Saturday, June 14, 2025
Berliner Philharmonie, Herbert-von-Karajan-Straße, Berlin
Debut week for Kazuki Yamada with the Philharmoniker, the third playing of this diverting programme opening with Fountains of Rome, Yamada (music director of City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo) relishing subtle impressionism and – tying to last week’s John Williams concert – cinematic flair, thrillingly majestic and sonorous for the Trevi Fountain episode, wonderfully orchestrated by Respighi, a master of this craft. A further piece with aqueous connections followed, by Takemitsu, enchanted and entrancing, a world apart created, Emmanuel Pahud (BP principal flute) hypnotic with the Syrinx-like writing, his colleagues supplying elusive yet magical harmonies and timbres.
Introducing his two-movement C-minor Symphony (in fact his fifth and final such work), Saint-Saëns simply advised that the opus is “with organ” – it is not a Concerto, merely one instrument out of many, and anyway it is heard in only the final stages of both parts, collectively a masterpiece of transforming just a couple of ideas. Yamada’s broad approach worked well, giving the first section some sinew as well as articulacy, the second part slow and rarefied, the now-heard organ (Sebastian Heindl) quietly supportive. The other movement introduces a piano (two hands, four later) in scherzo-like material, the darting ‘trio’ enjoying brilliant playing. The transition to the stately ultimate section was well-managed, and once arrived there the organ (in sound, obviously electronic rather than pipe) tended to be a little dominant, Yamada introducing some ‘interesting’ emphases en route to a triumphant peroration if not the most timpani-emphatic salvo there has ever been.