Tenby Arts Festival's opening concert was given on Saturday evening in the De Valence Pavilion by the Cardiff Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Michael Bell. The concert was generously sponsored by Texaco.
The orchestra was founded almost 20 years ago and enjoys a great following throughout South Wales and the West Country.
They opened with a rather somnambulistic performance of the waltz from the Sleeping Beauty by Tchaikovsky, but very quickly woke up to give a rich and measured account of two delightful movements from the suite 'Three Ladies' by Professor Ian Parvott: 'Sarabande' - a love song for strings alone, based on a Welsh melody collected during the First World War by a professor of Botany at UCW Aberystwyth, and 'Gavotte' derived from 'Welsh Dance Tunes' by Hugh Mellor.
Warming to their task, the orchestra next gave the symphonic poem 'Don Juan' Op. 20 by Richard Strauss, with its bright range of tone colours and contrasts. They made full use of all sections - sensitive woodwind playing, warm string tone and really dynamic percussion and brass.
After the interval, the audience fastened their seat-belts for the five-movement suite from 'Spartacus' by Khatchaturian, which was the music he composed for the film, and a whirlwind of a suite it is.
Brass features strongly here, but the trumpets were a mite strident over and above the exemplary playing by the rest of the brass section.
The fourth movement contained strong echoes of the persistent rhythms of Ravel's 'Bolero' anchored relentlessly by the double basses.
Finally, the 'Dance of the Gladiators' ended incisively in triumph for the orchestra who were drumming their feet in applause for the conductor, and leaving a very happy audience thirsting for more.
A good start to the 10th Tenby Arts Festival.
A. R. D.