Coming the day after an uninspiring Barbican appearance by the English Chamber Orchestra, this equally sparsely attended concert by the Academy of St Martin in the Fields raised similar questions. Thirty years ago small ensembles were part of the nation's backbone. But the explosion of period-instrument bands usurped their bread-and-butter repertoire and, while they still fill an important touring role, groups such as the ASMF are having to find a new niche.
If the ECO's all-Mozart programme had been a reminder of why change is needed, the ASMF offered a better solution in continuing to lean towards 20th-century repertoire. And 21st-century, too: the Serbian composer Isidora Zebeljan conducted the premiere of her new work, The Minstrel's Dance. The titles of its three movements suggest a story, but no explanation was given. Still, it didn't take much imagination for In the Inn, with its grumbling oboe and interrupted swinging rhythms, to conjure up pictures of Hollywood-style medieval carousing.
Those rhythms, slower and more elusive, featured again in the second movement, Dance for the Dead. More evocative than the finale, In the Field, with a surfeit of percussion whoops and some Bernstein-style razzy trumpet, this movement returned to the jubilant atmosphere of the start, although a claustrophobic feeling prevailed. Zebeljan's writing is confident and, bar the odd issue of balance, well-crafted, but the pictorial idiom of this score would have lent itself better to film music.
Apart from this, mid-20th-century repertoire reigned, efficiently directed from the leader's chair by Kenneth Sillito. Not enough was made of the melodic elements in Stravinsky's neo-classical Dumbarton Oaks, though it had plenty of momentum.The most successful pieces involved only the strings, 20 players squeezed on to the tiny platform. Bartok's Divertimento rounded off the evening with a stomp, but Britten's Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge had been even better, opening the concert in thrillingly full-bodied sound: a vivid, polished and stylish account of a tricky piece.
