Prom 4: Abduraimov/Munich PO/Gergiev, Prom 5: Halle Choir/BBC Phil/Noseda, Royal Albert Hall, review
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Did Valery Gergiev dictate the menu for his Prom with the Munich Philharmonic? It was a strange idea to place Galina Ustvolskaya’s Symphony No 3 between Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto and Rodzinski’s Rosenkavalier arrangement – two crowd-pleasers sandwiching a crowd-confuser, judging by the muted audience response. This little-heard Soviet composer’s sound-world of painfully scrunched dissonances radiated a frozen desperation – mirroring, we are told, her defiant isolation in life – but it had magnificent integrity. And it absolutely needed setting in a meaningful context, alongside other Soviet works from the same period.
For the rest we got a meticulously controlled account of Ravel’s Bolero, and a performance of “Rach Three” by a young Uzbek born to play it. Behzod Abduraimov brought a singing tenderness to the opening, sensitively commanding leadership to the piano-and-orchestra conversations, and infectious brilliance to the finale.
“From the heart – may it return – to the heart,” wrote Beethoven of his Missa solemnis. And under Gianandrea Noseda’s direction the BBC Philharmonic plus the Hallé Choir and the Manchester Chamber Choir provided a lovingly focused backdrop against which four solo vocalists (tenor Stuart Skelton and soprano Camilla Nylund both superb) could shine even from their awkward position behind the orchestra. The switchback momentum of this ecstatically wayward work took a while to establish itself, but finally all the strands were pulled together triumphantly.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments