Anna Thorvaldsdóttir (photo, Saga Sigurdardottir)

Wednesday, April 8, 2026

Southbank Centre, London – Royal Festival Hall

If it’s a Wednesday, and there’s a London Philharmonic concert in the RFH, chances are that Radio 3 will broadcast it, live, far better than recorded, share in the moment. This one opened with CATAMORPHOSIS, further evidence that Anna Thorvaldsdóttir creates bountiful atmosphere, colour and texture – effects – but is less certain with substance. There’s no doubting her imaginative orchestration (large forces) as our relationship with Nature is explored and encouraged to be responsible and far-sighted, although how this translates into Thorvaldsdóttir’s image-creating soundtrack – vast spaces, ice-capped mountains, solitariness, man insignificant against such awed ‘time immemorial’ presences yet capable of destroying it, is uncertain – that seemed to be the twenty-minute message (warning) here in this scrupulous account that went beyond the drawing board.

It partnered perfectly with Beethoven’s ‘Pastoral’ Symphony, with five titled movements, the basis for picturesqueness and the feelings conjured by the music – the latter displaced for me in the first movement with a hectic first-one-to-the-pub tempo and clipped phrasing. Ridiculous! And no sense of a gentle slumber as the brook’s comforting current was tapped into, with greater breadth evident as the scene progressed, followed by energetic peasants’ fancy footwork before being dispersed by inclement weather (presumably timpanist Simon Carrington supplied the thunder) and then a final acknowledgment of the deity for ridding the green pastures of the storm – shape and expression, cueing eloquent feeling, now present.

I don’t need to say which Bruch Violin Concerto it was, even though there are two others, also the Scottish Fantasy and the four-movement Serenade. Nikolai Szeps-Znaider played the G-minor recently in a Detroit Symphony webcast, and directed too. (Even more recently for me it was Zukerman from Vienna.) This time with a conductor, Kirill Karabits, his ear, via the opening work, attuned to complementing the soloist sensitively yet with character, the LPO playing its part generously in support of Szeps-Znaider (using the violin on which Kreisler offered the premiere of Elgar’s Concerto in 1910), they gave a shapely, inward and impassioned reading, spontaneity at its core. The thing about Bruch No.1 is this: however often it is programmed, it’s a great piece that stands up to repetition indomitably. For an encore Szeps-Znaider gave an intensely expressive rendition of the ‘Sarabande’ from JSB’s D-minor Partita.

Anna Thorvaldsdóttir
CATAMORPHOSIS

Bruch
Violin Concerto No.1 in G minor

Beethoven
Symphony No.6 in F major, Op.68 (Pastoral)

Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider (violin)
London Philharmonic Orchestra
Kirill Karabits

“Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s CATAMORPHOSIS, a reflection on our fragile relationship with our planet, is a dramatic work that is also full of hope. It revolves around a distinct sense of urgency, driven by the shift and pull between various polar forces – power and fragility, hope and despair, preservation and destruction.” [R3]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002tcc0

Berliner Philharmoniker – Kirill Petrenko premieres Anna Thorvaldsdóttir’s Catamorphosis and conducts Josef Suk’s A Summer’s Tale, Daniil Trifonov plays Prokofiev’s First Piano Concerto [live webcast]

Vienna Philharmonic at the Musikverein – Zubin Mehta conducts the Overture to Oberon & Beethoven Seven, with Pinchas Zukerman playing Max Bruch’s G-minor Violin Concerto. Live relay on Österreich 1 [oe1.ORF.at].

Detroit Symphony Orchestra – Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider plays Bruch’s Violin Concerto No.1 & conducts Brahms’s Symphony No.2. Live DSO webcast.

Berliner Philharmoniker – David Robertson conducts Varèse’s Arcana, Miroslav Srnka’s Superorganisms, and Beethoven’s ‘Pastoral’ Symphony. Live Digital Concert Hall webcast.

London Philharmonic Orchestra at Royal Festival Hall – Edward Gardner conducts Mark-Anthony Turnage’s Three Screaming Popes, Mussorgsky/Ravel’s Pictures at an Exhibition, and Alina Ibragimova plays Bartók’s Violin Concerto No.1. Live on BBC Radio 3.

London Philharmonic Orchestra at Royal Festival Hall – Edward Gardner conducts Bacewicz, Lutosławski and Janáček, with Josef Špaček playing Martinů’s Violin Concerto No.2. Live on BBC Radio 3.

Let’s hear it for Max Bruch/4. Scottish Fantasy. Michael Rabin/Philharmonia Orchestra/Sir Adrian Boult. Recorded 1957 for Columbia.

Let’s hear it for Max Bruch/3. Violin Concerto No.3. James Ehnes/Montreal Symphony Orchestra/Charles Dutoit. CBC Records. 2001.

Let’s hear it for Max Bruch/2. Serenade for Violin and Orchestra. Salvatore Accardo/Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra/Kurt Masur. 1978. Philips.

Let’s hear it for Max Bruch/1. Violin Concerto No.2; Mischa Elman/LSO/Anatole Fistoulari; a ten-inch Decca from 1957. | Also Jascha Heifetz/RCA Victor SO/Izler Solomon; recorded 1956/HMV.