Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra

Royal Albert Hall, October 23 2017

Fantasia is such an epochal piece of cinema that it would be tremendously easy to soft pedal a show like this. The Nutcracker Suite, Dance of the Hours and Sorcerer’s Apprentice are all iconic Disney moments and building the show around those three in particular would be an easy win.

Instead, the Royal Philharmonic, conducted by Jessica Cottis, opted for something far more fun. The show mixed Fantasia and Fantasia 2000 and took the audience on a sprint through some of the most beautiful pieces of music, and animation, in the history of both media.

Opening with ‘Symphony No. 5 (First Movement)’ and the abstract butterflies and bats of Fantasia 2000‘s opening sequence, the show set its stall out early. The orchestra were crisp, strong and the string section in particular did incredible work here.

From here, the show jumped to two of the most recognizable pieces from the original movie, Beethoven’s ‘The Pastoral Symphony’ and the entirety of Tchaikovsky’s ‘The Nutcracker Suite’. These are heavyweight pieces of music and animation and the orchestra approached both with real energy and wit. I especially liked how strongly the tempo joke on Bacchus’ theme landed. Each note hit but he got faster and faster as the piece continued. Subtle, funny and hard to do.

Brilliantly, they also performed ‘Clair De Lune’. The sequence, a gentle, pastoral moment featuring two herons, was deleted from the original movie but it served as a perfect break here. It’s gentle rather than intense, studied and graceful rather than dynamic.

And its presence turned out to be needed. The first half finished with the Firebird Suite-1919 Version’. This is one of the moments in the two films where music and imagery perfectly combine. The film – the story of a sprite, her companion an elk and the volcanic eruption they accidentally cause – is as heart-breaking as it is beautiful. The emotion of both the music and the images is overpowering and it’s easy for an orchestra to get swept up in that. Cottis kept everyone on point, made sure every note hit and closed the first half on a cathartic, profoundly moving high point.

The second half was when the genius of the programming really became clear. By attacking the emotionally complex material first, it essentially took an ‘eat your vegetables first’ approach that meant the entire second half was fast, light hearted and fun. It opened with Ponchiellii’s glorious ‘Dance of the Hours’ and the ostriches, hippos, elephants and alligators putting on the greatest dance number in animated movie history. The music was light on its feet, and as witty and sly as the animation throughout.

We went from there to ‘The Sorcerer’s Apprentice’. I’m not a Mickey fan at all but the orchestra did a fantastic jump of the piece’s wonderful, driving, jovially sinister beat.

That meaty, muscular sound was further evident in ‘Pomp and Circumstance Marches 1, 2, 3 and 4’. The story of Donald and Daisy Duck helping Noah evacuate the animals before the flood, it’s fast, very funny, looks beautiful and is really sweet. Better still, the orchestra struck a good balance between the British and American paces for the piece and it was a highlight of the night.

The big finish was ‘Pines of Rome’ by Respighi. That choice says a lot about how clever, and welcoming, the show was. The animation, featuring flying whales, is as beautiful as it is sweet and the music (bolstered by even more brass than usual) had real emotional punch to it. This is massive, hopeful music set to massive, hopeful images shot through with delicacy and love. It’s an amazing piece of music, an amazing piece of animation and a wonderful way to end the show.

Except for the encore of course…

My favourite pieces of classical music are Holst’s ‘The Planets’ suite and Saint-Saens’ ‘Carnival of the Animals’. The finale of that is a short, gloriously frenetic piece of music that’s clearly as much fun to play as it is to listen to. The animation asks the question: ”What would happen if you gave a yo-yo to a flock of flamingos?’

The answer is comedy and musical gold. And an amazing way to wrap up an amazing show.

Verdict: Beautiful movies, set to beautiful music played and conducted by the best musicians in the world. Art you can dance to and music you can watch. It doesn’t get better than this. 10/10

Alasdair Stuart