Proms 2026: Strauss’ ‘Four Last Songs’

My final prom of the 2026 season is officially labelled “Strauss’ s Four Last Songs” – that piece the clear intended draw – but held so, so much more, not least my introduction to conductor Pawel Kapuła, here making his Proms debut. Kapula studied conducting and musicology at Krakow’s Academy of Music, He became the Principal Guest Conductor of the Pomeranian Philharmonic (Bydgiszcz) in 2021 and has made a number of notable debuts this season, including with BBC NOW. The only recording by him I know of is the Beethoven Piano Concertos (soloist Reed Tetzloff) and the Triple Concerto (with Alexandra Tursu and Dunkulo Ishikaza), with the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra, released July 2025 on the Aparté label.

Kapula has a fantastic ear for sonority, encourages maximal dynamic range from his players, and clearly embraces a wide repertoire, from the Modern to the lesser-known to core pieces – all on display here.

Henze’s Erlkönig Fantasy was written in 1996, extracted from an episode from his ballet, Le fils de l’air (The Son of the Air, 1962). It marked Schubert’s 200th birthday, and was first performed on that anniversary itself, January 31, 1997 (in Paris, Orchestre Philahrmonique de Radio France, Marek Janowski).

Henze takes the essence of Schubert’s song – its sense of increasing desperation, as heard in the son’s voice – and transplants that into his own language, transforming the piano’s triplets into headlong velocity. Some of the melodic shapes are retained, too (the bass scales, the boy’s “Mein Vater, mein Vater”), but we are a long way from the original. Henze’s take is a masterpiece. Henze presents the very essence of the song’s freneticism and barely-contained terror, dissonances red raw.

He scores for large orchestra, including a welter of percussion handled by four players (bass drum with cymbals, bongos, castanets, antique cymbals, suspended cymbals, glockenspiel, marimbaphone, snare drum, tam-tams, tom-toms, vibraphone, woodblock), harp, piano/celesta):

Kapula’s performance was intensely gripping, vivid and yet nuanced. Henze’s grinding dissonances, garlanded by percussion, were only one part of the equation – a sense of dance was there, too, fervid now, slinky the next. Discipline is all in this piece – that enables the momentum to be achieved through steady pulse – and here it was perfectly realised.

Henze’s music not only moves between tonal and atonal, it moves between genres easily, too. He does write orchestral effects and gestures, but one of Kapula’s many achievements was to acknowledge them without and over-highlighting. A fabulous performance: I’m not sure where the Proms programme’s estimate of ten minutes duration came from though. Kapula took less than six (as does Jonathan Nott in his recording on Tudor with the Bamberger Symphoniker above).

So to Schubert proper: the so-called “Unfinished” Symphony, a simply magnificent performance. The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra showed their credentials in contemporary music in Henze; now, in early romanticism, the most exquisitely shaped performance of Schubert’s truncated masterpiece. Mystery was paramount, held not only within breathtaking pianissimi (beautifully sustained) but also rhythmically, too: the urgency of the bass anacruses of the first movement seemed directly related to the unrest of Erlkönig. Kapula’s beat was tiny at the outset: less is more, and now the piece indeed emerged from nothing.

Little details counted, too: the scoring of the horn and bassoon small bridging passage (just a couple of bars) was immaculate: one heard he voice-leading super-clearly and when the moment returns later in the movement with roles changes because of the natural horn’s capability, Kapula had the harmony and voice-leading speak just as clearly.

Good to have the exposition repeat, too, with the anacrusic urgency just ratcheted up a touch. From the micro (subtleties of scoring) to the macro: structurally, this was magnificent. When the development section was reached, there was a deepening, a sense of awesome unfolding. It was close to a performance I heard many years ago by Günter Wand with the BBC Symphony orchestra at the Festival Hall (Schubert 8 and 9, some quarter of a century ago!). It seems almost incidental to mention how together brass and woodwind chords were and how pinpoint, hard-stick timpani underscored the argument so powerfully, but they are all vital elements in this experience.

The second movement was more mellow, but moved (as it should, given the 3/8 time signature). The first violins were just so, so together, a testament surely to the depth of rehearsal that went into this performance. There was an extraordinary clarity, too, throughout: everything was audible. A mention should go to the extraordinary clarinet solos of Yann Ghiro, and his clear musical rapport with Principal Oboe Stella McCracken. There was, perhaps, a slight loss of energetic momentum at one point, of tension, but it was very minor. This was a beautiful, finely sculpted account. Each year, the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra seems to give its all in a very special evening: memories of a Pergolesi/Stravinsky evening with Martyn Brabbins in 2021 and the freshest of fresh Beethoven Nines in 2023 coupled with Helen Grime’s 2019 Meditations on Joy (conducted by Ryan Wigglesworth) spring to mind.

Post-interval came a rarity: Benjamin Britten’s 1941 slimline arrangement of the Menuetto from Mahler’s Third Symphony (1893-6), What the Wild Flowers Tell Me. “How we look at the world through the eyes of flowers,” as the conductor puts it in his Radio 3 interview. Britten asks for fewer woodwind (some solos are reallocated). It was the gentleness of Kapula’s reading that was so impressive – more of those stunning pianissimi.. Strings brought some lovely portamenti; the overall lightness was a sort of Mendelssohn-meets-Mahler. There is space for grotesquerie here, though, and perhaps that was pruned a little, too. Leader David Guerchovitch’s solos were perfectly placed and balanced in the hall (they are a little spotlit on the broadcast). Nice acidic touches from the trumpet on both, though.

Here, to supplement the broadcast, is a performance by the WDR Symphony Orchestra, Cologne, under conductor Ariane Matiakh:

Strauss’ radiant Four Last Songs were first heard 76 years ago at the RAH, which makes each appearance just that bit more special. They were also performed at my very first Prom as a professional writer: in 1999, Soike Isokoski with the Bavarian State Orchestra under Zubin Mehta, alongside Don Juan and Eine Alpensinfonie.

It is wonderful to see Welsh-Ukrainian soprano Natalya Romaniw as soloist here and whose previous achievements have included a career-defining Lisa Queen of Spades at Holland Park in 2016 (review); more recently, she took over from an indisposed Lisa Davidsen at Covent Garden for a splendid Sieglinde Walküre (see my review on the Critics’ Circle website). Strauss’ demands are different from Wagner’s but no less demanding, particularly in the lower soprano register (and Romaniw’s is blissfully strong).

The songs date from Strauss’ 84th year, and have a core end-of-life serenity. Romaniw cites an ‘acceptance of transition and change, and beginnings and endings … a part of life’ cycle”. Of course, Nature is a vital part of Hesse and Eichendorff’s texts. It is interesting to note of course that the order in the published score is not that heard at the RAH premiere: there, it was ‘Beim Schlafengehen’; ‘September’; ‘Frühling’; ‘Im Abendrot’ while here it was ‘Frühling’;’September’; ‘Beim Schlafengehen’; ‘Im Abendot’. Maybe there is a case for a resuscitation of the original order given the venue and event?

Anyway, ‘Frühling’ appeared, taken swiftly, and easy two to a bar for the conductor, that freshness of detail everywhere apparent. Romaniw’s voice is expansive; it flies up high like a bird (and there are plenty of avian references in this first song). In some respects, Romaniw reminds me of Jessye Norman in this piece, the voice not as velvety but nevertheless with an equivalent generosity. The quite bass-light orchestral sound fitted the music well.

Kapula did find extraordinary transparency in the score, which enabled ‘September’ to capture the ‘shudder’ of summer as it cedes to autumn. There was a lovely horn solo from Chris Gough (how Romaniw made her breath prior to the final ‘zu’ sound musical I don’t know, but she did). A pity the wind entrance on the final horn note was a touch ragged, though.

The warm counterpoint that opened ‘Beim Schlafengehen,’ emerging from chthonic beginnings, was simply lovely, as was Romaniw’s silky legato. Her entrance (‘Nun der Tag mich müd’ gemacht’]) the perfect outgrowth of the preceding music. And never have I heard the descending orchestral lines so clearly as here. Here, it was the solo violin of Guerchovitch that sang as much as Romaniw, while the final bars spoke of transfigured space. Finally, ‘Im Abendrot,’ initially an explosion of sound. More lovely counterpoint followed, lines engaging, dialoguing, in the orchestra before Romaniw’s considered delivery of Eichendorff, itself garlanded by the horn section. It was the perfect close.

Applause between each song was just ridiculous, though – Strauss gives us one arc of gorgeousness, and yet just as each song casts its spell, so it was broken. Hardly a second from the very final chord to clapping, either.

Fascinating programming; superb performances. That’s what the Proms is all about. I shall actively seek out concerts conducted by Pawel Kapula, too, if I can: he is a remarkable talent.

Until 2027 ….