Richard Bratby

White-knuckle ride

Plus: at Bridgewater Hall sculpted grandeur and sensitivity from Mark Elder conducting the Hallé and BBC Philharmonic in Gurrelieder

Playing in an orchestra that disintegrates mid-concert is not an experience you forget. One moment everything’s motoring along nicely. Suddenly a harmony doesn’t quite fit, the soloist enters on the wrong beat: it doesn’t matter, because before you can work out what to do next the confusion spreads, the conductor signals frantically and with a pit-of-the-stomach lurch the floor drops out of the music and you’re all sat there facing the audience amid the one sound that no one present has paid to hear: mortified silence.

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