Review: Orchestra of Opera North *****

At Huddersfield Town Hall

The Orchestra of Opera North and their music director Richard Farnes produced musicianship of the highest order in a programme of two

sustained and physically demanding works.

Brahms' Second Piano Concerto opened expansively and developed into an unhurried and lucid exposition of the composer's logics and emotions.

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Farnes opened out the orchestral inner parts so that passage work and harmonies not heard in most performances were crystal clear. The orchestra sounded more French than German – a welcome change and a timbre ideal for Brahms' mix of lyricism, anxiety, wit and occasional jollity.

Soloist Steven Osborne was the driving power of this remarkable performance – intense, restrained and taut against the more relaxed orchestra. This was Brahms for grown-ups, a mature reflection on life's uncertainties, warmths and wry circumstances rather than melodrama.

The compositional techniques of Brahms and Shostakovich are not that different, particularly the way they both build ongoing musical arguments.

Farnes allowed Shostakovich's Tenth Symphony to develop at its own pace and in its own way – the mark of a master musician when conducting the work of a genius. Conductor and orchestra reminded me of Paavo Berglund and his Bournemouth Orchestra of the 1970s – in my view, Britain's best Shostakovich interpreters – with a touch more warmth and articulation.

I can offer no greater praise.