Sunday, August 10, 2025
Royal Albert Hall, London
This mouth-watering collection of works, any one of which is off-the-scale enticing, needed top-class performances to enhance the keen anticipation this concert engendered. The LPO and Edward Gardner duly delivered.
Sibelius’s Greek-inspired The Oceanides, nymph-related, occupants of the Mediterranean, is a flute-playful piece that shimmers (magical use of glockenspiel and two harps) and also explores the mysteries of the deep through stormier writing. Sir Michael Tippett’s final work, The Rose Lake, written to mark his ninetieth-birthday (first-performed February 1995, LSO and Colin Davis), music that echoes the colour-changing Lake Retba, in Senegal, a phenomenon that Tippett witnessed first-hand and cued this half-hour “song without words”, scored for large orchestra, for variety rather than density, music of singing intensity and rhythmic panache, which could only be by this composer, yet he was not repeating himself, given an expectant and ardent outing, alive to quixotic aspects, en route to the concluding “plop” (Tippett’s description), all-in-all masterly, and a word for Andrew Barclay and Owen Gunnell, the athletic percussionists striking the numerous rototoms.
Following the interval, Aigul Akhmetshina singing Ravel’s enchanting Shéhérazade, judiciously accompanied (a beguiling flute in the second song), was a thing of wonder – voluptuous, transporting, sensitive, ecstatic, poignant, mysterious. Lastly, another masterwork, Debussy’s La mer, as much a symphony as a seascape, a fluid, detail-conscious (sometimes these grateful ears felt it was exhumed) rendition that was momentous, mercurial and dramatic to end a completely successful concert.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002gs0r
A selection of Ed Gardner’s recordings…
EG is one of the conductors.
Listening on radio 3 last night, presenter Handley really got up my nose by constantly calling the conductor Ed and umpteen mentions that 3 is the home of the proms. Shut up and help restore some dignity to the station.
Agreed.
It was indeed a fabulously planned programme and superbly played and conducted. From my £11 seat above the cellos even the quietest details were clear. And no applause in the four inter-movement gaps!!!! The only sadness for me was that, unlike his mentor Sir Mark, Ed (yes, it is his name!) Gardner did not restore the original fanfares in the last movement. I just about managed to ignore the youth on my right who scrolled on his phone for 80% of the time.
John and I were there for the premiere of TIppett’s The Rose Lake. At the conclusion of this magnificent work, it was booed by a small group of anti-contemporary music protesters at the back of the hall, in a rather half-hearted and timid fashion. (I forget the name the protesters went under). After a few moments, Colin Davis appeared in the wings on the left of the stage. He was clearly incandescent with fury. Staff ushered the protesters out, with little grace.
John was so struck with the work and with the rototoms, that he featured the instrument in his Symphony No. 6, Symphony on a Pavane, written some time later.