Gone are the days when performances of Vaughan Williams’ symphonies were a rarity in London. In fact, the Sea Symphony has received at least three outings in the past year by leading conductors, which I have had the pleasure of reviewing. Each of these performances had their own strengths, but Sir Mark Elder and the London Philharmonic Orchestra’s reading was the most potent of the three. It had the maturity and surefooted-ness of a conductor who has fully absorbed the work and long since recognised it as a masterpiece.
Elder and the LPO were greatly assisted by two excellent soloists and the London Philharmonic Choir firing on all cylinders. Baritone David Stout was ideally strong and sensitive in equal measures. In the opening passages of the first movement he was swashbuckling and in the second movement, On the Beach at Night Alone, he was intensely alive to the stargazing wonder of the music. In the finale, he was passionate and lusty in his great extended duet with the soprano.
Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha has made something of a speciality of the work recently, having sung it a number of times already with Pappano and the LSO over the summer. Her understanding and affection for the work seems to have deepened even further. She was rapturous and forthright in the opening movement and her contribution to the long finale, The Explorers, had sensuous scope and power.
The chorus were on great form, with incisive power in the virtuoso Scherzo, The Waves, which they presented effortlessly. But it was Elder’s handling of the structure of the epic finale that was the crowning achievement. Differing from his recording with The Hallé, Elder adopted a more urgent tempo throughout. It benefited by way of focussing on the inevitable sweep of the movement, without labouring its beautiful individual moments. This performance was perhaps less Mahlerian, but it was more truthful in its ambition.
The concert began with two relatively rare works by Sibelius. The Oceanides is one of the composers last symphonic poems, written in 1914. It is a concise work, diametrically opposed to the Vaughan Williams in many ways, which also depicts the infinite power of the sea. The challenge for conductors is to control the build-up to the great storm climax that crowns the work. This was achieved splendidly by Elder, with the LPO brass sounding as rich as ever.
The Scènes historiques no. 2 uses earlier music from 1899 and puts it through the lens of the composer’s dark Fourth Symphony, particularly so in the horns’ augmented fourths in the first movement, The Chase. The whole suite remains picturesque and was played idiomatically.
