BPO/Petrenko - Elgar and Tchaikovsky, 2 September 2026

Royal Albert Hall

Elgar: Variations on an Original Theme, ‘Enigma’, op.36
Tchaikovsky: Symphony no.4 in F minor, op.36

Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra

Kirill Petrenko (conductor)

Images: Berliner Philharmoniker/Lena Laine

Elgar and Tchaikovsky are not exactly strange bed-fellows, but nor are they frequently programmed together. Their harmonic and, in some cases, melodic worlds have more than some might suspect in common—and can be nudged further in that direction in performance, as I think probably happened here, from Kirill Petrenko and the Berlin Philharmonic. Indeed, in a decidedly un-English performance, the theme of the Enigma Variations already danced a little closer to St Petersburg than I have previously heard. It only struck me afterwards that both works on the programme, that and Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony, were their respective composer’s op.36. It would seem a strange reason to programme the two works together, but it would also seem a strange coincidence. Maybe Petrenko first thought of them on that account and pursued the idea further to the extent of recognising the combination might work. 

First, I should state that I stand warmly in favour of celebrating Elgar as a great European rather than ‘English’ composer. We need not rehearse here his musical antecedents, Richard Strauss’s praise, and the rest: they are by now common currency, though perhaps more in criticism and musicology than in performance. I cannot recall hearing Elgar from this Petrenko before, though I have done so from his namesake Vasily and been greatly impressed. Perhaps more to the point, I have heard Daniel Barenboim and another great Berlin orchestra, the Staatskapelle, more than once in this music, and raved. There was much to admire in this performance, not least the ever-outstanding playing of the Berlin Philharmonic, not to mention the still-too-rare opportunity to hear it play Elgar. There is a ‘but’ coming, as you may have sensed, yet I should like first to attend to the positive, often highly so, side of the ledger. From the outset, this was warmly expressive, cultivated playing which yet never curdled into narcissism. Petrenko clearly had his own ideas about the score and knew very well how to pursue them with his players. Every variation had sharply etched character, had seemingly been approached anew, developed within, and often offered contrast with its predecessor and successor. I shall not list them all, but a good-natured ‘R.P.A.’, in which we reheard Mendelssohn through Brahms, exquisite solo viola-playing in ‘Ysobel’, and a truly rollercoaster ‘Troyte’, propelled by wondrous timpani, more Berlioz than Brahms, were three that lay at the heart. A flighty ‘Dorabella’ had one hear the music newly, as did a ‘Nimrod’ that unfolded with the most natural, warm Romanticism one could imagine. There were some variations, however, that to my ears and sensibility felt driven too hard: perhaps most of all a ‘B.G.N.’ that came dangerously close to a mere showpiece. There was some of that to the finale too, though I greatly appreciated the way Petrenko had its opening somehow sound and feel as if it were the final movement of not only a set of symphonic variations but a symphony. It was ultimately, though, in that sense rather than its far from unwelcome heterodoxy, that I felt the performance added up to less than the sum of its parts. There is more to the relationship between these variations than individual character and contrast. A guiding thread founded on harmonic motion, such as we should unquestionably have heard from Barenboim, proved elusive. Moreover, comparison with Petrenko's superlative way with another Barenboim speciality, Schoenberg's Variations for Orchestra, op.31, might also suggest this to be something of a work-in-progress. I hope he will return to Elgar and develop his often interesting thoughts further. 

For three of the four Tchaikovsky movements I felt that more keenly. (Perhaps not entirely coincidentally, this was also repertoire in which Barenboim excelled.) The opening of the first movement felt more idiomatic, more ‘inside’ the music, the trumpet fanfares already drawing back in dialectic relationship to a Fate that must be obeyed yet from which the subject in performance must surely also recoil: thereby grief-laden without so much of a hint of the mawkish. At some point Petrenko dropped his baton, later to be retrieved by concertmaster Noah Bendix-Balgley, but it mattered not a jot to the cohesion and persuasiveness of the performance. It chilled just as much, perhaps even more so, in its eerie, nether passages, again evoking the world of Berlioz (in whom I should be very keen to hear Petrenko). Struggle was felt, not merely observed, throughout, as was a sense that it might become too much, the falling nature of motifs itself becoming a motif. The second movement again ‘spoke’ as well as sang beautifully—and consequently. ‘Soul’ and form seemed as one in its unfolding. Pain, pride, all manner of sensitivities vied beneath the surface and in turn helped shape it. In its bitter, pizzicato introversion of a balletic world, the third movement edged us a little closer to Mahler, without forsaking the composer’s own palette or sentiment. There was always, moreover, ambiguity: a sense, sometimes achieved in the trio, that something more joyous might break through, albeit not without a welcome dose of Prokofiev-like sardonicism. 

And so, when all that pent-up energy exploded at the outset of the finale, the performance seemed truly to have arrived. Alas, it was here that I felt its narrative fell apart somewhat. Yes, one can drive this music hard: it is marked ‘Allegro con fuoco’. But it is, or should be, with fire rather than like a machine. Technical accomplishment was beyond compare, but it seemed more hysterical, even Shostakovich-like, than deeply felt. It came and went, like a whirlwind, yet seemed not only out of proportion, but also a little out of meaning. At any rate, a London audience increasingly starved of high-profile orchestral visits during its normal concert season, responded with great enthusiasm.

BBC SO/Oramo - Elgar, 13 December 2024

Barbican Hall

Elgar: The Dream of Gerontius, op.38

Sarah Connolly (mezzo-soprano)
David Butt Philip (tenor)
Roderick Williams (baritone)

BBC Symphony Chorus (chorus master: Neil Ferris)
BBC Symphony Orchestra
Sakari Oramo (conductor)

Images: Mark Allan

This was to have been something entirely different: Berlioz’s L’Enfance du Christ, conducted by Andrew Davis. The death of the BBC Symphony Orchestra’s former chief conductor led not only to a necessary change of conductor, in the guise of the orchestra’s current chief conductor, Sakari Oramo, but to a change of programme, Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius, a work with which Davis was more strongly associated, taking the place of Berlioz’s oratorio, as a memorial. Having been a little nonplussed by the change, I soon realised that it made greater sense as a memorial, not least on account of the tangible commitment from a chorus and orchestra – a considerable Barbican audience too – to remembering their erstwhile colleague. I had a few reservations concerning the performance itself, none especially grievous; I hope it will not seem unduly curmudgeonly to share them, alongside the many estimable qualities to what I heard. For whatever reason, they did not seem to be shared by most members of a highly enthusiastic audience. 

The principal problem was arguably the hall itself and its constricted acoustic. For once, the Royal Albert Hall might not have been too poor a venue; large-scale choral works, many of which Davis conducted there at the Proms, tend to fare better than most. Brass in particular tended to blare, something it was difficult to ignore in the Prelude. I was a little surprised that Oramo, who must by now be used to the difficulties, did not do much about them: a pity, given the fine Elgar sound from the rest of the orchestra, strings in particular. Oramo certainly showed flexibility in his reading here, though some tempo choices and changes I found  puzzling. 

David Butt Philip’s entry, ably supported by Oramo and the orchestra, announced a surprisingly Italianate way with the music: more Puccini than Wagner or Strauss, let alone Brahms. Indeed, Oramo increasingly brought things I had either not heard or had forgotten, but which seemed very much to grow out of the score, a nice line in dance rhythms included. This was certainly, at least in the first part, an operatic reading: not necessarily how Davis would have done it, but then a tribute should not be an imitation. The struggle was dramatic, it seemed, rather than overtly theological, Oramo skilled at guiding crucial transitions. Many, I know, have problems with the work on the latter ground; it even had to be given with a revised text for early performances at the Three Choirs Festival. One could surely say the same, though, of its avowed model: Parsifal. Perhaps this was a way, conscious or otherwise, ecumenically to broaden its appeal. At any rate, if I sometimes felt a little loss on Newman’s side, there was an undeniable keen sense of joint endeavour, audience included, that appeared to offer ample, even quasi-religious compensation to many. Never showing the slightest sense of strain that occasionally accompanied Butt Philip’s often thrilling and full-throated approach, Roderick Williams proved a wise and faithful guide for the journey both underway and to come. The BBC Symphony Chorus, of which Davis remained President until his death, offered performances throughout of warmth, heft, and blend that worked with, rather than against, the difficult acoustic. 

The second part, quite rightly, took us to a very different place, ushered in by string playing of which any orchestra or conductor would be proud. Sarah Connolly’s Angel’s finely spun, infinitely compassionate performance was a jewel: rooted in Newman’s words, yet equally communicating beyond them through Elgar’s music. Choral and orchestral demons were a colourful, malevolent band, ‘angelicals’ in turn beautifully contrasted. Where sometimes – only sometimes – I had found the first part meandering, Oramo here seemed ever clearer in his mission to bind the work together, motivically, harmonically, and yes, theologically. In that, Wagner returned, as did Parsifal more specifically in the passage of approach to God. Brahms did too, above all the German Requiem, most keenly in the choruses. Moreover, I could not help but find something a little Liszt in an endeavour that, perhaps despite Newman, retained a little of the Faustian. Music once again proved a superior, or at least different, agent of synthesis to words.

And yet, it is not really a matter of either/or, but rather of combination, of that shared endeavour to which I referred above. ‘Farewell, but not for ever brother dear, Be brave and patient on thy bed of sorrow’: for some a necessity, for some doubtless an obscenity. Heard here from Connolly, at a darker time than many of us have known, it offered, however briefly, a semblance of consolation.

Osborne/LPO/Gardner - Coleridge-Taylor, Tippett, and Elgar, 25 January 2023

Royal Festival Hall

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor: Solemn Prelude (London premiere)
Tippett: Piano Concerto
Elgar: Symphony no.1 in A-flat major, op.55

Steven Osborne (piano)
London Philharmonic Orchestra
Edward Gardner (conductor)

Image: London Philharmonic Orchestra

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s B minor Solemn Prelude was written, at Elgar’s recommendation, for the Three Choirs Festival in 1899. It then went unperformed until a revival, likewise at Worcester Cathedral, for the same festival in 2021. It has now finally reached London, Coleridge-Taylor’s own city, in a fine performance from the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Edward Gardner. Its opening, in melody, harmony, scoring, and indeed the LPO’s performance sounded rather Tchaikovskian: surely a case of influence, though at the same time not to be reduced to that. Indeed, it was Russian symphonism more generally that came to my mind, Borodin too, than say the ‘solemnity’ of Wagner or Bruckner, one progression’s passing resemblance to Parsifal notwithstanding. It certainly qualifies as solemn, though, albeit in an amiable sort of way: a thoroughly professional piece of writing, that merits performance, especially with string sheen and generally rounded orchestral tone such as was heard here. 

Michael Tippett’s Piano Concerto followed: a welcome outing for a piece rarely heard, yet likewise worthy of revival. Gardner, the LPO, and soloist Steven Osborne took us immediately to an imaginary landscape, in an imaginary (quasi-dramatic) context. Its first movement sounded very much as if a scene from an opera without words, yet not necessarily without action. The Midsummer Marriage naturally came to mind, but it was a world of its own we heard, inviting and full of fantasy. The piano part is anything but easy, yet rarely if ever showy; this is not the conventional (post-)Romantic battle of piano against orchestra, and did not sound that way. One delighted instead in the scene painted, almost as much by woodwind and celesta as by the undeniably brilliant soloist, celesta and piano almost equals in the cadenza. The slow movement was equally well-shaped, playing out in a related yet different world, as if a scene that followed. It was darker, a notturno given with an apt air of mystery, even ritual. Bearing in mind Tippett’s inspiration for the work as a whole, Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto (which he heard Walter Gieseking rehearse), it was difficult not to think of Tovey’s evocation of Orpheus taming the Furies. The finale meanders at times, perhaps, but I doubt anyone minded much. It was sharp, bright, ultimately decisive—and it danced. 

The onward tread to the opening to Elgar’s First Symphony, hesitant then sure(r), ever imbued with ineffably Elgarian sadness and nobility, can be traced in many ways. Gardner’s way convinced, as did the response to it. A degree of Brahmsian sentiment could be perceived through a related yet different orchestral kaleidoscope; crucially, sentiment was never confused with sentimentality. Passages of hushed inwardness, especially in this first movement, combined with wounded swager to captivate and propel. If an occasional rough edge intruded, as with Tippett, it was nothing of importance. Far more important were liminal passages of an almost Straussian, yet more subtle phantasmagoria—and where they took us. The second movement’s opening material, somewhere between diabolical and furious, was followed by a lifting of clouds closer to the new vistas of Mahler than one might have expected. Music between these poles combined their tendencies as well as having them do battle: a matter of performance almost as much as of composition. A rich, even ripe Adagio was perhaps a little indulged for my, arguably also for Elgar’s, taste, yet it was difficult to resist the glorious LPO sound. Inflected by other material that yet did not deflect the music from its path, there remained much to admire here. Ghostly unease and lost recollections laid bare the compositional mastery of the finale. It was a turbulent journey, in search of a home that was perhaps never quite reached. The ‘cyclical’ qualities of Elgar’s writing were vividly communicated here by Gardner, bringing it closer to César Franck than often one hears. Was it ultimately a little hard-driven? Perhaps, but arguably it held to its own logic.

Prom 39: Hartwig/BBC SO/Oramo - Turnage, Vaughan Williams, and Elgar, 15 August 2022

Royal Albert Hall

Turnage: Time Flies (UK premiere)
Vaughan Williams: Tuba Concerto in F minor
Elgar: Symphony no.1 in A-flat major, op.55

Constantin Hartwig (tuba)

BBC Symphony Orchestra

Sakari Oramo (conductor)

Three very different English composers were to be heard here, in excellent performances from the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Sakari Oramo. Elgar’s First Symphony was for me unquestionably the highlight, but the varied conspectus will have offered something for many. It is especially welcome just now to be reminded that, notwithstanding unremitting hostility from our fathomlessly philistine government and media, there can still be something to celebrate in English artistic endeavours, past and present. Nadine Dorries does not yet hold all the cultural cards.  

Mark-Anthony Turnage’s Time Flies is a co-commission from the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, and the BBC SO. Its premiere, like so many, fell victim to Covid, as did the Tokyo Olympic Games at which it was due to take place. The piece’s three movements, ‘London Time’, ‘Hamburg Time’ and ‘Tokyo Time’, the last considerably more extended than its predecessors, last about twenty-five minutes in total. ‘London Time’ opened with an urban confidence, metallic and syncopated, perhaps more redolent of London a dozen years ago than now. Upbeat and playful, that opening material nonetheless fell downward through disorienting, corrosive chromaticism, until we reached one of Turnage’s trademark saxophone solos, prior to a final section in which various tendencies are combined. Hope for the future? Perhaps.

The opening trumpets of ‘Hamburg Time’ seemed to recall Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man or, after a while, the Janáček of the Sinfonietta. Stravinsky too came to mind, especially as woodwind became more prominent. But these were ghosts; Turnage’s is the fundamental voice. A sense of wide-open space similarly dissolved in unease, reassertion of something perhaps not so very different from socialist or at least collectivist realism the hallmark of what follows. Jazz rhythms, sonorities, and attack of ‘Tokyo Times’ were refreshingly distinct from faded orientalist tropes. Turnage evokes them, of course, rather than simply recreating them, another sign of Stravinsky’s presence (perhaps Henze’s too). An enigmatic chorale at the centre—post-Messiaen, or is it post-Weill?— cautioned against easy answers.

Vaughan Williams’s Tuba Concerto was treated to a splendidly nimble reading from Constantin Hartwig and the orchestra. The first movement’s liveliness was justly ambiguous, culminating in a beautifully played cadenza imbued with a sense of longing the more impressive for not being milked. The central ‘Romanza’ offered a fine instance in miniature of Vaughan Williams’s ability to create something folklike that is entirely composed rather than found. Again, there was longing without cloying, let alone sentimentality. The tuba part sounded at times almost like a descant, albeit amidst or beneath orchestral textures, at any rate in intriguing counterpoint. The finale offered darker, even diabolical, play not so distant perhaps from Prokofiev, though certainly speaking with a different accent. Another cadenza, different in character, proved equally fine in execution. A sudden end underlined the composer’s achievement in concision, never outstaying his welcome. That, alas, is more than can be said for a dreary encore, apparently Paul McCartney’s Blackbird, which served mostly to underline Vaughan Williams’s skill in tuba-writing.

Oramo’s studied tempo for the opening of the Elgar avoided sentimentality without going down the more common road of swiftness. Articulation further underlined a premonition of shock, even shellshock. When the full orchestra entered, it sounded glorious, as much maestoso as Elgarian nobilmente, without a tinge of regret. Did it, though, lead to the Allegro material, or was it more a matter of sectional contrast? I missed something, a sense of connection, however intangible, characterising performances otherwise as different as Boult and Barenboim. That, however, was my only doubt concerning this fine performance; given the excellence of everything else, I am happy to allow the fault may have been mine. For Oramo captured even-handedly Elgar’s Wagnerian and Brahmsian tendencies; as did the BBC SO’s sound. And the return of the opening material unquestionably arose from preceding breakdown, mood-swings necessitating something both old and new. It was not only Brahms and Wagner, though: the most liminal qualities of this movement evoked, yet never merely recreated, both featherlight Mendelssohn and phantasmagorial Strauss, the latter especially at the point of disturbing recapitulatory collapse. If the frame of reference were not so wide as that of Barenboim’s extraordinary recent performances, we had likewise travelled a long way from the Boultian ascendancy.

The second movement similarly had a Mendelssohn-cum-Brahms underpinning to its steely (anti?)-militarism. As with Mahler, who increasingly came to mind, there were startling new vistas to witness, though the light, often the half-light, crucially was different in quality. For all the alleged serenity of the third movement, there were darker forces at work too. Harmonies summoned Hagen from his watch. At the close, there prevailed a rapt inwardness not so different from Schumann’s Innigkeit, albeit exquisitely and even tragically late. Disorientation, even brokenness, marked the onset of the finale, the question being ‘is this irreparable?’ It was no easy question to answer, a struggle of Brahmsian order indicated. If here, Elgar comes perilously close on occasion to imitation of Brahms, it is a fault in the right direction—and here a winning one. Ultimately, nobility in both work and performance won out, not despite but on account of the slings and arrows.

 

Prom 10: BBC Concert Orchestra/Wordsworth - ‘Music for Royal Occasions’, 22 July 2022

Royal Albert Hall

Bliss: Jubilant Fanfare no.1
Handel: Coronation Anthem no.1, ‘Zadok the Priest
Walton: Coronation March: ‘Orb and Sceptre’
Elgar: O hearken thou, op.64
William Henry Harris, arr. Jonathan Manners: The Windsor Dances
Henry VIII: Pastime with good companie
Britten: Gloriana: Courtly Dances
Parry: Coronation Anthem: ‘I was glad’
John Ireland: Epic March
Judith Weir: I love all beauteous things
Byrd: O Lord, make thy servant Elizabeth our Queen
Handel, arr. Hamilton Harty: Water Music: excerpts from Suite no.1
Vaughan Williams: Silence and Music
Cheryl Frances-Hoad: Your servant, Elizabeth (world premiere)
Elgar: ‘Pomp and Circumstance’ March no.4 in G major

BBC Singers (chorus master: Martin Fitzpatrick)
BBC Concert Orchestra
Barry Wordsworth (conductor)

 

Copyright: BBC/Chris Christodoulou 

Having gone to this Prom with an open mind, buoyed by the sight of Handel, Byrd, and Elgar among the rest, I am tempted to conclude so much the worse for open minds. Should one keep an open mind about ‘Brexit’ as living standards plunge, goods disappear from shops, stations and airports overflow, vehicles pile up en route (sorry, ‘on the way’) to Dover, and so on? Of course not, though the Foreign Secretary Liz ‘Pork Markets’ Truss’s ‘innovative’ demand that France should sort things out is doubtless worth considering. Certainly France could have sorted out some of this programme: if ‘Music for Royal Occasions’, where was Versailles, let alone Vienna, Dresden, or Berlin? But really, even were one to take the English/British restriction at face, non-political value, a ‘Music for Royal Occasions’ that excluded Purcell in favour of William Henry Harris? The programming looked eccentric, but perhaps we should ‘make Harris work’, ‘get Parry done’, and so on?

Perhaps. There were, to be fair, some better moments, a good few of them, although the BBC Singers seemed an odd match for the repertoire. A local choral society might have been more apt. The brass and percussion of Arthur Bliss’s Jubilant Fanfare no.1, apparently composed for a BBC broadcast of George VI’s Christmas speech, made for an effective, even anticipatory curtain-raiser. The contrast with those celebrated anticipatory strings of Zadok the Priest, mercifully free of ‘period’ affectation from the BBC Concert Orchestra and Barry Wordsworth, worked well and if the performance was on the small side for the Royal Albert Hall, one could hear the words, largely thanks to excellent articulation from the BBC Singers. I could have done without the weird twirling crowns behind them, though, presumably set up for Sunday’s television broadcast but increasingly aggravating in the hall. Elgar’s O hearken thou, written for the coronation of George V, was far more interesting than its monarch. It may be a ‘minor’ work, but it is a finely crafted one: a prayer, rather than a public profession, and moved through its mastery of harmonic progression both in work and performance. If there is little that cannot be traced back to Mendelssohn or, if not, to Wagner, these are two masters worthy of the utmost respect, and what Elgar does can be reduced neither to influence nor to function. Drums, woodwind, and voices made for a refreshing Pastime with good companie from Henry VIII (so far as we know). 

Moreover, in the second half, Byrd’s O Lord, make thy servant Elizabeth our Queen, from about the time of his appointment to Elizabeth I’s Chapel Royal, came as a relief in every sense: neither simpler nor more complex, shorter nor longer, than needed be, a jewel that gleamed even in a setting to which it was hardly suited. In the circumstances, a relatively ‘neutral’ performance from the BBC Singers was no bad decision, more or less allowing the illusion of words and music ‘speaking for itself’. A little later, the evening’s commission, Cheryl Frances Hoad’s Your servant, Elizabeth, took Byrd’s words and music and refracted them through a twentieth-century aural lens, various elements, different tonalities included, intelligently set in counterpoint (literal and metaphorical) with one another, imparting also a sense of Anglican versicle and response. More of this spirit would have been welcome. In between, an outing for Vaughan Williams’s Silence and Music, written for an Arts Council set of part-songs for Elizabeth II’s coronation, revealed harmonic oscillation and persistence in happy alliance with thoughtful English word-setting. 

One could even have waved through Walton’s Orb and Sceptre Coronation March. Its opening, after all, breathed the air of a postwar, televisual age. The reprise, however, of that opening more than outstayed its welcome, and the composer’s typical self-satisfaction soon had one realise this was music that, a certain technical skill notwithstanding, was all surface—without that surface ever approaching that of, say, a Ravel. Walton came across as a kindred spirit to Webern, though, by comparison with the aforementioned William Henry Harris, whose Windsor Dances, receiving their first and, let us hope, last performance at the Proms, barely attempted, let alone achieved musical interest. It was plausible enough to imagine them ‘inspired’ by our current Head of State. The titles of these mercifully brief orchestral arrangements from piano duet pieces—‘Castle Walls’, ‘Down by the River’, ‘At a Canter’—said it all. 

The same drum used to announce Henry VIII’s contribution did so for Britten’s ‘Courtly Dances’ from Gloriana. The opera has its devotees, I know, making typically extravagant claims for it, but these dances are thin gruel, far from helped by a pretension that the material cannot and does not justify. I thought the Pavane would never end. The Lavolta was at least a little more colourful, though a programme description of it as ‘fiery’ bewildered. Maybe the performance was lacking, for it sounded about as fiery as, well, Elizabeth II. Alas, Judith Weir’s strangely inconsequential I love all beauteous things, written for the Queen’s ninetieth birthday, also seemed to have its dedicatee in mind. Harris, I suppose, had not even managed the ‘strangely’ part. 

John Ireland was certainly capable of writing music of interest, especially for the piano. His Epic March, though seemingly played well, proved utterly devoid of musical interest. Intended, apparently, as wartime propaganda music, it semeed more likely to disillusion those poor souls on the Home Front fated to endure it. And where—I should have asked this earlier—was even a desultory nod towards decolonisation? Place these pieces in some sort of counterpoint with a wider world, especially a wider world brutalised by the empire they (often) hymned, contrast them with other ‘royal’ music, even simply choose better examples: but this, really? Did anyone seriously think it worth of revival; and, if so, why? 

Hamilton Harty’s Handel may sound intriguing on paper, but rarely has it emerged with the courage of convictions. Wordsworth here seemed curiously tentative, as did the orchestra. The abiding impression left would probably have been that the ‘authentic’ movement had a point, which is surely to have missed the point. If one wants Handel-Harty, one should go to Georg Szell. Even Elgar’s Fourth Pomp and Circumstance March was treated with kid-gloves. What initially sounded as though it might have offered a fresh look, inspired by Mendelssohn-like lightness, turned out merely to be glib and, reading between the lines, a little embarrassed by it all. Lack of sentimentality was welcome; what stood positively in the performance’s favour remained unclear. 

I have saved nearly the worst (after Harris) until last: Parry’s execrable I was glad, which manages somehow to be both vulgar and tedious. (I see it was revived for the marriage of Prince William and Kate Middleton, which again makes a sort of grimly apt sense.) Here the clash with the BBC Singers seemed strangest, a mismatch that certainly did not reflect badly on them. What empty, shop-worn rhetoric, and to what end? Pierre Boulez once referred to Shostakovich’s music by way of an olive-oil metaphor: a third pressing of Mahler. This sounded like a fifth of an already bowdlerised Victorian-Edwardian Brahms. It was as dull as ditchwater. All hail the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha/Windsor.

BBC Proms (4) - Moser/Bournemouth SO/Karabits - Bates, Elgar, and Janáček, 9 August 2021

Royal Albert Hall

Mason Bates: Auditorium
Elgar: Cello Concerto in E minor, op.95
Janáček: Taras Bulba

Johannes Moser (cello)

Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra

Kirill Karabits (conductor)

‘Welcome to tonight’s concert, given by the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra under its Chief Conductor Kirill Karabits,’ read the Proms programme, ‘in which they present music inspired by the past.’ To which it is difficult not to reply: I suppose so, but is not this category so broad as to verge on the meaningless? Elgar’s Cello Concerto is included because it allegedly offered ‘a last glimpse of the Edwardian era’ but also, more puzzlingly, ‘was … to be the composer’s last orchestral masterpiece’. It is not entirely clear how that fits at all. Here, anyway, were three fine performances of orchestral works: perhaps it is better to leave it at that.

First was Mason Bates’s Auditorium. I suspect if you liked this sort of thing, this was the sort of thing you would like. For me, I am afraid, it promised considerably more than it delivered, the promise being one of a musical haunting, that of the orchestra on stage by ‘a ghostly electronically processed recording of neo-Baroque music’ performed on period instruments. Different tuning sounds augured well, one interrupting the other. As for the rest, what the composer described as ‘a kind of musical Ouija board, in which musical riffs are traded’ by the two ensembles ‘across the void’  proved a damp, if loud, squib. Yes, there were dance rhythms old and new, but nothing sounded especially old, the recorded music for the most part sounding like film music for synthesiser. For once, at least balance problems regarding the harpsichord were obviated. At one point, things grew a little more frenzied; then they calmed down. That was about it, save for a return to tuning sounds and a bit of electronic noise.

If Elgar seemed like another world, ‘past’ or otherwise, that is doubtless because it was. Indeed, the opening bars sounded somewhat peculiar in the light of Auditorum, my ears partly expecting to hear a similar opposition between soloist and orchestra as between orchestra and recorded sound. I listened my way in through an unusually broad introduction, though, helped by the Bournemouth orchestra, Karabits, and of course cellist Johannes Moser. The first movement and indeed the performance as a whole sounded splendidly Romantic, with a broader sense of context than many ‘English’ performances permit. Tchaikovsky, for instance, loomed large, for this was undoubtedly in some senses quite a heart-on-sleeve performance. So accustomed have we become to the idea that this is a post-First World War elegy that it is instructive, and here was enjoyable, to hear another side to the coin. The intensity of Moser’s playing, however, defied such limited characterisation, as did Karabits’s thoughtful, collegial direction. Likewise in the scherzo, instrumental virtuosity entirely at the music’s service, excellent Bournemouth woodwind similarly making their mark. A deeply felt slow movement seemed to shape itself naturally, like a song. Though it did not seem to be taken quickly, quite the contrary, it was over far too quickly. The finale erupted from its conclusion, Moser really digging into his strings—and to his emotional reserves. This movement was both synthesis and final development, clearly born of a passionate commitment that ultimately unleashed Elgarian ghosts of Parsifal. For an encore, Moser and the cello section played Casals’s Song of the Birds.

Janáček’s Taras Bulba followed, its opening, organ, bells, and all, full of mystery, contrasts, and expectation. In ‘The Death of Andriy’ and beyond, Karabits communicated with ease how melodies and fragments—are the two here distinct?—combine in Janáček’s music to create a greater whole: as in the operas, yet perhaps not quite the same. Karabits skilfully kept the movement on the verge, never boiling over. It was full of incident: narrative, if you wished, but never reductive. The second and third movements emerged as if second and third acts to a wordless opera: a drama, at any rate. In the second, the sense of a new day soon turned darker; this was, after all, ‘The Death of Ostap’. Janáček’s narrative was sharply, humanly etched, as it was in ‘The Prophecy and Death of Taras Bulba’, never more so than in the affirmative glow of its close. As an intriguing encore, the orchestra gave the Overture to the Taras Bulba opera of Ukrainian composer Mykola Lysenko. Tchaikovskian, at least to my untutored ears, it seemed very much in the mould of the old pot pourri overture. It clearly means something important to Karabits—‘very personal to me’—and excited orchestra and audience alike.

Zukerman/Staatskapelle Berlin/Shani - Elgar and Mussorgsky, 13 January 2020

Staatsoper Unter den Linden

Elgar: Violin Concerto in B minor, op.61

Mussorgsky-Ravel: Pictures at an Exhibition

Pinchas Zukerman (violin)

Staatskapelle Berlin

Lahav Shani (conductor)

Strange though this may sound to the uninitiated, Daniel Barenboim’s Staatskapelle Berlin now stands second to none in contemporary Elgar performance. Barenboim’s long association with the composer has latterly seen an Indian summer, much of which I have been privileged to hear. This evening, in the fourth of the orchestra’s seasonal subscription concerts and the third to include music by Elgar (!), it was time to hear from Barenboim’s similarly long-term associate, Pinchas Zukerman, and a more recent associate, Lahav Shani, with whom the orchestra already seems to be on good terms.

The opening tutti certainly suggested a similar affinity on Shani’s part for the composer: passionate, urgent, and flexible as required, as idiomatic as it was ‘objectively’ convincing. The Staatskapelle, moreover, played as if it were playing for Barenboim himself. Tender, noble, rich, and dark: one could not reasonably have asked for more. This was a Romantic rather than a modernist Elgar, but there is nothing wrong with that. There would have been little virtue in attempting to present a performance someone else, let alone Barenboim, would have given. Zukerman’s entry suggested something similar, his golden, even glamorous tone recognisable of old. There was something, moreover, intriguing, not just here in the first movement but throughout, to the Brahmsian confrontation of soloist and orchestra we heard: these interpreters again very much their own men. Sadly, the charms of what increasingly sounded more like aggression on Zukerman’s part began to pale. Not only was he sometimes out of sync with the orchestra in his passagework – however craftily Shani covered up for him – but the unyielding, squarer quality of his playing was less than suggestive of much in the way of musical sensitivity. At its best, the glamour was irresistible, but was it Elgar? The slow movement fared better, roots in German Romanticism clear and meaningful. It was taken very slowly, but was none the worse for that. Shani, however, was still doing most of the real work. The finale was probably better forgotten. By turns unduly deliberate and running away with itself, it never settled down and threatened to seem interminable. There were wonderful moments, but the golden thread proved sadly elusive. A pity.

I felt no such reservations or difficulties concerning the second half: Pictures at an Exhibition in Ravel’s orchestration. Insofar as I had any at all, they related as ever to Ravel’s enterprise itself; even on that count, I had fewer than usual. Shani, seemingly liberated, conducted without a score, leading a performance full of incident but also possessed of long-term coherence. The opening Promenade had a similar urgency to the opening of the Elgar, yet rightly opened the door to music of very different qualities. ‘Gnomus’ boasted depth of string tone and agility in equal measure, colour, and above all mystery. There was not a little of that to ‘Il vechhio castello’ too, Gallic suavity – also heard later, in ‘Limoges: Le marché’ – balanced by occasional hints at an intriguing post-Mozartian sensibility. ‘Bydlo’, however, was more Russian, Ravel’s crescendo and diminuendo notwithstanding. (Surely he had to do something along such lines anyway. Mussorgsky’s strategy could hardly have worked as it did with orchestra.) Its shadow darkened the following Promenade and seemed also to inspire the portrait of ‘Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuyle’. Antisemitic? Undoubtedly, yet we lose something if we sit too sternly in judgement. Wagnerian brass turned Russian as we toured the catacombs. The spirit of Boris Godunov appeared not for the first time in the unease and sheer malevelonce of ‘Cum mortuis in lingua mortua’. Baba Yaga’s arrival took one’s breath away, Shani’s insistence on motor rhythms strongly suggestive of Prokofiev. Perhaps perversely, I missed the piano most for ‘The Great Gate of Kiev’, though there was no doubting the excellence of the playing, nor Shani’s command. Ravel’s cunning hints at Boris-like orchestration made their point in any case.

Garanča/Staatskapelle Berlin/Barenboim - Schumann, Elgar, and Debussy, 16 December 2019

Staatsoper Unter den Linden

Schumann: Symphony no.3 in E-flat major, op.97, ‘Rhenish’

Elgar: Sea Pictures, op.37

Debussy: La Mer

Elina Garanča (mezzo-soprano)

Staatskapelle Berlin

Daniel Barenboim (conductor)

Three composers in whose music Daniel Barenboim has long excelled, with the Staatskapelle Berlin on outstanding form: what could go wrong? Nothing, I am delighted to report. This proved a wonderful concert, opening with the finest live performance I have been privileged to hear of a Schumann symphony, in this case the ‘Rhenish’. Eschewing fashionable notions of small orchestras—if you cannot achieve requisite balance with a symphony orchestra, you probably should not be conducting one at all—Barenboim offered a full-sized Staatskapelle, from eight double basses to sixteen first violins. It sounded magnificent: dark and golden, blazing and intimate as required. Attention to finest detail did not preclude voicing of longer line; nor did forward drive hamper infinite flexibility. The first movement developed with a purpose born in Beethoven: throughout, not only in that section conventionally known as the development. It headed, convincingly, unanswerably, to and from a point of Mendelssohnian exhaustion, the difference being that that point here comes significantly later than the onset of the recapitulation. In a nutshell, Romantic style and idea and their formal realisation in time were as one.

The second movement brought a similar, yet different, combination of warmth of familiarity and freshness of rediscovery: like a sunlit riverside walk along a favourite path, once the skies have cleared. A contrapuntal bed, on which further melodies were lovingly sung and shaped, afforded great joy. The movement’s climax, looking forward already to La mer, felt like a great tidal wave. Its subsiding and Barenboim’s expert handling of that subsiding were, however, every bit as important. As Romantically beautiful, and all the more innig, the central movement proved truly the heart of symphony and performance: led, so it seemed, from the very heart of the Staatskapelle, its dark-hued violas. Trombones in the fourth movement were as tender as they were sacerdotal, as solemn as they were luminous, setting the scene for this great ‘Cologne Cathedral’ processional. Barenboim and his orchestra captured to a tee the necessity of sentiment without sentimentality: somewhere between Beethoven and Mahler. Ultimately, we were awestruck. Thereafter we could depart in peace, cheered and edified by a final movement that took a different route from earlier, one that was yet equally fresh, equally invigorating: Rhenish balm, then, for a bruised soul.

Elgar’s Sea Pictures, with Elina Garanča as soloist, followed the interval. How to rid one’s memory of Janet Baker? Is that even possible? Garanča faced an unenviable task, but life goes on. She took a little while, I think—maybe I was the one taking a little while—to settle in. These are not easy English words to sing, set as they are, even for a native speaker. There was, however, even during the first song, something winningly, intriguingly instrumental to her tone: not that she did not pay attention to the words, far from it, but that there was an emphasis more on line. One could readily overlook the odd mispronunciation, such as ‘vile’ for ‘veil’, especially once communication of syntax and scansion improved. I loved, for instance, the truly Elgarian pride, hinting at wounds beneath the surface, of ‘The new sight, the new wondrous sight!’ in ‘Sabbath morning at sea’. Likewise the nobility—inevitable, if hackneyed, word in this context—of ‘Where corals lie’, enigmatic, intimate, and inviting; and also of ‘The Swimmer’, Garanča truly riding the waves in response to the heady, not un-malevolent steam built up by Barenboim and the orchestra, her cries of ‘love’ achingly tender. Throughout, one could not have wished for more skilful, understanding orchestral playing and overall direction. One felt the proximity to Wagner and, less so yet still present, Strauss: the latter, for instance, in the final chord of ‘Sea slumber song’. Barenboim’s pointing of instrumental entries could hardly have been bettered, even by the likes of Barbirolli. And dare I say it, the orchestra sounded more variegated, as well as more darkly dramatic, than any English orchestra I have heard in this music. Wagner, rightly, was the abiding musical presence—that is, after Elgar himself.

Something similar might be said of La mer, only substituting Debussy for Elgar. ‘De l’aube à midi sur la mer’ took us from a dawn with all the ambiguity of Allemonde, and still greater orchestral mastery. The path taken was as finely detailed as it was sure in retrospect, as sea-deep as it was translucent of surface. Even the ‘vagueness’ was not vague. It was difficult not to conclude that Pierre Boulez would have nodded his head approvingly. The glorious climax was truly something aurally to behold. ‘Jeux de vagues’ proved more forward-looking: looking forward, indeed, to the composer’s own Jeux. There was melody in the myriad of colours, so perfectly balanced, that we heard; and vice versa. Ultimately, quite rightly, nothing could be pinned down, for these were waves and their games. ‘Dialogue du vent et de la mer’ seemed to unite varying tendencies and take them first: these are, after all, ‘symphonic sketches’. We heard at its opening a deeply complex, well-nigh Boulezian malevolence—harking back in a sense to Elgar’s, yet very much looking forward to the later twentieth century and even to the twenty-first. The mystery of Debussy’s combination of clear and shimmering, brazen and submerged, was rendered immanent. What does it mean? Why ask? It was—and is. And how!

Shani/Staatskapelle Berlin/Barenboim - Rachmaninov, Elgar, and Strauss, 15 October 2019

Philharmonie

Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto no.3 in D minor, op.30

Elgar: Falstaff, op.68

Strauss: Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche, op.28

Lahav Shani (piano)

Staatskapelle Berlin

Daniel Barenboim (conductor)

The most German of all English composers, no one benefits more greatly than Elgar from rescue from the clammy, constricting embrace of ‘English music’. No conductor and orchestra perform that deed of rescue with greater conviction, insight, and rewards than Daniel Barenboim and the Staatskapelle Berlin. With this astonishing performance of Falstaff, they perhaps surpassed even themselves. Here, pre-empting Till Eulenspiegel, in danger of slightly overshadowing it, we heard a tone poem unmistakeably in Strauss’s tradition, albeit pushed still further, certainly not to be reduced to inheritance; yet equally unmistakeably, it spoke with Elgar’s voice, as if this were his true third symphony. Mordant yet affectionate, grand yet intimate, as thrilling as it was poignant, this performance, full of colour and incident, was, as much as any from Barenboim of Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, or Wagner, founded securely and dynamically on harmonic and motivic development. Counterpoint was dramatically, even riotously, as generative as any in Die Meistersinger. Barenboim’s expert shaping at micro- and macro-levels never felt unduly moulded; this was music-making without so much as a hint of narcissism. Conductor and orchestra alike nonetheless revelled in the sheer complexity and virtuosity of a work that has eluded so many; I certainly felt that it had eluded me as a listener until then, hearing it as if for the first time. String tone was glorious, yet never for its own sake; every part of the orchestra, every soloist – principal bassoon, cello, and concertmaster first among equals – came truly into their own, as if this were their core repertoire. Thanks to Barenboim, it is not far off becoming so.

It was fascinating, then, to hear Till Eulenspiegel in Falstaff’s wake, in a performance that shared many of its virtues and added others of its own. Infinitely flexible, where called for, it was equally secure in direction and equally vivid in narrative. Above all, perhaps, it smiled – through Strauss’s mastery’, Barenboim’s, and that of the Staatskapelle Berlin. Technique is, or should be, a supremely enjoyable thing; so it was here. It should be a moving thing too, when in the service of something worthy, which here was the case in every sense.

In the first half, we had heard Rachmaninov’s Third Piano Concerto, with Lahav Shani as soloist. This is less obvious Barenboim territory, though he proved a wise, supportive accompanist to his protégé. In the first movement, depth and clarity alike characterised an often understated performance at swift tempi, not the only thing Shani’s approach had in common with the composer’s own. There was plenty of space nonetheless for pianistic reverie, for evocation of more than a few Lisztian sprites too. The second movement, arguably possessed of a broader emotional range here, sounded more in the line of Tchaikovsky. The piano part in particular proved more volatile, without loss to precision and pointing. There was no grandstanding to the finale, again taken swiftly, and none the worse for it. The turn to the major was especially well handled, Barenboim clearly understanding – and communicating – what was at stake. Harmony, then, once more.

City of London Choir/Davan Wetton - Elgar, Holst, Thalben-Ball, and Duruflé, 21 June 2018

St Giles-without-Cripplegate

Elgar: Psalm 29, ‘Give unto the Lord’, op.74

Holst: Nunc Dimittis

George Thalben-Ball: Elegy

Elgar: Psalm 48, ‘Great is the Lord’, op.67

Duruflé: Requiem, op.9

Marta Fontanals-Simmons (mezzo-soprano)

John Lee (baritone)

Mark Williams (organ)

Bozidar Vukotic (cello)

City of London Choir

Hilary Davan Wetton (conductor)

The City of London Festival has been missed since its demise was announced in 2016, One concert in particular will remain with me forever: the last time I heard Sir Colin Davis conduct: Berlioz’s Grande messe des morts in St Paul’s Cathedral. There were many smaller events, though, many of them free, most of them dotted around various of the City’s churches. Let us welcome, then, a new festival, Summer Music in City Churches, which seeks to recapture some of that essence and opportunity. In its opening year, a hundred years since the end of the Great War, it has decided to focus on ‘different aspects of … [that] era, and some later responses to war and peace’. This, the opening concert, was entitled ‘Storm and Refuge’; it offered in its first half works by English composers, followed by a later French requiem.

Far be it from me to speak in nationalist terms, but Elgar’s was certainly the finest of the music on offer here. (‘For balance’: the worst would also be English.) The City of London Choir under Hilary Davan Wetton seemed very much at home in two of his psalm settings for chorus and organ, as did organist Mark Williams. The first, Give unto the Lord, benefited from a performance both vigorous and variegated, its tricky corners unfailingly well navigated – occasional early issues of synchronisation notwithstanding. One could hear echoes of the composer’s great oratorios here, yet there was no doubting the singularity of his response to this particular text. Williams’s organ registration choices were apt, indeed telling, perhaps especially his use of reeds. Written in 1914 for St Paul’s, it was succeeded at the end of the first half by Great is the Lord, from two years earlier (Westminster Abbey). Again emphatically through-composed, Elgar’s response to the words proved clear, vivid, even joyous – both in work and performance. These settings are not easy to perform; they are very much worth the effort.

In between came two lesser works. Holst’s 1915 Nunc dimittis (Westminster Cathedral) is a curious piece. It opens intriguingly, in a very different – arguably more ‘modern’, even modernist – tonal language, before lapsing into something a little too close to English Renaissance pastiche. There are worse models than Byrd, of course, but it is difficult to understand how the whole might cohere. It received a full, rich-toned a cappella performance, though, very much in the tradition of Richard Terry’s celebrated Westminster Cathedral choir. As for Sir George Thalben-Ball’s Elegy, the less said the better. It doubtless worked in its plodding way as an organ improvisation; those wireless listeners reported to have called the BBC to ask him to write it down probably needed to get out more. The piece was played very well, though.

Maurice Duruflé’s Requiem probably works best in its version for organ and choir. The composer’s orchestral writing lacks interest and tends to distract rather than elucidate. From the opening of the Introit, what struck me here was how plainchant came more strongly still to the fore. There was a strong sense of building towards the light that will shine upon the souls of the dead, not unlike Fauré (an obvious comparison, yet surely not irrelevant). Climaxes in the ‘Domine Jesu Christe’ were especially well handled: ‘beautiful’ in a conventional sense, but this is hardly a work of avant-gardism. Quiet unease was nevertheless present too. Marta Fontanals-Simmons’s solo in the Pie Jesu (joined by solo cello) was, especially at the opening, sometimes painfully out of tune and weirdly ‘operatic’ in the vulgar sense: a pity. Chorister John Lee did a better, more self-effacing job with his solos, here and in Elgar. Cross-rhythms really told in the ‘Agnus Dei’, preparing the way for quiet consolation and certainty in the return of the ‘Requiem’ music in the following ‘Lux aeterna’. It was good to hear a ‘Libera me’ that did not drag, as it can, leading to an equally well shaped final ‘In paradisum’. If the setting is always more likely to appeal to conservative choral scholars than to a wider musical public, it will doubtless retain a place on the fringes of the repertoire for that reason – and not unreasonably so, when well performed as here.

R.I.P. Sir Neville Marriner, 1924-2016

Although I knew his work from countless recordings, I only heard Neville Marriner conduct once, in a concert held at the Royal Festival Hall more than two years ago, to celebrate his ninetieth birthday. In Mozart and Elgar, with his beloved Academy of St Martin in the Fields, time had not stood still, but rather had brought great joy and wisdom. I was also delighted to write the English-language programme note for a concert he conducted as recently as the end of August, this year, at the Salzburg Festival. His abiding civilisation, thoughtfulness, musicality, and sheer good character, always lightly worn, unmistakeable to those with ears to hear, will remain with us longer still.

First Night of the Proms: Gabetta/BBC SO/Oramo - Tchaikovsky, Elgar, and Prokofiev, 15 July 2016

Royal Albert Hall

Tchaikovsky – Fantasy Overture: Romeo and Juliet

Elgar – Cello Concerto in E minor, op.85
Prokofiev – Cantata: Alexander Nevsky, op.78


Sol Gabetta (cello)
Olga Borodina (mezzo-soprano)
BBC National Chorus of Wales (chorus master: Adrian Partington)
BBC Symphony Chorus (chorus master: Adrian Partington)
BBC Symphony Orchestra
Sakari Oramo (conductor)

 

What to make of the unannounced decision to open this concert with the Marseillaise? I am sure it was well intended, and perhaps should leave it at that. Music, especially avowedly political music, has associations, though, and what many, but not all, English and French listeners might understand as solidarity following the previous night’s carnage in Nice, might sound rather different to a listener from, say, the Maghreb. Nationalism is, after all, a big part of the problem – as London has rediscovered with a vengeance over the past few weeks. The issue of ‘national anthems’ is fraught too; ours, in the (Dis)United Kingdom is about as divisive as it could be, eliding membership of a nation with monarchism and thus necessarily defining republicanism as a foe within. French revolutionaries, insisting on national sovereignty, offered a not entirely dissimilar binary opposition: that, ultimately, led to the execution of Louis XVI, who, having a veto, could not be part of the nation, which, in a time of emergency, led to one particular conclusion. It also led to – well, we know the rest. Returning to the Royal – yes, Royal – Albert Hall, applause at the end heightened the oddness. If the opening number were a sign of respect, however problematical – and that is how I took it, standing like everyone else – then why would one applaud? Might an aestheticised version of the anthem, for instance that of Berlioz, not have been another option? I felt conflicted, then, but I seem to have been in a minority; many were clearly inspired by the hope and solidarity they felt had been afforded.

 

Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet sounded, in this context, especially dark in its fatal opening bars. The introduction took its time, pace gathering with a proper harmonic foundation; Sakari Oramo is far too musical a conductor to whip up artificial ‘excitement’. The Allegro sounded turbulent indeed, counterpoint nicely Berliozian (should that not be too much of a paradox). The BBC Symphony Orchestra played the ‘Love’ theme gorgeously, without a hint of vulgarity. On more than one occasion, the harp stole our hearts, although so, to be fair, did the BBC woodwind. Tension between programme and material was productively explored, so to enthral and indeed to move all the more. There could certainly be no doubting the strength of the partnership between the BBC SO and Oramo.

 

Sol Gabetta joined them next for the Elgar Cello Concerto, with equally fine results. In the first movement, the Moderato material proved very much the child of the preceding Adagio, transition emotionally as well as technically seamless, whilst remaining a transition nonetheless. Much the same might be said of the transition between first and second groups; although the mood lifted in some respects, it remained dependent (secondary, one might say) upon what had come before. It was not all doom and gloom, by any means; Elgar’s Mendelssohnian inheritance came sparklingly to life at times. Underlying sadness, however, remained inescapable. The background of German, even leipzigerisch, Romanticism was also present in the scherzo; it sometimes came into the foreground too, albeit without banishing unease entirely. Elgar’s modernity, even modernism, was as unquestionable as its roots. (Applause and bronchial outpourings were most unwelcome at the movement’s close.) There was nothing morose about the Adagio, although it certainly sounded deeply felt. It was, rather, passionately songful, with wonderfully hushed tones too to relish, both from Gabetta and the orchestra. Dialogue and incitement were the generative order of the day in the final movement. Light and shade were expertly judged, likewise harmonic motion. Kinship with Elgar’s symphonies was clear, although, by the same token, this was decidedly later music too, almost an English cousin to Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin. Ultimate weight was placed on the finale, and rightly so. Gabetta returned to the stage, following justly warm applause, to perform Pēteris Vasks’s Dolicissimo, her solo vocal as well as instrumental; this was an auspicious Proms debut indeed.

 

The second half was given over to Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky Cantata, based on the composer’s score for Eisenstein’s film of that name. Its nationalism can hardly fail to make one uneasy too; Stalin is quoted in the Proms programme as having declared to the director, ‘Sergey Mikhailovich, you’re a good Bolshevik after all!’ Not that Stalinism by this stage had so very much to do with Bolshevism, but anyway… Prokofiev, awkwardly for many of us who admire him, often, although not always, seemed to flourish in such circumstances. Those who would have us believe that art is somehow removed from politics could not be more wrong; more to the point, their protestations could not be more pernicious. However much one might want to wish away awkward questions, such as over the Marseillaise, one cannot – and should not.

 

The opening orchestral number, ‘Russia under the Mongolian Yoke’, was cold yet colourful, just as it should be. The ‘Song of Alexander Nevsky’ revealed choral forces (both the BBC Symphony Chorus and the BBC National Chorus of Wales) both weighty and clear. Prokofiev’s homophonic writing helps in the latter respect, of course, but only helps. The ‘patriotism’ and militarism of the words – ‘Ah, how we fought, how we hacked them down!’, ‘Those who invade Russia will meet death,’ etc. – is all the more perturbing when performed with such musical conviction as here. An impeccably post-Mussorgskian orchestral opening announced ‘The Crusaders in Pskov’, the dissonances of course quite Prokofiev’s own, harking back to The Fiery Angel and forward to Romeo and Juliet. Even here, in ‘socialist realist’ land, there is some of the bite of the more youthful composer’s acerbity – and so there was in performance. Echoes of Boris Godunov sounded all the more strongly as the number progressed. One could hear what must have attracted Claudio Abbado to this music.

 

The following chorus, ‘Arise, Russian People’, provided a not un-Mussorgskian contrast. Motor rhythms in particular rendered the composer’s identity unmistakeagble. Glockenspiel and xylophone offered the most enjoyable of rejoicing later on. ‘The Battle on the Ice’ is the longest number in the cantata; here it proved very much the musical and emotional heart too. Its introduction was not only atmospheric, but atmospheric in a filmic way. Oramo brought out the glassy violas at dawn to strike a proper chill. Still more chilling was the barbarism of war proper, those motor rhythms and grinding dissonances once again proving the engine of progress; the scherzo of the Fifth Symphony hovered not so far in the musical future, whilst Mussorgsky’s shadow was, once again, rarely far from the aural stage. Eisenstein came to the eyes of our imagination. Olga Borodina walked onto the stage for ‘The Field of the Dead’, seemingly as an angel of death. And yet she sounded, in her ineffably Russian fashion, a note of consolation as well as one of tragedy. This contralto-like rendition held the hall spellbound. The final chorus, ‘Alexander’s Entry into Pskov’, struck a more difficult note. Now is not the time, to put it mildly, for patriotic rejoicing in London, and disconcerting it sounded, even when of a ‘foreign’ variety. It was magnificently done, though, chorus, orchestra, and conductor alike clearly relishing their musical task. Perhaps they had succeeded in putting the words to one side.