Review: BBC PROMS: ELGAR'S CELLO CONCERTO, Royal Albert Hall
A mixed bill shows competency but lacks emotion
Works by Edward Elgar and William Walton are the big draws in tonight's Prom concert, with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Vasily Petrenko.
Anton Welbern's "Passacaglia" opens this evening of 20th century classics. It sets the tone for the evening of contrasting musical styles: avant garde, expressionist, and disconcerting. At 11 minutes it is the hors d'oeuvres of this orchestral feast.
Elgar's Cello Concerto, written just after the Great War, has moments of deep melancholy, poignancy, and virtuosity. Cellist Pablo Ferrández captures the lightness and playfulness of the work, but is perhaps less effective in the warm, emotional. passages.
This performance was more than competent, along with the soaring strings, vibrant brass, and whispering woodwind, but for me, it stopped short of that soaring power that makes you almost jump forward in your seat.
The Elgar "Cello Concerto" is the third most played work at the Proms, first appearing in 1936. It sings with nostalgia and vibrates with grief, and remains one of the most beautiful works in the canon of English classical compositions.
William Walton's work went through a period where it was dismissed by critics as dated and irrelevant, but by his death in 1983 it was gaining new appreciation and acclaim. In our shared hometown in the North of England he remains revered as a clever and careful composer.
His "Symphony No 2" is the work we hear tonight. Relatively short at just under half an hour across three movements, it was written 25 years after his first symphony, and was inspired by the post-war sounds of jazz as well as the modernist work of earlier composers like Stravinsky.
The orchestra is grouped into small sections as the symphony progresses - solos for French horn, teases of percussion, an appearance from the vibraphone.
First, a breezy allegro molto sets the mood - a tense, anxious, exploration of sound which bleeds into the sensuous and imaginative lento assai. A closing risoluto is full of brief variations of homage and derivation.
Taken as a whole, this Prom was competent and enjoyable, but lacking that touch of something special that would lift it into the first rank.
The BBC Proms continues at the Royal Albert Hall until 12 September
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