Virtuoso playing in an unforgettable venue: 5-star musicianship in Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie

First thing’s first: Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie really is extraordinary. Yes, I know everyone has told you that already, but take it from me: it’s true. The building itself is an amazing sight, sitting majestically atop an old warehouse at the city’s harbour front, and it’s really heartening to see that that a music venue has become a major tourist draw for many people who just want to be there and experience it. 

Most importantly, however, the acoustics inside the great hall are every bit as good as you’ve been told, and there could scarcely have been a better showcase for them than Bohuslav Martinů’s Double Concerto that opened this concert, because everything was divided antiphonally. Violins, violas, cellos and basses were all split on either side of the central piano and timpani, and the effect in the semiquaver-tastic opening movement was like having shards of sound darting at you from all directions. However, such is the miracle of the Großer Saal that, while the sound remained brilliantly focused on the stage, each note seemed to land with luxurious beauty, giving the overall sound a gorgeous bloom, almost like each note had been carried to your ear on a soft cushion.

Even the angular gyrations of Martinů’s second movement carried great beauty in their agonised writhing, the piano bubbling to the surface in its cadenza as though desperate to provide more contrast, and the finale had a shuddering, quiet darkness, like something Bernard Herrmann would have written for Alfred Hitchcock.

The playing of the Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg was of virtuoso level – it had to be for this music – and conductor James Conlon kept it as tight as a coiled spring while letting the colours blossom. The same was true for their performance of Dvořák’s Seventh Symphony, where Conlon kept the dark energy flowing in close collaboration with his timpanist and double bass players. Hearing Dvořák’s wiry counterpoint in this setting was like hearing the music prised open with its innards exposed, an effect that was exhilarating in the faster movements, but heart-tuggingly gorgeous in the slow movement, which had a lovely sense of growing into its own shape, becoming more expansive with every bar, and featuring some knockout wind and brass solos that leavened the texture beautifully.

And this orchestra of virtuosi produced a virtuoso of their own to play Bruch’s Violin Concerto no. 1 in G minor. When he isn’t taking the solo spot, Daniel Cho is the orchestra’s Concertmaster, which helps to explain the supportive halo of warmth that seemed to surround his rapport with the orchestra. Bruch’s quiet opening seemed to be caressed out of the silence by both the orchestra and soloist, so rapt and gently did it come across, before the swirling centre point of the first movement swept all before it. Cho’s solo playing in the main theme of the great slow movement both sang and soared, underpinned by terrific strength from the orchestra, and Conlon paced it just right so as to eke out the beauty while remaining on the right side of mawkishness. The finale flew high without being hyperactive, with a lovely sense of space around the second theme and, as though to doff his cap to his orchestral colleagues, Cho played for his encore a Mozart duo with violist Sangyoon Lee. Bruch’s concerto is a work that I normally struggle to get particularly excited about but, in this context and company, it made an impression that was unforgettable.