all.