A new concerto draws cheers in Liverpool: RLPO/Hindoyan reviewed

There was no printed programme for the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra’s first concert under its music director designate Domingo Hindoyan. Nothing to download either; just a piece of paper the size of a train ticket, handed out by a steward with a conspiratorial air, containing a bare listing of the pieces we were about to hear. Stravinsky, Ravel and Prokofiev: fair enough. Known quantities. But about the second item on the programme — the world première of a new Trombone Concerto by Dani Howard —there was no information at all beyond that all-or-nothing title.

All to the good, you might think: pure music and unprejudiced listening. There’s no such thing, of course. From the moment the performers walk on stage, you’re making assumptions about what to expect; in this case a work unafraid of the raw power of its soloist, the young trombone virtuoso Peter Moore, and ready to use every colour of a full symphony orchestra. Three movement titles (blink and you miss ’em) were projected on to the back wall of the Philharmonic Hall — ‘Realisation’, ‘Rumination’ and ‘Illumination’.

But then the first sounds strike the ear and the mind immediately tries to grasp something recognisable — to construct meaning. In truth, that usually means spotting influences — in this case, chugging rhythms on the strings, and sudden flashes of melody. So there’s your obligatory hint of John Adams (A Short Ride in a Fast Machine is surely the single most influential orchestral work of the late 20th century, at least in the Anglophone world). But someone else is present too, looming out of the rustling stands of neatly coppiced quavers in long brass notes that begin in near-silence and coalesce into huge banks of sound.