Everything in this concert was beautifully played. First we had a warm, intelligent account of Rachmaninov’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini with Pavel Kolesnikov at the piano. Each and every one of the 24 variations was spelled out with sensitive attention to all those different styles especially in the pizzicato variation and the frenetic finale.

Then, eventually, we got magnificent performance of Firebird with every nuance lovingly leaned on. Because this is Aurora Orchestra (founded by Nicholas Collon in 2005) most of the players stood up for both works and the Stravinsky was played from memory which meant that players maintained continuous eye contact with the conductor and each other and that introduces a very unusual level of cohesion. Of course this is a narrative piece – it’s ballet music after all – and I have rarely heard the story telling so clear or so well articulated. The moment in this performance when the horn breaks in with that final haunting hymn-like tune will stay with me for a long time because Collon made it grow from the previous pianissimo passage like a flower bursting into bloom. The low level attempt at “staging” by altering the lighting, added nothing though. There was enough drama in the music. It needed no highlighting.

Having said all that though there were problems – at least as far I was concerned. The concert was introduced by Tom Service on stage. Now although I listen regularly to his informative Radio 3 programme The Listening Service and admire his fluent, knowledgeable enthusiasm, I don’t need Mr Service to tell me what I’m going to hear or to whip up applause with arm gestures like a pantomime character. I go to concerts for the music and really don’t care for any sort of chat in that context.

Moreover, In the middle of this concert we got a 20 minute musicology/music appreciation lesson – the sort of thing I associate with concerts for young audiences. It was well enough done in its way although I don’t relish being asked to hum. Service and Collon are an effective double act and Collon talked about Stravinsky’s use of intervals, illustrated by Aurora players quite interestingly. Orchestra members even sang a couple of songs which are part of the source material for Firebird. But you can get this sort of thing on the radio if you want it. In a concert hall I want music and in this case I would much preferred to have heard an extra work.

I also found myself irritated that in a concert billed as “no interval” audience members had to talk among themselves for 10 minutes while music stands and piano were taken off stage and various other bits of stage management were attended to. Several people, puzzled, tried to slip out and were turned back by staff.

It was, however, a good idea to run this concert twice. I attended the afternoon performance as part of a good sized audience. It was the later, evening performance which went out live on Radio 3.

This review was first published by Lark Reviews: https://www.larkreviews.co.uk/?p=6586

It was interesting programming – and apparently unprecedented at the Proms – to pair Pergolesi and Stravinsky as a way of highlighting the influence of the former on the latter. Of course we now know that the direct source material for Pulcinella came from his early eighteenth century contemporise rather than from Pergolesi himself but the influence is clear for all that.

We began with an exquisitely moving account of Pegolesi’s Stabat Mater with the blending of voices – Carolyn Sampson, soprano and Tim Mead, counter-tenor – so subtle that at times it sounded like a single person miraculously able to sing two lines. The crystalline, vibrato-free purity was magical too. Then there was the Quae moerebat in which Mead and the orchestra duetted with subtle sensitivity like a baton being passed back and forth. The final Quando corpus morietur – the ultimate moment in a mother’s anguish for her son – was an edge-of-seat, lump-in-throat moment and it’s just as well that Pergolesi provides a relatively jolly Amen after it or the very well deserved applause would have felt inappropriate.

Brabbins (a short notice substitute for Joana Carneiro) is an unassuming conductor and a safe pair of hands in the best possible sense. He knows exactly how to deliver this gorgeous quasi-operatic eighteenth century stuff with all its colourfulness, variety and precision. He beats time unashamedly and the cohesion was spot on.

Then after the interval came a real change of mood – marked even before it started by the entrance of Carolyn Sampson in scarlet dress with glittery jewellery rather than the simple sober black she’d worn for the first half. The original 1919/20 version of Pulcinella was a hybrid “ballet in one act with song” and this is what was performed at this concert although many of us may be more familiar with the shorter orchestral suite which Stravinsky arranged later in 1920.

Sampson was joined by tenor Benjamin Hulett and bass Simon Shibambu all of whom did a good job especially in the Andante when the three come together as in an opera by, say, Mozart until the tenor leads off into some unlikely harmonies before his challenging patter song – all delivered by Hulett with warmth.

I also admired the verve of all that off-beat pizzicato scrupulously played by SSO and stressed by Brabbins as the winds deliver their many solos in this sparky narrative tale of skulduggery and love told in a series of reworked eighteenth century. And the dramatic jazzy trombone solo is always fun. The unexpected glissandi rang out with wit, thanks to principal trombonist, Simon Johnson who earned his moment of individual applause at the end.

This review was first published by Lark Reviews: https://www.larkreviews.co.uk/?p=6579

Reshaping was the theme of this concert: Ralph Vaughan Williams reinventing Thomas Tallis, Respighi constructing a concerto based on plainchant and Mendelssohn responding to the Reformation, complete with protestant chorale. And it was noteworthy for another reason: Vasily Petrenko is RPO’s new Principal Conductor and this was his first concert in that role although he has, of course, conducted RPO many times before.

The opening Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis was glorious. The Royal Albert Hall acoustic and the distancing of the nine piece chamber orchestra on a higher level at the back ensured that every note and cadence sang with all the required wistful poignance. The musical rapport between them, the main orchestra and the string quartet at its heart ensured that we heard nuances that no recording ever captures.

Ottorino Respighi’s 1921 Concerto Gregoriano was new to me – and I expect to most of the audience. It gets few outings and this was its first performance at the Proms. It was also a Proms debut for diminutive Japanese violinist Sayaka Shoji who is 38 but looks two decades younger. It’s a substantial, ambitious work, often modal and inspired by Gregorian chant. Maybe Respighi tried to pack too much in because it feels pretty indigestible. Perhaps he should have taken the reshaping even further and made it into two concerti. Nonetheless Shoji seemed to play it with aplomb although I have no other performances to compare it with. I liked her beautiful sostenuto double stopping in the Andante and the intriguing passages in the finale when violin and timpani were centre stage (put me in mind of the much later Patricia Kopatchinskaja cadenza for the Beethoven concerto) and another nice bit with horns.

Mendelssohn’s D major symphony, ‘Reformation’ has never quite achieved the popularity of his earlier ones which is a pity because there are some splendid things in it – although it is arguably the most disjointed of Mendelssohn’s first five symphonies. Under Petrenko’s strange, fluid (is he double jointed?), octopus-like finger waving control the chorale ‘Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott’ was a delight and principal flautist Emer McDonough certainly deserved the applause Petrenko directed her way at the end. There was pleasing lightness from the woodwind in the Allegro vivace and admirable clarity and cohesion from the strings in the Andante. We got a deal of warmth and excitement too partly because of Petrenko’s ability to create – almost choreograph – the quietest possible piano and pianissimo passages.

This review was first published by Lark Reviews https://www.larkreviews.co.uk/?p=6575