There is a moment in every music competition where you simply stop paying attention to specifics of tempi, intonation and dynamics and simply listen. It is when the hairs on your skin stand up. To get one performer who can do that is a sure sign of someone who can make the transition from talent to esteemed professional. To get two performers... well, we should give thanks for how lucky we are and envy the judges who have to make such an invidious decision.
This is not a slight on the musicality of Jess Gillam, Nick Seymour and Hannah Foster. Hannah Foster was a very good advocate for the music of Frank Martin. Jess Gillam has an intuitive understanding about dynamics and can play very quietly. Nick Seymour has an engaging musical personality.
The boldness of Sophie Westbrooke's approach to the repertoire could be seen from the piece she chose to open her programme. Hirose's Meditation is a contemporary piece and yet sounds much older. Shakahuchi sounds give way to Medieval melodies in the Lamento di Tristano and La rotta della Manfredina. It was in the negotiation of the transition from the melancholic Lamento to the fast La rotta that Sophie came into her own and showed off the recorder as an instrument that can create drama. She handled the transition from the Medieval to the Baroque seamlessly. It is not easy to deal with the double tonguing in the Castello but she handled it deftly. David Gordon's mellow recomposition of a CPE Bach melody rounded off a magnificent programme.
Daniel Shao gave an equally compelling performance. Just as Westbrooke could lead an ensemble performance, so could Shao in the Telemann (ably accompanied by Daniel King-Smith and Ruth Hallows). While playing the piccolo in Nunn's Sprite Shao could really show off the leaps and jumps. Dutilleux's Sonatine gave Shao full scope to explore the colours and timbres inherent in the piece. To take an audience into the world of contemporary repertoire and show the emotion and character inherent in the pieces is a huge achievment.
Sophie Westbrooke and Daniel Shao were technically flawless and really inhabited the musical worlds of their pieces. They both took risks with the repertoire and covered the entire pitch range of their instruments. Any judge would have had a very difficult decision to make. In an ideal world both of them would go through. The quality that ran throughout Westbrooke's performance was seamlessness. It is a cliche to say that she expanded the scope of what a recorder could do but what she did throughout was create a sense of drama and anticipation. Add to that the superb accompaniment of David Gordon and Carl Herring and here was a performance that showed that the recorder can really hold its own in ensemble playing.
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