Trafalgar Day Concert, Brighton Philharmonic Orchestra, Barry Wordsworth (conductor)

The BPO’s season began with a splendid celebration of Trafalgar Day. Ninety-six voices from the Brighton Festival Chorus gave Haydn’s majestic ‘Nelson Mass’ a convincing Victorian grandeur, and what a treat to hear Michael George who stepped in as bass soloist, on very short notice.

Barry Wordsworth enticed wonderful effects from the BPO throughout Elgar’s ‘Sea Pictures’, responding so attentively to Elizabeth Sikora’s mellow contralto voice. Henry Wood’s ‘Fantasia on British Sea Songs’ gave the orchestral soloists (and conductor) even more opportunities to shine and joke as true virtuosos, climaxing with everyone singing Barry’s triumphant new setting of ‘Rule Britannia’!

Concert Hall, Brighton Dome, 21 October 2012

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