LPO/Gardner review – Mark Simpson’s piano concerto leaves its audience panting
The London Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Edward Gardner, gave the world premiere of Mark Simpson’s Piano Concerto at the Royal Festival Hall, with Tamara Stefanovich as soloist. The review describes a forceful, demanding work that sustains high energy for around half an hour and leaves the audience “panting”.
Simpson’s concerto pairs virtuosic piano writing with dense orchestral sound, at times making the soloist hard to hear before the piano breaks through in a scherzo with tuned percussion. The finale adds a brief introspective strain before returning to extreme registers and athletic demands; Stefanovich met them assertively, while the orchestra mostly kept up. The programme also included Dorothy Howell’s *Lamia* and Stravinsky’s *The Firebird*, whose performance the reviewer found short on tension, precision and colour.
In short
- Mark Simpson’s new concerto premiered in London.
- Tamara Stefanovich tackled its relentless, high-energy demands.
- The reviewer found *The Firebird* lacking in colour and precision.
Explained simply
A piano concerto is a piece for solo piano and orchestra, usually giving the pianist passages that stand out against the larger ensemble. Composers can balance the two in different ways, from clear exchanges to a dense combined sound.
Mark Simpson is a British composer, and Tamara Stefanovich is the pianist in this performance. Edward Gardner conducts the London Philharmonic Orchestra, a professional orchestra based in London; the Royal Festival Hall is a major concert venue on the South Bank.
The programme also places Simpson’s new work alongside music by Dorothy Howell and Igor Stravinsky. Howell’s Lamia and Stravinsky’s The Firebird offer different orchestral settings, giving listeners a point of comparison for the concerto’s sound and demands.