It was on the evening of Monday April 20 that BBC Radio 3 broadcast a concert recorded last summer at a German music festival. This winning appearance by the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and Sir Antonio Pappano opened with a beautifully shaped, intimate and loving, account of Wagner’s Siegfried Idyll, and then Janine Jansen entered into the hothouse, volatile and ecstatic world of Szymanowski’s First Violin Concerto. Following which TP played his trump card, a superb rendition of the Opus 72 set of Dvořák’s Slavonic Dances (which is less-well-attended to than the Opus 46 collection). Pappano and the COE, at once well-prepared yet spontaneous, relished these eight gems, their fire and eloquent sentiment, so much so that forty-eight hours following the relay my memory remains aglow with this refreshing and illuminating experience, and which is available on the BBC iPlayer for thirty days after the broadcast.
Tony Pappano to the rescue … and stars in Dvořák’s Opus 72
