Sinfonia Review London/Wilson/Cantoro – Pushing the Boundaries of the Well-Equipped Orchestral Instrument | classical music

HeyOnce upon a time, a young man from Gateshead went to London to study music, started his own orchestra and gained a reputation for outstanding performances of Hollywood musicals and symphonic jazz. A few decades later, John Wilson is still picking musicians and still delivering performances so polished that they leave critics searching for superlatives.

These days, Wilson’s main ensemble is the London Sinfonia, and he is as likely to lead the symphonic mainstream as show tunes. But after receiving the Conductor’s Award at the 2026 RPS Awards, and on stage in the Sinfonia of London’s official debut as Artistic Partner at the Gateshead venue, this local boy who made good remains an irrepressible artist.

This is partly due to programming. Strauss’s “Don Juan” is an explosion of symphonic excitement even without Wilson’s magic. As the opener for the London Sinfonia, its liveliness was raw, every detail brilliant – from the delicious oboe solo to the menacing drum snarl. In the bright, legitimate sound of Glasshouse, the climax was deafening.

Perhaps more controversial is the idea that Elgar’s Enigma Variations could also be given the bells-and-whistles treatment. There were stunningly quiet moments, of course: the faint whisper of strings, the solo woodwinds flowing gracefully like tea in china, and Nimrod at first so silent in the crowded hall that he seemed to have stopped breathing. But this was an extreme performance. For every pianissimo, there was a crescendo to full throttle intensity; For every fleeting moment of calm, variation is taken in with absurd speed, as Wilson pushes to the limits of his highly crafted orchestral instrument. That he reached the final, sweeping climax while turning to face the audience seemed entirely appropriate.

In between, Wilson largely ceded the spotlight to soloist Alexander Cantoro in Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3. Through complex and highly abrasive turns, Cantoro sometimes seemed to be wiping the keyboard, and his touch was impossible. Wilson did not match Cantoro’s quiet tenderness in the second movement nor his angular malevolence in the finale. Only the end saw the conductor once again display his tremendous instinct for musical momentum.