The London Symphony Orchestra likes to call itself a global orchestra, rather than a British one. In fact this is the one orchestra entitled to call itself intergalactic. The LSO’s calling card from Beijing to Seoul, from Taipei to Mumbai — where I caught up with the group at the end of its breakneck Asian tour — is the suite to John Williams’s score for Star Wars. The orchestra recorded the music for all six Star Wars films and it’s a piece that they are entitled to lay claim to.
For one thing they play it with irresistible fervour. Secondly, Daniel Harding, the conductor on this tour, is, as one of the LSO players whispers to me, “basically just a big kid”.
In Mumbai,