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Robert Matthew-- Walker congratulates Ross Pople and his Orchestra on their coming of age
The year 2001 sees the 21 st Anniversary of the formation of the London Festival Orchestra by the New Zealand-born cellist and conductor Ross Pople. The LFO's reputation has grown considerably in those 21 years and the Orchestra continues to expand and thrive on its strong basis, looking forward to an assured future.
Orchestras are founded for a variety of reasons and London, of all major capital cities, is not exactly short of them. However, apart from those orchestras which have come and gone since the War, those few which have lasted 21 years, growing in importance the while, must possess exceptional, not to say unique, qualities.
The London Festival Orchestra is such an orchestra. As with a number of musical organisations, its origins were unusual and virtually unplanned: in 1980 Ross Pople had been engaged to play several concertos in German Spa towns with an established English orchestra, but some weeks before the concerts were due to take place the orchestra had to withdraw. The German agent, Klaus Zoll, suggested that Pople might like to bring a newly formed ensemble instead; this was done, with Eli Goren leading, and highly complimentary reviews of the concerts in the Frankfurter Allgemeine led to a series of return engagements in Germany.
By 1982 the fledgling London Festival Orchestra, as it was soon named, had made its first disc for Hyperion, of four Mendelssohn String Symphonies. The success of this led to the LFO completing the series of 12 for Hyperion, and later discs included a winning set of Sir Malcolm Arnold's three Sinfoniettas with other of his works.
Nor...