By ’eck, petal, it’s gorgeous

The opening of Mark Simpson’s new Cello Concerto is pure Hollywood. A fanfare in the low brass, an upwards rush and suddenly the screen floods with lush orchestral sound — as confident in its onward sweep as Star Wars or ‘Tara’s Theme’. Waiting, poised, in the middle of it all was the soloist Leonard Elschenbroich, for whom Simpson has said that he wanted to write a concerto that celebrated the cello’s ‘expressive and lyrical force’. He has, too. From the instant Elschenbroich entered, it felt right. The cello soared over a chiming marimba, like in Walton’s Cello Concerto. It lingered over its farewells, like in Elgar’s. And it rocketed headfirst into the orchestra, like the bit in Dvorak’s concerto where, in The Witches of Eastwick, Susan Sarandon’s cello bursts into flames.

Who could resist all that? Some of the concerto’s impact comes from Simpson’s decision to cast it in a traditional three-movement layout.