Friday, September 13, 2024
Royal Albert Hall, London
On the date of his birth, one-hundred-and-fifty years ago, there was nothing by Schoenberg in this concert. Instead the Proms rolled back the years even further for the music and the instruments deployed to play it. While in London, with his father and sister, the boy Mozart wrote a three-movement Symphony, which rather belies that he was but eight years old, certainly in this spirited and – slow movement – expressive performance. Surprisingly, given the work’s brevity, Antonello Manacorda didn’t observe all repeats (I am assuming the movements’ second halves are marked for repetition) although he did add a healthy foot-stamp to the Finale. Louise Farrenc’s Third Symphony continues to impress in its imaginative ideas and assured developments, Mendelssohn hovering in the background without masking her own individuality. This fine account served the Symphony well, played at full ‘period’ resource, sustained in the slow movement, agile elsewhere. The ‘Eroica’ wrapped the evening, fleet in the first movement – a wide dynamic range, instruments in relief, especially hard-stick timpani, arguably too much – then a surprisingly spacious ‘Funeral March’ that would soon pick up pace and intensity (fourteen minutes overall). With the remaining two movements it was a return to the characteristics of the opening one (excellent rasping horns in the Scherzo’s Trio, tricky to negotiate when valve-less). Any revelations will depend on the listener.
Mozart: Symphony No.1 in E-flat, K16
Louise Farrenc: Symphony No.3 in G-minor
Beethoven: Symphony No.3 in E-flat, ‘Eroica’
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0022k44