Photo, Mark Allan
Sunday, July 27, 2025
Royal Albert Hall, London
At last year’s Aldeburgh Festival the BBCSSO and Ryan Wigglesworth included a memorable Bruckner Seven, and returned to it here. Moulded con amore, and including a magical descent to ppp, there was an immediate engagement as the first movement was generously unfolded – the whole full of pertinent observations yet also cohesive, the timpani’s first entrance, late in the movement, was a crescendo unusually dramatic – and sustained over the Symphony’s course, here close on seventy minutes. The Adagio, exactly that, was seamlessly built to a resounding climax, as before without the dubious cymbal clash. Good. (So, Haas’s edition? Once again, no mention.) The Wagner tubas laid bare Bruckner’s hurt when learning of that composer’s death. (Red cards for those that clapped.) A propulsive Scherzo (spectrally detailed) and flowing yet considerate Trio followed, the Finale light-footed and majestic, disparate twains bonding, inner string parts revealed, the coda glorious.
As centrepiece, D-minor Mozart, Piano Concerto No.20, Mariam Batsashvili, in league with conductor and orchestra, not overplaying the minor-key invention, consistently stylish and subtle but without weakening the ‘storm and stress’ potential, aided by Beethoven’s cadenzas, the middle ‘Romanza’ unusually spacious, convincingly, the stormy episode offering less contrast than desired though, if classically related, and then the suspicion of a hiatus from Batsashvili, who seemed unsettled thereafter, reclaiming her poise (mostly) in the Finale, if too moderate in tempo and emotion. Drawing a veil over this, Liszt’s La campanella (after Paganini) restored the phrasal and glittering prowess that Batsashvili possesses.
The concert opened with the premiere of Wigglesworth’s For Laura, after Bach, so-titled because of a JSB movement recorded by Laura Samuel and played at her funeral. This commemorative piece, for strings, lasting about eight minutes, belongs somewhat in the Britten/Tippett axis, and is not obviously sad or in memoriam as well as beautifully crafted and inventive, going beyond its brief without losing sight of the poignant inspiration.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002g3nw
We were there at the concert. Cracking performance of the Bruckner. I totally agree with you about the applause between movements, especially after such an intense slow movement. You want the silence at the end of the movement to be broken by the energy of the scherzo, not by some half-hearted applause. The applause was tentative, as if people did not want to clap at that point but felt they should – could the RAH announcer ask people not to clap between movements in concerts like this, as they do with ‘no photos during the concert’.