BBC Proms: A performance to treasure as Fabio Luisi & the Danish National Symphony Orchestra celebrate their centenary with Beethoven, Bent Sørensen & Anna Clyne

Danish National Symphony Orchestra, Fabio Luisi – BBC Proms at Royal Albert Hall (Photo: BBC/Chris Christodoulou)

Bent Sørensen: Evening Land, Anna Clyne: The Years, Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 in D minor, ‘Choral’; Clara Cecilie Thomsen, Jasmin White, Issachah Savage, Adam Pałka, Danish National Symphony Orchestra, Danish National Concert Choir, Fabio Luisi; BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall

Beethoven’s choral symphony in a performance full of vivid energy and intense detail yet never straining for a sense of scale. The orchestra’s principal conductor brought discipline and imagine to an oft repeated work.

The Danish National Symphony Orchestra (DR Symfoniorkestret) is celebrating its centenary. It was created in 1925 as part of the founding of DR (Danish Broadcasting Corporation), partly in emulation of the BBC where the predecessor to the BBC Philharmonic had been created in 1922. As part of the celebrations the orchestra and its chief conductor, Fabio Luisi paid a visit to the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall on Thursday 21 August 2025 along with the Danish National Concert Choir (DR Koncertkoret) and soloists Clara Cecilie Thomsen, Jasmin White, Issachah Savage and Adam Pałka to perform Bent Sørensen‘s Evening Land, Anna Clyne‘s The Years and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 in D minor, ‘Choral’.

We began with Evening Land by Danish composer Bent Sørensen who has a long relationship with the orchestra. This was only the third of Sørensen’s pieces to be performed at the Proms and one of those previous performances was given by the Danish National Symphony Orchestra on a previous visit in 2008. Evening Land was commissioned by the New York Philharmonic in 2017, the piece now features regularly in Danish National Symphony Orchestra programmes. It is inspired by an image Sørensen had from his childhood on the island of Zealand in Denmark which he recalled whilst in New York so that “the vision of quiet – mixed with the new vision of flashes of light and bustling activity“.

Clara Cecilie Thomsen, Jasmin White, Issachah Savage, Adam Pałka – BBC Proms at Royal Albert Hall (Photo: BBC/Chris Christodoulou)

Things began with a folk-inspired violin solo, so quiet it was barely there with this alternating and mixing with a delicate web of string sound plus occasional vivid wind and brass interruptions. Sørensen developed these two opposing worlds, the one never mixing with the other, the central section was full of movement and drama, yet there was always a melodic thread and gradually the material from the opening re-emerged, more intense at times but gradually unwinding and evaporating as the vision disappeared. This was a strange and haunting piece, perhaps not best suited to the cavernous spaces of the Royal Albert Hall but you could not be help admire the way Sørensen worked so much aural magic in conjuring his vision.

Anna Clyne wrote The Years for choir and orchestra in 2021 during a period of enforced isolation during the Covid pandemic. The work was commissioned and premiered by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra during Clyne’s period as associate composer from 2019 to 2022. The work sets a text by Stephanie Fleischman which Clyne describes as “a meditation on the mystery of time“.

The work began with quiet, sustained orchestral textures with just a hint of rhythm, and then over these came the choir’s lyrical, homophonic repetitions. The piece developed in energy and movement during the middle section, with the opening material returning at the end as it gradually evaporated, but throughout there was the sense of Clyne playing with the basic idea of lyrical choral repetitions (usually homophonic and sometimes hypnotic) over busier orchestral material. The result created some surprisingly sophisticated textures and seemed to stretch a little material a long way. Perhaps it was a mistake to have two relatively low key pieces together, each based on a sophisticated treatment of the musical textures.

Anna Clyne, Danish National Symphony Orchestra, Fabio Luisi – BBC Proms at Royal Albert Hall (Photo: BBC/Chris Christodoulou)

After the interval it was the turn of Beethoven’s Choral Symphony. The Danish National Concert Choir consists of some 70 professional singers, and it was both a welcome novelty to hear the symphony performed by a large professional chorus and have a chorus somewhat smaller than often happens at the Royal Albert Hall. The soloists, Danish soprano Clara Cecilie Thomsen, American contralto Jasmin White, American tenor Issachah Savage and Polish bass Adam Pałka were all making their Proms debuts. They were placed high behind the orchestra, just in front of the organ.

The opening Allegro began full of discipline and energy, the instrumental lines enlivened by strong articulation. Throughout the performance you sensed the way Luisi encouraged his players to bring out the accents and the rhythms. We might have had a big string section (some 60 plus players) but this use of accent and articulation kept textures lively and vibrant. Also, the whole orchestral sound tended towards an assemblage of multiple lines, each full of engaging detail, rather than the sort of block sound often favoured by modern symphony orchestras. There was nothing specifically historically informed about this performance, yet with his speeds and approach to orchestral textures you felt Luisi leaned a little this way, and certainly the approach worked well in the Royal Albert Hall.

The first movement was notable for the sense of impetus and forward motion, the inherent energy in details. The sheer energy and attack with which the players invested the unison theme was vivid indeed, and the recapitulation was compelling in its focused energy. The second movement was brisk and crisp with strong articulation yet light, and again I enjoyed the play of colours and textures as the instruments intertwined. The trio was disciplined and urgent. The slow movement began with strong, characterful tone from both woodwind and strings, there was little sense of slush romanticism here. As the performance became more urgent, there was a sense of lucid flow throughout.

The final movement began with its strong bass recit, the players finding a nice freedom to the line which contrasted with the poised interruptions as the players seeming discarded a whole raft of ideas until the main theme took hold; initially fleet and quiet yet pressing forward. Bass Adam Pałka brought and almost operatic directness to his initial recit answered by discipline and energy from the chorus.

Members of the Danish National Concert Choir – BBC Proms at Royal Albert Hall (Photo: BBC/Chris Christodoulou)

A key moment, for me, in any performance of the Choral Symphony is when the soprano soloist comes in and whether you can still hear the alto solo under her. It is a telling detail, and here soprano Clara Cecilie Thomsen and contralto Jasmin White did admirably. Luisi kept the solo passages moving and I was impressed by the sense of operatic ensemble that the soloist brought, along with the way their voices did carry over the orchestra.

The march (and what I have always thought of as the tenor’s drinking song) were remarkably perky whilst Issachah Savage fielded his light, bright tenor in an alert manner. the energy and attack in the orchestral fugal passage led to a choral section performed at remarkable speed and accuracy. I loved the choral/orchestral balance throughout. The choir made a lithe, strong sound but did not overwhelm and even when going full throttle it was possible to hear all the orchestral detail too. With the slower choral passages Luisi took highly detailed approach with his singers following his detailed phrasing, and this contrasted to the fine bounce the orchestra brought to the big fugal passage.

The final sections were often quite pacey, the fast solo passages taken at quite a lick with apparent ease (always a relative term in Beethoven), and excitement in the chorus. I enjoyed to the balance of the soloists in the extended melismatic solo passage with individual voices advancing and receding. All four soloists were characterful yet all had a capacity to listen and create an ensemble. The final choral sections was fast and tight, full of excitment.

Clara Cecilie Thomsen, Jasmin White, Issachah Savage, Adam Palka, Danish National Concert Choir, Danish National Symphony Orchestra, Fabio Luisi – BBC Proms at Royal Albert Hall (Photo: BBC/Chris Christodoulou)

This was a performance that filled the Royal Albert Hall with vivid energy and intense detail yet never felt as if the performers were straining for bigness. Occasionally there were hints of untidiness, which was probably understandable given the almost certainly tight schedules. But the way Luisi encourage his players’ use of articulation and the vividness with which his professional chorus followed his lead meant that this was a performance to treasure, one that was distinctive without straining to be different.

There are three further performances of Beethoven’s Choral Symphony in Copenhagen later this month (see DR Koncerthuset website for details) and the Royal Albert Hall concert is available on BBC Sounds and will be televised on BBC Four tonight.