BBCNOW/Bancroft review – conductor takes final bow in imaginative programme of vivid colours and emotions

Hoddinott Hall, Cardiff
Works about infatuation and deep feeling were fitting choices with which the Ryan Bancroft bid a celebratory farewell to the BBC National Orchestra of Wales

Back in 2018, Ryan Bancroft jumped in as a last-minute replacement for a BBC National Orchestra of Wales tour. By September 2020, the US-born musician was principal conductor. In his six-year tenure, he has always been a vibrant and quietly forceful presence on the podium, amply demonstrated in this, his last Cardiff concert in the role.

He opened with Stravinsky’s Song of the Nightingale, the symphonic poem fashioned from music originally an opera and ultimately a ballet choreographed by Balanchine. Hans Christian Andersen’s story, set in imperial China, allowed Stravinsky to conjure exotic sounds, including gong and celeste. But it’s the poignancy of the emperor’s fate, symbolised by his infatuation first with a real nightingale – made suitably enchanting by Matthew Featherstone’s flute – who is then usurped in his affection by a mere mechanical version, that colours the score.