Ulster Orchestra ends its season with Shostakovich and Sir William Walton

Perhaps Walton’s most famous work is the stirring march Crown Imperial, commissioned for the 1937 Coronation of King George VI, but Friday’s double bill of his sparkling overture Portsmouth Point and his much weightier Cello Concerto revealed the range of this extremely talented composer.

The Ulster Orchestra under the direction of the top-ranked conductor Dinis Sousa started with style and great musicality in the overture while the performance of the Cello Concerto was a triumph with the virtuoso Nicholas Altstaedt playing with such a rich tone, and the skilful but not overpowering backing from the large Orchestra.

I first heard the Shostakovich Fifth Symphony “live “in London years ago. I thought then that it was stunning, even though a noted national newspaper music critic noted sourly that it was rather coarse. Years later he changed his mind and I felt like writing to inform him “ I could have told you so.”

This Symphony is a masterpiece, yet it has been mired in controversy as to whether or not the composer, in fear of his life in Stalinist Russia, was cleverly sending a hidden and defiant message to his political enemies.

Shostakovich was pleased that one reviewer described his Symphony as “a Soviet artist’s no-nonsense response to unfair criticism”, but he was wise enough not to take on Stalin himself, whose dark ghost still hangs over the Russia of the brutal Putin today.

From the first bars of the Symphony on Friday there were hints that this was going to be something special, and so it was.

Under the inspired direction of maestro Sousa there was concentration on every note, with excellent soloists and an overall ensemble showing inspired teamwork and a real feel for this remarkable music, in which the haunting Largo and thunderously brisk yet moving Finale were particularly impressive.

There was a special atmosphere with every member of the capacity audience listening intently to each bar in total silence, during one of the most memorable performances of the entire Season and there have been several of those.

All in all it was an impressive way to end any Season, and here’s to 2025-2026 which begins in on September 26 with inter alia Stravinsky’s 1945 version of “The Firebird.”