Prom: Sibelius’s Second, 28 July 2026
BBC Symphony Orchestra
Conductor: Sakari Oramo
Cello: Guy Johnston
Royal Albert Hall
We began with the UK premiere of a BBC co-commission: Mark Anthony Turnage’s Festen Suite. Based on Turnage’s opera (also a film) about a Danish hotelier who abuses his children, this eight-part suite provides many moods, some of them dark. Thus we ranged from lyrical arpeggios in a section which is pastoral with menace and jazzy, almost sleezy moments. The conga, for example comes with the traditional four quaver hop but is still chilling. I’m sure this is quite challenging to play but BBCSO – huge forces for this including five percussionists, timps, piano and a lot of brass – had it nailed. And there was calm control from Oramo on the podium.
Britten’s 1953/4 Cello Symphony doesn’t get out much, perhaps because it’s very intense. It is effectively a concerto except that it has four movements and the cello line is often tightly grafted into the orchestral sound. Thus there was some fine duetting between soloist Guy Johnston and the orchestra especially in the first movement and in the filigree texture of the Presto inquieto. And the cadenza, played with tenderness by Johnston, comes with evocative bell like notes – a combination of harmonics, open strings and double-stopped parallel notes. It was an interesting work to hear (for the first time in my case) but I don’t think it’s likely to go mainstream.
Britten wrote the symphony for his close friend Mstislav Rostropovich. As his encore Johnston played part of a cello suite which Britten wrote in memory of Rostropovich, based on Russian folk tunes. Touchingly, he told the audience that at age 16 (about the time I interviewed the young Johnston for The Times) he played in the cello section of National Youth Orchestra at an Albert Hall prom conducted by Rostropovich.
It’s a treat to hear and see Sibelius’s sunniest symphony conducted by a Finn. Of course he can do it without score and with all the smiling confidence that comes from having the music in your blood. Highlights included the softest timp entry I’ve ever heard in the first movement in a performance shot through with dramatic dynamics. The vivacissimo section was so fast it was like the cheerful buzzing of bees and, of course, Oramo milked the crescendo up to the first statement of the big melody in the finale for all it was worth. Bravo. Delightful performance.
