By turns illuminating & compelling: the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra on terrific form in Britten & Vaughan Williams at the BBC Proms

Britten: Violin Concerto - Simone Lamsma, Andrew Manze, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic - BBC Proms (Photo: BBC/ Chris Christodoulou)

Vaughan Williams: Fantasia on a theme of Thomas Tallis, Britten: Violin Concerto, Carmel Smickersgill: A Brick Thrown with Love, Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 9; Simone Lamsma, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Andrew Manze; BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall
Reviewed 4 September 2026

From early Britten and Vaughan Williams through to RVW's last symphonic utterance, an evening that was by turns illuminating and compelling, with the RLPO on terrific form and a finely focused yet emotional solo from Simone Lamsma in the Britten

In 1938, Ralph Vaughan Williams (then aged 66) began writing his fifth symphony whilst in the USA, Benjamin Britten (then aged 25) was beginning his Violin Concerto. Britten's concerto would be premiered in 1940, whilst Vaughan Williams's symphony premiered in 1943. But the senior composer showed no sign of slowing down, and his symphonies continued right through to the Symphony No. 9 which he composed during 1956/57, and it premiered in 1958 when he was 86.

It was this fascinating confluence that was at the heart of Andrew Manze and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra's BBC Prom at the Royal Albert Hall on Friday 4 September 2026. They began with Vaughan Williams's Tallis Fantasia, then came Britten's Violin Concerto with soloist Simone Lamsma, the premiere of Carmel Smickersgill's A Brick Thrown with Love and finally Vaughan Williams's Symphony No. 9 in E minor. Another link in the programme is that both the concerto and the symphony conclude with a passacaglia.

When it comes to Vaughan Williams's output, his Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis which premiered at the Three Choirs Festival in Gloucester in 1910 is very much an early work even though the composer was then in his late 30s. Something of a late starter, the piece is his first major work that is unquestionably his. It is hard to regard the work as revolutionary now, but in 1910 after the premiere the young composers Herbert Howells and Ivor Gurney were so shaken by the piece they spent the night roaming the streets of Gloucester talking about it.

Andrew Manze, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic - BBC Proms (Photo: BBC/ Chris Christodoulou)

The Royal Albert Hall certainly is not Gloucester Cathedral so we lacked that building's distinctive ambience. But Manze presented the work using the same large body of strings that he used for the Britten and the Vaughan Williams symphony. The result was an opening that was lush yet barely there, leading to a big tune with a fine sense of rubato and orchestral tuttis that were full of rich details. The nine players in Orchestra II (placed behind the main body of strings) seemed to be performing with minimum vibrato, to striking effect, and the solo quartet produced some sweet violin and mellow viola sounds. The ending, when it came, was wonderfully effective and the fine string sound only lacked that extra glow from Gloucester Cathedral's acoustic.

Britten's Violin Concerto was premiered in New York (where the composer was living) with John Barbirolli and the Spanish violinist Antonio Brosa. In a touch which must resonate with modern orchestras, Brosa only just made it to the performance as he had been detained at Ellis Island as a 'doubtful visitor'. Brosa seems to have always been the planned soloist in the work, he and Britten had performed Britten's Suite for violin and piano in Barcelona a few years earlier. The strong rhythms of the concerto can be seen as Spanish, and it seems likely the work was conceived as a lament for those who died in the Spanish Civil War. Though this aspect of the work did not seem to be at the forefront of Manze and Lamsma's performance. She has been playing the piece for decades, having won the 2004 Britten International Violin Competition with it in 2004.

At the opening, Manze brought out the strong rhythms and major/minor conflict in the piece, over this Lamsma spun a lovely singing line, her slim, elegant tone making it almost haunting. Throughout the movement, you were conscious of Manze bringing out the darkness underneath the work with edgy and vivid moments from the orchestra allied to Lamsma really digging in at times. However, when the main tune returned in the orchestra, with the soloist's strummed accompaniment, the music almost swayed like a dance. The second movement was all engaging rhythms and strong textures, recalling Shostakovich's more sardonic pieces, and Lamsma followed this lead. The sardonic edge was muted at times, but returned in time for the furious climax that led to the cadenza. Here, the references to material from the first movement were given a strong edge by Lamsma. The trombones bringing in the opening material of the passacaglia final movement before Lamsma's violin had finished the cadenza gave it a disturbing element. The orchestra's contribution was sustained and intense, gradually twisting the harmonic screw. Lamsma's first entry in the movement had a strange, disturbed echo of Vaughan Williams's lark to it, though her solo line became intense and urgent. Moments were surprisingly quiet and tender, and at one point the orchestra was almost swaying. The final orchestral tutti presented the passacaglia in all its glory before Lamsma's intense final solo, powerful yet somehow uncertain. A remarkable triumph.

Carmel Smickersgill acknowledging applause after the premiere of A Brick Thrown with Love
BBC Proms (Photo: BBC/ Chris Christodoulou)

Carmel Smickersgill has a long relationship with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, having won their Rushworth Composition Prize in 2018 and then writing for the orchestra's Ensemble 10/10 the following year. Her A Brick Thrown with Love has distinct didactic philosophical element to it, the work explores the contrast between intention and action, in this case a brick being thrown. In three movements, The Why tries to introduce the disturbing element of that thrown brick, in this case a perky clarinet motif which developed into vivid chaos in the orchestra. Though Smickersgill's writing was perhaps not quite disturbing enough to damage. Construction, Compassion, Community, Consequence drew a large-scale construction out of dispersed fragments, the music being multilayered becoming more intricate and gradually faster. The final movement The Voice that Says 'DO IT' was fast and furious to a vivid end.

I was not really sure about the didactic philosophical element to the work, and for me this did not really come over. Would we have been better not knowing the substructure of the work? What is undoubtedly true was that Smickersgill has a talent for writing for large orchestra (essentially the same as for the Vaughan Williams symphony). She likes multi-layered textures, each going at different speeds and with different rhythms. Here the results were highly effective and crowd-pleasing.

When Vaughan Williams's Symphony No. 9 premiered at the Royal Festival Hall with Malcolm Sargent conducting the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra the critical response was rather cool. The composer's commented that "I don't think they can quite forgive me for being able still to do it at my age" (he was 86). Yet in August that year, when Sargent conducted it at the Proms the response to the composer's appearance on the platform was overwhelming. That was his last public appearance and he died three weeks later.

The symphony continues the composer's late career fascinating with unusual timbres - concertos for harmonica, tuba, and the large percussion section ("all the 'phones and 'spiels known to the composer") for the Eighth Symphony. For the ninth, he returns to the saxophone (there are solo saxes in the Sixth Symphony and the ballet, Job) but here there is a trio of them, and a flugelhorn. The sound of the three saxophones oozing out of the orchestral textures is an important colour throughout the symphony.

The opening here was highly atmospheric, the ominous held E in the orchestra and the saxophones almost emulating Job's comforters (from the sax in the ballet from 1930) to create something rather disturbing. Manze's approach was very much full on, the tutti urgent and uncompromising, yet the more tender, lyrical moments had a backwards looking feel, evoking the composer's earlier pastoral style. The solo violin also returned us to the pastoral idyll except here, Thelma Hardy was duetting with Tom Fountain's flugelhorn. This instrument opened the second movement, alongside a threatening bass section in the orchestra. The tuttis were rhythmically intense, but the flugelhorn solo was never far away. Whilst there were consoling strings, the ominous music was present too, the result tonally restless and yet ending with flugelhorn alone. There are hints that Vaughan Williams might have had Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles in mind when writing first the symphony, and certainly Manze brought out the sense that the second movement had an unwritten narrative underneath. The third movement had a sharp edge to the opening, the rather satirical sound of the three saxophones again evoking Job. There was also a distinct sense of the dance, the music becoming more intense (and less satirical). Violence returned only for the textures to thin and at the end, just the three saxophones presaging a different harmonic world. Ursula Vaughan Williams wrote of this moment, "I thought, well, that is the end of Ralph's life and I can see a turning point. It is leading out into another place."

Andrew Manze, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic - BBC Proms (Photo: BBC/ Chris Christodoulou)

This was not the most obviously crowd-pleasing of concerts and Vaughan Williams's Symphony No. 9 has not always been as highly regarded as the other symphonies, but the hall seemed very full indeed (more so than for Glyndebourne's Ariadne auf Naxos).

The concert is on BBC Sounds for 37 days 

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