Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra

Leeds Town Hall

JOSHUA Weilerstein tweets avidly and believes in communicating directly with his audience. The thirty-year-old American conductor informally set the scene for the evening’s programme which began with the canon and fugue - from Bach’s Art of Fugue. British composer George Benjamin’s transcription is scored for an intimate grouping of strings, plus two each of flutes and horns. The liveliness of the opening canon was sensitively captured while the slow movement was notable for gently plucked strings, reflective horn tones and the flute’s mournful counterpoint.

More players - though not yet the full orchestra - occupied their desks for Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A minor. Leeds International Piano Competition 2015 winner, Anna Tsybuleva, was making her second experience in this season’s concerts. Tsybuleva’s beguiling Mozartian delicacy in this concerto was perfectly complemented by the agility and lightness of the orchestral textures.

From nine musicians in the Bach canon and fugue to ninety for Mahler’s epic Symphony No 1 in D (the Titan), Joshua Weilerstein exploited the spatial qualities of the Town Hall by placing three of the six trumpets off stage. They answered the muted hunting calls of the eight onstage horns in Mahler’s vivid depiction of nature’s awakening. The mystery and wonderment of these soft opening passages ushered in a performance of vivid orchestral colours - from the rustic flavour of the folk dancing peasants and an elegant waltz theme, to the menacing irony of the third movement’s lumbering funeral march.

Wellerstein heightened the sense of theatre in the explosive finale by requiring the eight horns to stand up, raise the bell of their instruments - as Mahler had originally instructed - and play above the triumphal orchestral tumult. The Liverpool Phil’s electrifying performance was guaranteed to raise the audience temperature - all the better for braving the blizzard conditions awaiting us outside.

- Geoffrey Mogridge