Symphonic Rock / Film Music Gala

We all know that the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra has an undeniable talent for taking a piece of music and creating a stunning explosion of sound that raises even the smallest hair on your body. However, up until last week I was completely unaware that they could take a commercially successful song and turn it from wonderful to spectacular.

Mixing the old with the new to an audience that reflected that, the RPO, over two nights, took celebrated rock songs and classic film scores and revitalised them with a new lease of life. From a tribute to Queen and Coldplay to Cinema Paradiso and Harry Potter the RPO played pieces that transcended across decades and genres with each as captivating as the last.

Both nights, although vastly different, captivated its audience from start to finish. Symphonic Rock had blood pumping and feet tapping from start to finish whilst Film Music Gala captured imagination and emotion with familiar pieces from childhood to adulthood. Creating light hearted moments mirrored with moving and emotive playing, the RPO put on two nights that were simply sublime and a must have for next year’s calendar.

The RPO will be performing Ode to Joy, a concert of Beethoven’s popular music, at the Royal Albert Hall on the 7th June 2013.

'The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra did itself and Berlioz proud'

The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra here did itself and Berlioz proud. Dedicating the concert to the late Sir Colin Davis (who made some of his earliest recordings with the RPO, including Mozart and Rossini overtures, Beethoven 7 and Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex), the choice of composer, as it turned out, could not have been more appropriate, Sir Colin having been one of Berlioz's greatest and most-consistent champions.

Berlioz's La Damnation de Faust is, like many of this composer's works, a conception that defies easy categorisation. It isn’t an opera but invites staging; most recently in London Terry Gilliam threw everything at it for English National Opera. As a back-story, the twenty-four-year-old Berlioz had composed Huit scènes de Faust, published it, and sent it to Faust’s author, Goethe. His composer-friend Carl Zelter dismissed Berlioz's offering as 'the aborted offspring of a hideous incest ... a series of grunts, snorts and expectorations.' Berlioz went on to receive – and live with – such uninhibited criticism. Eighteen years later, undeterred by Zelter's tirade, Berlioz returned to Faust and incorporated – and expanded – the eight scenes into a 'dramatic legend'; four large parts now containing a total of twenty sections. It was heard in Paris in 1844 in an extravagant first outing, Berlioz conducting.

Having previously conducted Faust in London, in 2004 with the Philharmonia Orchestra, Charles Dutoit was here in inspiring form, a master of the piece and a demonstrative if for-the-music presence leading the performers easefully and with vitality. The RPO was in superb form for its Principal Conductor, the strings enjoying sheen and also richness of tone, the woodwinds were full of character, the brass had presence without dominating, and the percussion added much colour to proceedings. The London Symphony Chorus is a veteran of this work, not least with Colin Davis conducting.

This was an excellent without-frills presentation: no speeches, no graphics, no added lighting. Just an invitation to take your seat, read the programme (if needed), which included the French text and English translation, and listen to the music, which more than takes care of itself when the performers are on song, as here. Simples! What did enhance the performance was the purely musical decision to do without an interval. So we had an unbroken 125-minute span of great and inimitable music, with Parts 2 and 3 (between which an interval is often taken) made into a seamless seventy-five-minute sequence that wasn’t a second too long. Other finely-judged touches included the well-timed brass manoeuvres that took some players off-stage for fanfares that were sounded from a perfect perspective; and Berlioz’s version of Faust (including some changes to Goethe’s original) is an expansive work of thought, description and flamboyance.

In both old-age reflection and his Méphistophélès-rejuvenated new lease of life, Paul Groves was an ardent Faust. He was on top form, relishing the notes and the emotions, and he let the Devil take him. As Méphistophélès, Willard White made a jack-in-the-box first entry (from a seated position) irresistibly conniving with Faust through wicked glances and imposing his resonant voice and larger-than-life presence to notable effect. Maybe he lacked oleaginous insouciance in the pizzicato-dominated Sérénade de Méphistophélès (Scene XII), but White was in impressive, vivid form; and also rapturous in Voici des roses (Scene VII), suggesting that the Devil does indeed have the best tunes. If the under-projecting Benedict Nelson made little of the small role of Brander and his ratty tale, then Ruxandra Donose was a ravishing Marguerite – she took the role in Dutoit’s 2004 performance, and it is little wonder that he wanted her back. She was vocally captivating and enjoyed fine obbligato support from violist Fiona Winning and Leila Ward on cor anglais in two of the most sublime numbers in the score; and she and Groves created an ecstatic love-duet.

The London Symphony Chorus, whether drinkers, soldiers, students or peasants, did all that is required with gusto and consideration, and were properly ironic with the drunks’ reiterated 'Amen', brazen in Fugue on the Theme of Brander’s Song and suitably frenzied as The Damned and Demons in the penultimate The Ride to the Abyss pandemonium given with elemental and doom-laden charge when Hell fully opens its chasm and swallows whole. By contrast the closing In Heaven was of celestial charm, the now-entering New London Children’s Choir (fifty-four in number if with only three boys!) adding to the chasteness. It’s amazing what Berlioz achieves here with a few violins, flutes and a couple of harps. He was a genius orchestrator. Posterity has recognised Berlioz but forgotten Zelter.

There were numerous highlights in a performance distinguished for its wholeness. The RPO’s woodwinds were delightfully sprightly (spritely) in Minuet of the Wills-o’-the-Wisp, and there was some beautiful dreaming – with gnomes and sylphs – in the a moonlit escape for Faust’s vision of loveliness, Marguerite, with some exquisite solo and choral singing, setting-up wonderfully a Dance of the Sylphs that was sensitively played. All in all this was an inspiring concert account of Berlioz's Faust that can stand aside Mark Elder’s LPO reading (RFH) and James Levine’s Boston Symphony BBC Proms appearance. Dutoit’s interpretation was notable for a symphonic gathering of the work’s various episodes, and for being dramatic enough, and sometimes operatically impetuous, but without overt description, which is written in anyway, and for conclusively nailing The Damnation of Faust as being a masterpiece by Hector Berlioz.

'Alluring sonorities and stylish phrasing'

Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness provided the subject of Tarik O’Regan and Tom Phillips’ 2011 chamber opera. Now the duo have created a Suite using material from the opera but with a fresh narration.

In the Suite version there’s a lot of atmospheric scene-setting — the sounds of what used to be called the jungle and the riverboats of ivory traders. Most of the psychological drama is contained in the fifth of seven movements, entitled Kurtz, after the mysterious but morally compromised trader whose much-heralded death lies at the centre of the novel. But the score intermittently reveals penetrating glimpses of the savagery of the colonial experience. Phillips’ text, skilfully compressing Conrad’s pungent prose while retaining its sombre resonance, was declaimed expressively by Samuel West.

Around the new work O’Regan shaped a programme that neatly chimed both chronologically and thematically. Elgar’s Cockaigne Overture (1901) and Sibelius’ Second Symphony (1901–2) also date from the time of Conrad’s novel. In both, Nicholas Collon drew some alluring sonorities and stylish phrasing from the RPO. But it was the baleful brass at the conclusion of the second movement of the Sibelius that leapt out as the Nordic equivalent of Conrad’s primeval barbarity.

'Shelley and the RPO proved to be outstanding partners to an outstanding pianist'

On the face of it, a popular Russian programme, but each piece has good musical reasons for its popularity, and the familiarity means that an audience will in some instances be more critical of what is offered in the way of performance – in other words, we all know (or think we do) how this music should go. But when you have a conductor as pre-eminently gifted as Alexander Shelley, even the most hard-bitten (or should we say experienced) of music critics and regular concert-goers will wish to hear his approach to such well-loved music.

Last year, on seeing Alexander Shelley conduct for the first time, I remarked on the quality of his musicianship, which reminded me of Thomas Beecham’s commanding approach. This programme reinforced that impression. It was certainly a programme that Beecham could have conducted. Shelley’s accounts of the Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov were exemplary: powerful and sensitive, without ever hurrying but certainly fast when required and beautifully shaped. The result was that we were treated to very well-prepared and finely executed accounts of both masterpieces, with consistently fine playing and leader Clio Gould as excellent as usual in the violin solos of Scheherazade.

In Rachmaninov’s Paganini Rhapsody – an equal masterpiece – Shelley and the RPO proved to be outstanding partners to an outstanding pianist. The work was marvellously played, and most coherently shaped, by all concerned. Peter Jablonski’s decision to omit the ossia chords in Variation XIV was a brilliant stroke, enabling us to hear the orchestra alone: almost every soloist who plays this virtuoso piece cannot resist the ‘chunky’ writing here, but by omitting it, as Jablonski demonstrated, the music is enhanced.

All in all, a memorable programme under an outstanding young conductor – but it is German music-lovers who get the most of Alexander Shelley: he’s been the greatly admired music director of the Nuremberg Symphony for some years – can no British orchestra entice him to a permanent position?

'A potent performance, full of Eastern Promise'

An attractive programme with two plus-points: an overture and a Tchaikovsky rarity. It’s amazing how often concert and opera overtures (so many are gems) are passed over these days by orchestras mean enough to plunge us ‘cold’ into a concerto. The Prince Igor Overture, Borodin’s unfinished opera if completed by Glazunov and Rimsky-Korsakov, is too good to set aside. Kirill Karabits led a potent performance, full of Eastern Promise, eager in the allegros and with silky-smooth warm strings in the slower sections capped by a poetic horn solo from Laurence Davies.

Karabits’ agreeable handling of dynamics, shadings and detailing served all three works well, and not least in the very attentive accompaniment for the Prokofiev, which opened with an expressive clarinet solo from Tom Watmough (whose contributions were a pleasure throughout the concert). Alexei Volodin gave a crisp and modulated rendition, his bravura serving the music, and he was nicely laconic at the opening of the second movement, and superbly poised in the whirlwind activity of the finale, here rapaciously fast, although the middle section was far too indulged, emphasising its verbosity. If the work as a whole seemed as relentless as ever, then that’s the piece; at least this reading was better characterised and variegated than many; indeed wit and fantasy informed it. For a well-merited encore, Volodin offered a Rachmaninov prelude, the one in D, the fourth of the Opus 23 set; still in Prokofiev mode Volodin was too tense for its gentle flowering and a little hard-toned but nevertheless found a generous spirit as part of his sublime slowness.

Of Tchaikovsky’s seven symphonies (I include 'Manfred'), the first three are ludicrously neglected relative to the last three (the unnumbered 'Manfred' comes between 4 and 5). ‘Winter Daydreams’ – which was followed by the ‘Little Russian’ and the ‘Polish’ – is a beauty, suggestive, picturesque and icily romantic while being cannily symphonic, at least in the first movement, here well-paced and articulate if prone to mundane tuttis. The Land of Desolation, Land of Mists slow movement was the highlight, Karabits risking and sustaining a spacious tempo, and distinguished by some beguiling woodwind-playing, not least from oboist John Anderson, the music-making notably tender. Karabits miscalculated the scherzo, though, with too swift a tempo losing its gossamer spins and balletic grace, the musicians harried, although the trio was magically shaped, enough to suggest that The Nutcracker was rather nearer than twenty-five years away. If the finale is the weakest movement, it still has many attractions, a folksy and fugal fest emerging from and returning to gloomy episodes before the majestic and getting-faster coda, all finely captured in this well-prepared performance.

Unexpectedly the RPO had a generous extra on its stands, Kamarinskaya by Mikhail Glinka (1804-1857), sometimes referred to as 'the father of Russian music'. It’s a song and dance piece; under Karabits the former was suitably Slavonic and the latter agile and frisky.