Prom 6: BBC SO / Vanska <br></br> Prom 7: Monteverdi Choir / English Baroque Soloists / Gardiner, Royal Albert Hall, London
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Your support makes all the difference.The horn-tinged chords at the start proved the germinal factor, lending their modal character to much of what followed. Excitement swelled and subsided in slow waves, but from this confident London premiere by the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the lasting impression was of the glowing and glowering panoramas behind the action.
Stephen Hough's muscular, agile solo in Rachmaninov's First Piano Concerto was a match for some more positive, onward-moving orchestral support. Nielsen's Fourth Symphony was turned by the conductor Osmo Vanska into something fierce, cohesive and self-contained. Yet this symphony is bursting with creative disorder, too, and Vanska doesn't really do that.
The night's second, all-Haydn Prom climaxed with the so-called "Nelson" Mass: written before the admiral's exploits, it just happened to be played to him on a visit to Haydn's employer. This performance made much of its edgy accents, aggressive trumpets and, with Luba Orgonasova, brilliant soprano part. The opening short motet "Insanae et vanae curae" relies on a simple but effective contrast of vain fury and inner calm. That's true to its origins as a filler for an oratorio, but in its vivid harmonies, much relished by the choir here, it also looks forward to Haydn's later masterpiece in that genre, The Creation.
The orchestra's typical fire and polish had the Symphony No 90 to themselves, and offered some competitively ornamented solos. The finale has one of Haydn's best false-ending jokes; Sir John Eliot Gardiner gleefully milked it so that it came off four times.
These Proms can be heard online at www.bbc.co.uk/proms
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