Thursday, March 6, 2025
Stern Auditorium, Carnegie Hall, New York City
I’m afraid the Land of Nod claimed me for most of the Rachmaninov. However, the final few minutes suggested it had been a spectacular performance, Yunchan Lim (Cliburn winner) refreshing this old warhorse with technical bravura and musical clarity, the LSO and Sir Antonio Pappano at the top of their collective game, with Lim going on to deliver a smouldering and substantial encore, Liszt’s lyrical Petrarch Sonnet 104.
However, it was the great Walton Symphony that made this concert an occasion – music first-performed incomplete by the LSO in 1934 (the Finale not played), the ensemble and Sir Hamilton Harty going on to record (via the complete BBCSO premiere) the finished work the following year for Decca, and in more recent times adding to its LSO history with Previn and Colin Davis, and now Pappano, already witnessed in London, ending the orchestra’s three-week US tour with as powerful and passionate a performance as one could wish for, the LSO in steaming-hot form, giving as malicious (second movement) and melancholic (third) a response as needed, following a symphonically taut opener of expressive depth and tempestuous climaxes, rounded by a crusading and resounding Finale. While not unknown in the States, Harty brought it to Chicago, Ormandy took it up, and its a Slatkin regular (most recently in Washington DC, National Symphony Orchestra), anyone new to Walton One through this LSO account will have been fortunate indeed. As an encore, Sibelius’s Valse triste.
I was at the concert. The Rachmaninoff was an exceptional performance and it was interesting to hear the very different sound of this accompaniment to that of the Philadelphians who often play Rachmaninoff. The LSO had a more full throated, robust sound and the overall effect was thrilling. Lim was really outstanding, running on and off the platform as the largely Korean (or so it seemed) audience cheered him to the rafters. He has an extraordinary technique and a gorgeous sound, especially in lyrical passages. The Liszt encore was worth twice the price of admission. The Walton is not often done in the US and is not generally liked. The audience had no idea when the ending was over. A very fine performance if not quite matching Previn who had a lighter touch in the first and second movements. The finale as you say was really well done and often sounds like a struggle – when in doubt, write a fugue! The audience was very enthusiastic and the orchestra and conductor were clearly well pleased with the reception. On descending the stairs from the balcony I overheard a couple in involved in this exchange – “so which is worse – Bruckner 7 or Walton 1?” (The VPO had done the Bruckner the previous weekend).
Couldn’t help but notice all the empty seats after intermission. I waited 30 years to see the Walton played live and many folks were content shrugging it off. What a waste of an opportunity. Give it a chance at least. The LSO did not disappoint. An all around great evening of music. Hope they return next year with a pairing of Scriabin and Vaughan Williams.