Prom 56 (Susan Elkin reviews)

Prom 56, 01 September 2024

BBC Singers

Orwain Park

Berlin Philharmoniker

Kirill Petrenko

BBC Proms, Royal Albert Hall.

Thank goodness (and that’s a bit mild) that good sense prevailed and the BBC Singers were reprieved from last year’s proposed cuts and so are still with us. Their rendering of three Bruckner motets, all unaccompanied, was magically ethereal as their glorious sound soared and dipped to fill the cavernous space which is the Royal Albert Hall. Locus Iste, the most familiar of the three was especially moving not least because these voices blend so beautifully. Orwain Park, principal guest conductor is very good indeed at ensuring we hear every note, word, nuance and harmony. A choir like this is a great deal more than a sum of its parts and their performance was a fine prelude to Bruckner’s Fifth Symphony and the arrival on stage of the Berlin Philharmoniker.

One of the most gigantic symphonies in the repertoire, Bruckner 5 runs for a compelling one hour and twenty minutes. Among many striking things in this splendid performance:  the Berlin Philharmoniker’s perfect pizzicato which, especially in the bass section but right across the strings, resonates with rich warmth – and there’s a lot of it in this symphony. Moreover the Berlin Phil does lush melody like almost no other orchestra. The second movement here was idyllic with especial sweetness at the brass entry. And the delicacy of the horn just before the end was spellbinding.

In a symphony which uses the classical four movement framework but weaves it with expansive and inventive romanticism, mercurial Petrenko makes the third movement feel like sparky fun. He starts the molto vivace section like the wind. At times in the trio he stops beating and simply looks at his players as well as swaying, almost dancing so that he conducts with his whole body. He makes the whole movement smile.

Then, just when you thought you thought it couldn’t get any better comes the finale played with as much drama and dynamic contrast as I’ve ever heard it – and finally sumptuous playing at the end with that fabulous bass tuba at the bottom of the texture. Petrenko is evidently totally at one with what must surely be one of the world’s finest orchestras and this was a concert which will not be forgotten by anyone lucky enough to have been there.

Prom 50, 28 August 2024

Czech Philharmonic

Prague Philharmonic Choir

Jakub Hrusa

The Czech Phiharmonic is one of the world’s finest orchestras and it’s a joy to see and hear it filling the packed-to-capacity Royal Albert Hall and living up to its well deserved reputation with an engaging all-Czech programme. That unmistakable Czech sound is, I suppose, as much in the blood for these players as Strauss waltzes are for the Vienna Philharmonic.

Goodness knows why few of us have heard of Vitezlava Kapralova who died tragically young (aged 25). Maybe being female didn’t help. Her 1937 Military Sinfonietta has waited nearly 90 years for its first Proms performance. It’s an interesting piece, played here with splendid dynamic control. It was written as a patriotically defensive statement against Nazi incursion but was never intended to be aggressive. The tone is often wistful with attractive solo work fron two violins and from oboe and bassoon. And I really liked the way Hrusa drove the relentless, escalating rhythm in the strings with brass over the top just before the end, then arriving at a rather moving, grand melody. This piece deserves to be heard more often.

Dvorak’s Piano Concerto in G minor isn’t performed as much as it should be either. It came  early in his career (1876) before he had made his name, Mao Fujita, who evidently had lots of cheering fans in the audience, sat, hunched, boyish and unassuming but brilliant, to play a piece in which much of the piano part is seamlessly integrated with the orchestra from the understated opening onwards. Orchestra and soloist really excelled in the exquisite Andante sostenuto. There was a deliciously creamy sound from the horns and phenomenally well controlled string work while bassoon and horn wove an aural filigree – all in partnership with the piano. Even at this relatively early date, Dvorak writes stunningly well for wind.

The second half of the concert was in a different mood with the arrival of the Prague Philharmonic Choir, a quartet of soloists and organist Christian Schmitt for Janacek’s Glagolitic Mass, always an arresting work, not least because the composer was an agnostic with pantheistic leanings so it’s a freshly flavoured take on the traditional mass.

The choir, in fine form, made the repeated word Veruju (Credo or I believe) resound wistfully across the huge Albert Hall space and there was a very pleasing balance between chorus, all four soloists and brass and percussion in the Sanctus. Another high spot was the ethereal choral sound in the Agnece Bozij (Agnus Dei) along with impeccably controlled crescendi.

The piece ends with a grandiloquent organ solo and a short orchestral conclusion. It’s always a pleasure to hear the Royal Albert Hall’s mighty Henry Willis beast in full throttle and Schmitt brought out all Janacek’s drama – rather touchingly also crediting the organ itself when he took his bow at the end.

Prom 46

Royal College of Music Chamber Choir (Upper voices)

Royal College of Music Symphony Orchestra

Sibelius Academy

 Symphony Orchestra

Conductor: Sakari Oramo

Soprano: Anu Komsi

Photograph: Chris Christodoulou

This concert was a rather moving collaboration between two fine conservatoires: London’s  Royal College of Music and Sibelius Academy, Helsinki. We were firmly in Finland for the whole of the first half and then very much in Britain after the interval.

The Wood Nymph is not one of Sibelius’s better known tone poems although it’s full of the composer’s trademark brass fanfares, quivery strings and excitable crescendi as the melodramatic narrative behind Viktor Rydberg’s poem unwinds. It was beautifully played here by the massive combined forces of the two orchestras (eight horns) and I loved the sweet tone achieved by the principal cellist who gets a substantial solo in this piece.

I was, I’m afraid, less impressed by the world premiere of  Lara Poe’s Laulut maaseudulta (“Songs from the countryside”). It comprises seven songs several of which are about cows. Anu Komsi rose to the challenge, however, and is very good at those big intervals involved in kulning – a traditional way of calling cows. She achieved remarkable purity of sound, almost without vibrato although she dropped the dynamic so dramatically at one point that she was drowned out by the orchestra, softly as Sakari Oramo had them playing. It was interesting to see Oramo, a fellow Finn of course, mouthing the words as part of his conducting. Moreover, a new piece of this complexity is evidently very good experience for young players. Nonetheless I didn’t find the work very appealing and noted that it ran for much longer than the estimated eighteen minutes.

And so to the glories of Holst’s most famous work. The Planets premiered at Queens Hall in 1918, conducted by Adrian Boult, (whom I saw live several times when he was very old and I was very young) but it sits so well in the grandiloquence of the Royal Albert Hall that it’s hard to believe Holst didn’t have this space in mind. Mars opened with all the rattling menace that the unsettling 5|4 rhythm requires and the string sound was terrific. Incidentally, in my distant youth I played for a mysoginist conductor who said that girls were innately incapable of playing percussion because they aren’t assertive enough. I wish he could have seen and heard Julie Scheuren hitting those timps at this concert.

There was contrasting gentle lyricism in Venus with some outstandingly fine horn work and plenty of sparky insouciance in Jupiter although the big tune was over milked. The whole work is an instrumental showcase – the bassoon in Uranus and the magnifence of the organ for example. No wonder the boy (maybe 10) sitting  in front of me with his parents and younger sister was so excited he was miming snare drum, trombone, violin and more.

An otherwise excellent account of this splendid work was spoiled for me by Neptune. The movement is marked pianissimo throughout and when the choir enters it should be an almost imperceptible  sound creeping in ethereally. It shouldn’t be so loud that it’s almost strident as it was here. Moreover, it wasn’t blended and you could hear (from stalls Block H) individual voices. Even the final fading away felt brashly mechanical.

And a final gripe. I do wish the tech people would stop fiddling about with lighting effects at the Proms. A performance of The Planets is not a sound and light show and I do not need the irritating distraction of different coloured lights to put me in the mood for each movement. I know lighting designers are glad of the work but …

Prom 42, Wednesday 21 August 2024
Beethoven’s Ninth by heart Jane Mitchell (Concept/Scriptwriter)
Ludwig van Beethoven Symphony no. 9 in D minor ‘Choral’ (performed from memory)
Rhiannon May, Tom Simper Actors
Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha Soprano
Marta Fontanals-Simmons Mezzo-soprano
Brenden Gunnell Tenor
Christopher Purves Baritone
BBC Singers, National Youth Choir, Aurora Orchestra
Nicholas Collon Conductor

This is the third Aurora Prom I’ve had the privilege to attend, each progressively building upon
the success of the last. The first half was an exploration of the genesis and development of the
ninth symphony, set on a series of black boxes placed across the Albert Hall’s huge stage.
Using Beethoven’s notebooks as source material – a series of records of one-sided
conversations in the main, as the written word became the composer’s principal means of
communication as his deafness advanced – the dialogue, beautifully crafted into a coherent
narrative by scriptwriter Jane Mitchell, was expertly delivered by actors Tom Simper and
Rhiannon May (herself deaf) and both also using sign language. I particularly enjoyed the
juxtaposition of the composer’s craft with the daily mundane aspects of human life – Beethoven
struggling to find time for a much-needed haircut in the frantic days before the premiere for
example. This was interspersed by Nicholas Collon introducing sections of the orchestra playing
themes and melodies from the symphony in a way that was both detailed yet accessible –
perfectly pitched for a mixed audience.

After the interval came the symphony itself, entirely from memory, Aurora’s USP.
Unencumbered by stands or seats, the first movement zipped along with real vigour whilst the
second movement with its three- and four-bar phrases punctuated by timpani, here played with
very hard sticks, was delivered with such brio that at one point Collon was dancing on the podium.
The lyrical third movement with its decorated string passages building over a simple chorale-
type melody flowed and lilted as I’ve never heard it before, the players’ freedom of movement
translating into the playing.

I spent much of the first three movements wondering where the choir and soloists were: in the
fourth movement we were treated to music as theatre (distinctly different from musical theatre)
with the choir processing in seamlessly after the movement’s opening recapitulation of the
symphony’s earlier themes. Initially placed behind the orchestra the soloists later moved to
more traditional places at the front, whilst a particularly lovely touch was the entrance of
additional musicians for the military band section.

I cannot recall ever hearing Schiller’s words sung so clearly.  And the infectious enthusiasm of the
performers and obvious joy in their acheivement was shared by the rapturous ovations of a
delighted audience.

The evening concluded with Aurora’s rather special approach to an encore, something I won’t
share here – instead, book yourself a ticket to next year’s Aurora Prom, if you possibly can.

Prom 37, Saturday 17 August
Benjamin Britten War Requiem
Natalya Romaniw Soprano
Allan Clayton Tenor
Will Liverman Baritone
Tiffin Boys’ Choir, BBC Symphony Chorus, London Symphony Chorus, London
Symphony Orchestra
Sir Antonio Pappano Conductor

The War Requiem, one of the masterpieces in Britten’s long composing career, was
commissioned to mark the consecration of the new Coventry Cathedral in 1963 following the
destruction of the old in heavy wartime bombing.

A lifelong, committed pacifist Britten draws on both the traditional elements of a musical requiem
interleaved with Wilfred Owen’s war poetry. The enormous forces used to perform the work
(massed choir, chorus of boys, vast orchestra and separate chamber ensemble) works
particularly well in the Royal Albert Hall. I found the opening pianissimo Requiem statement – a
tri-tone bounced between male and female voices accompanied by haunting bells – particularly
effective, the antiphonal effect between voice parts being heightened by the vast separation of
the organ case.

Alan Clayton’s excellent, anguished interpretation of What passing-bells for these who die as
cattle, was accompanied by the chamber orchestra to conductor Antonio Pappano’s right which
led to the Dies Irae with its awkward rhythms symbolic of mechanised warfare. I could feel the
true torment of Will Livermore’s Bugles Sang whilst placing Natalya Romanov high at the back of
the orchestra allowed her voice to soar gorgeously over the textures below. A particular highlight
was the boys choir, positioned high and out of sight in a top level balcony whose sound floated
ethereally into the main auditorium.

The chilling fortissimo of the Angus Dei, underpinned by the sole appearance of the organ,
wound down through the Libera me and the final, telling statement Requiscant in pace
punctuated by the repeated tolling of a funereal bell – and a very long pause before the richly
deserved applause, the audience sensing perhaps not only the importance and symbolism of
the work but how its message of the futility of war holds true for our own, troubled times.