BBC SO/de Souza by Canat De Chizy, Vaughan Williams, Berlioz, Fra (2022/2022), Dirigent Jordan de Souza, Barbican Centre, London, United Kingdom

Much talked-about Canadian conductor Jordan de Souza makes his UK concert debut in music devilishly enjoyable, wickedly entertaining and frantically unpredictable. When Hector Berlioz saw a performance of Shakespeare’s Hamlet featuring an Irish actress named Harriet Smithson as Ophelia, he fell head over heels in love and found his calling in life. In his Symphonie fantastique, Berlioz set out to prove that love while writing a manifesto for French music based on passion, humour, spirit and pride. But Berlioz’s captivating symphonic story would be remembered just as much for its compelling debauchery and torment. Jordan de Souza brings with him a premonition of Berlioz’s own Witch’s Sabbath in the form of Edith Canat de Chizy’s new work Omen, and has both Noriko Ogawa and Kathryn Stott for company in Vaughan Williams’s rarely heard and consistently surprising Concerto for Two Pianos.