Review: Liverpool String Academy at the Tung Auditorium ****

It was the Liverpool String Academy’s inaugural concert at the city’s Tung Auditorium – but if there were any nerves among its youthful members, they certainly weren’t visible in what proved to be an accomplished and hugely impressive performance.

Run by Early Music as Education (EMAE), a charity which basically does what it says on the tin by providing specialist music education for young people – irrespective of background or training – across Merseyside, Liverpool String Academy offers the opportunity to learn violin, viola, cello or double bass (along with associated life skills) with an emphasis on the performance of the Baroque and early Classical period.

Imagine something a little like ‘In Harmony’ but which concentrates on the inventive chamber music world of what is described as the ‘long 18^th Century’ from Corelli to Schubert.

Both the Academy’s main orchestra, and its intermediate ensemble, were given a chance to shine in this pre-Easter programme of Baroque pieces – and shine they most certainly did.

Each section was headed by an EMAE tutor or a visiting professional, offering a reassuring presence and the lightest of guiding hands, while Royal Northern piano professor and Fellow in Historical Performance Harvey Davies underpinned the strings on harpsichord.

Meanwhile for this special occasion, the LSA had co-opted none other than the RLPO’s leader Thelma Handy to act as director and soloist, offering warm encouragement and fostering a collegial sense of endeavour.

And in an additional coup, the programme also boasted what might well be the first performance in 300 years of a concerto for violin and strings by the little-known Swiss violinist-composer Johann Freidrich Schreivogel, in a special new edit by musicologist and composer Michael Talbot.

Above and top: Members of Liverpool String Academy Orchestra in rehearsal for the concert at the Tung Auditorium. Photos courtesy of EMAE.

So, a lot to appreciate and enjoy in a performance which proved to be both technically and tonally accomplished. There were occasions, for example during the adagio second movement of Corelli’s Concerto Grosso in D major, where closing your eyes you could imagine you were listening to a professional recording.

The piece, coming after the interval, was also notable for the clarity and purpose of its vibrant opening allegro as well as an invigorating finale.

Youngsters from the intermediate music making group joined the main orchestra after the interval to showcase their own nascent musical talent in a series of short pieces by Louis XIV’s court composer Jean-Baptiste Lully, including an atmospheric and sumptuous ‘second air’, all taken from the score Lully wrote for Moliere’s ‘comedy-ballet’ Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme.

The programme also included a joyous and pacy performance of Vivaldi’s Concerto in A major for strings and basso continuo, and two of Handel’s 12 Concerti Grossi – the young players offering cheery effervescence in the three allegro sections of op.6, juxtaposed by a tender adagio that included some exquisite trio work by Handy, Marino Capulli (leading the second violins) and Lizzie Elliott on cello.

Addressing the audience during a brief hiatus to re-organise the groupings on stage, Thelma Handy described playing with the young musicians as “an enormous privilege” and their standard as “incredible – way above any expectation I had when I started this.”

High praise indeed, but on the evidence of this concert, completely deserved.