For the second time in a fortnight the LPO welcomed a lean, long-limbed guest conductor on top form. Hannu Lintu, currently chief conductor at the Finnish National Opera, began with a more than usually substantial multi-movement offering from the late Kaija Saariaho. Composed some twenty years ago for (and unveiled in) Cleveland, Orion adds quasi-minimalist momentum to the composer’s signature blend of Parisian spectralism and post-Sibelian Nordic light. The third movement moves as well as repeats, reflecting the myth of the hunter condemned to wander the night sky for his violent pursuit of animals and women. The first is perhaps overly static but impresses as sheer sound, not least when its dark soundscape is riven by throbbing tectonic shifts. In between comes an archetypal, crystalline Saariaho night sky. The performance seemed first rate. Brief solos for violin and cello were skilfully taken but tended to reinforce the lack of real ‘foreground’ in music composed for a very large, expansive orchestra (including four percussionists, two harps and organ). Time will tell whether David Fanning was right to claim in Gramophone magazine that the score ‘deserves to figure on any short list for orchestral masterpiece of the new millennium’.
Prokofiev’s First Violin Concerto is ubiquitous these days with soloists increasingly prone to undercut expectations of ‘fairy-tale magic’ with a more caustic approach. Alina Ibragimova, who played the work with this orchestra in 2017 and 2021, brought disquiet to a first movement totally unclouded only at its sweet and lyrical extremities. She then hurled herself into the scherzo with ferocity of attack that precluded absolute clarity of articulation. Is differentiating between sul ponticello and con sordino iterations of the same material really beside the point? David Oistrakh didn’t seem to care either but eschewed any kind of scratchiness. While others find additional pockets of charm and tenderness in the finale, Ibragimova’s sense of engagement never faltered and her feistiness endeared her to the audience. She was also most attentively and scrupulously accompanied. Premature, atmosphere-destroying cheers broke the magic spell of Prokofiev’s parting shot. A pity.
After the interval came a performance of Nielsen’s masterwork exceptional for its lucidity, linearity and balance. The snare drum, famously instructed to improvise as if to halt the progress of the orchestra, remained on stage at the end of the first movement. In some recent London performances the ‘renegade’ player has walked off with his instrument to continue the taunting backstage. Here the sound died away with a second, invisible player presumably retreating into the bowels of the building. Lintu even managed to avoid making the second movement feel anti-climactic, binding its sections together while inspiring more tip-top playing from the orchestra. The whole score was made to feel modern again, its conflict between ‘vegetative’ and ‘active’ states predating something similar in Tippett’s Third Symphony by half a century only still, somehow, confident of the possibility of victory.
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