Dorset County Orchestra, Autumn Concert, Conductor and Soloist, Arturo Serna

                         
Inside the music

                             

This was an extraordinarily powerful experience, with the Dorset County Orchestra playing with passion, dynamism and obvious commitment, in the Dorford Centre, Dorchester. Congratulations to all the musicians!

Normally I wouldn’t choose to sit so close to a symphony orchestra - little more than a metre from the leader, Bärbel Glaser, and the soloist/conductor Arturo Serna (cello), but this proximity provided total immersion in multi-phonic surround sound, with close-up views of the brilliant and intense cello-playing in Joseph Haydn’s Cello Concerto No 2 in D major.

The sound was not too loud, the balance and instrumental clarity felt just right (sitting two rows further back would have made little difference, as there were only three semi-circular rows of seating available in this contemporary church hall/auditorium, because of the room’s layout and the space required by the orchestra).

Such a seating position might have diminished the overwhelming impact of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 in C minor (Opus 67), but it positively enhanced the excitement and drama of the work. It was an unforgettable participatory musical experience, involving the whole audience, as if we were all playing as members of the orchestra. 

The programme opened with Carl Maria Von Weber’s overture to Der Freischűtz.

An emperor couldn’t have asked for more.