Afiaith: Crossing Borders, Welsh National Opera Orchestra (WNO)

Exuberantly joyful, we zipped between Smetana’s Overture from The Bartered Bride to the emotionally epic with Beethoven’s Violin Concerto in D Major Opus 61, across a musical Central Europe.

Having said that, the best was saved until last with Schumann as you’ve never heard him before. No piano! Instead we roared through his complex, romantic, exploding with sentiment as the orchestra fiddled for their lives — and the timpani had a marvellously bombastic time. Best of all was watching conductor Tomáš Hanus at work keeping everyone to time and tempo — he waltzed, he bounced, he made Jedi moves with a baton. And these were all much needed because the temp shifted abruptly veering from fast to sprinting in the blink of an eye. It was sensational, such an unusual piece involving Schumann doing grand romantic sentimental sublime Beethoven movements rather than the silky intimate piano pieces he’s famous for today. Steam and flames were surely pouring off the WNO at the end as they’d put in superb effort — and won with Schumann’s Symphony No 4 in D Minor Opus 120!

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