I don't know if there is a new way for an orchestra to tune up but the BSO spent several minutes fingering and plucking at their instruments before beginning tonight. It's probably a new warm-up routine instigated by a mad svengali. Have none of it. Look what Felix Magath did to Fulham.
The one who most needed to warm his fingers up was Alexander Romanovsky, in preparation for his launch into Shostakovich. Bryan Ferry isn't due in the Guildhall until next June but I think they sent Alexander on ahead to get an idea of what it will look like.
Borodin's Prince Igor Overture was a pleasant enough opener but, as we know, the overture is what happens before the music starts. And then it most certainly did.
The Shostakovich Concerto no.2 is the one with the lush middle, slow movement, not the one with the trumpet part. The slow movement was what some of us mainly went in anticipation of and if the opening phrase sounded almost lifted from Richard Clayderman then it soon raised itself to finer raptures and greater emotional range in music more clean-lined and untroubled than any other Shostakvich I know of. But, as often happens, what one goes in anticipation of and what one comes away with can be two different things. The first movement (rather undersold as Allegro) was a magnificent bombardment of ideas and bravura playing. It was always likely to be better in the concert hall than coming through the inevitably reductive medium of stereo speakers, but nonetheless, with a view of Romanovsky's enormous span negotiating the keyboard so energetically and not always only powerfully, it was a stunning piece. It thus comes as some surprise to find that his three discs released so far cover Schumann, Brahms and Rachmanninov but not this except, of course, Shos Pno Conc 2 might not be a work to begin one's recording career with and I'm sure it is something that will come and is to be anticipated with some relish.
The third movement returns to Allegro to similar effect, with some of the most ecstatic passages the immensely versatile Dmitri ever wrote. And then Alexander wasn't given much option but to return for an encore, which was a picturesque Chopin Etude, very different in mood but also very much to be treasured.
And what was Tchaikovsky going to do about that in the second half. How many times has the soloist in a concerto left the symphony with too much of a challenge to follow. Quite a few, I'd say. Tchai 5 put up a good show, particularly in the immense Andante Cantabile, the horn in a beautifully phrased first appearance quite serenely introducing the theme before it is passed on to other parts of the orchestra. Some might say there is something akin to Sibelius going on in Tchaikovsky like this but, apparently, others wouldn't. There are plenty of great moments in Tchaikovsky, who represents a fair proportion of the acceptable face of Late Romanticism and on other evenings this performance would have made for a genuinely worthwhile show.
Romanovsky was born in 1984 and so there should be an enormous amount to look forward to from him. Shostakovich died in 1975 and even though I think I know a fair amount about him, I reckon there will always be lots more to find out about.
Thanks, as ever, to the BSO for keeping Portsmouth on their itinerary. It has been for as long as I can remember. I hope it stays like that while I'm still here. It is much appreciated.
