Lili Boulanger’s D'un matin de printemps is as fresh as a Spring morning, remarkably so for what was effectively a deathbed work from the tragic 24-year old. She clearly knew her Debussy and Ravel, but this account to open Sir Antonio Pappano's concert with the London Symphony Orchestra brought out its original colouring too, relishing its filigree textures. It was an evocative curtain-raiser, saying much in less than five minutes.
What happened to the Violin Concerto in the 1930s? Works by Barber, Bartók, Berg, Britten, Prokofiev, Stravinsky and Walton added more to the repertoire in a single decade than Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Bruch, Dvořák and Tchaikovsky managed in a century. (You might plead the cause of Saint-Saëns’ rarely-sighted Third, but I could retaliate with the almost-vanished 1936 concerto of Schoenberg, or even the Baal Shem of Bloch). But of that 1930s group, it is the Barber that might (almost) have come from the previous century.
Like the Mendelssohn it is suavely lyrical from the very outset, though soloist Janine Jansen took a while to settle, and Barber’s gorgeous tune initially sounded pallid. But Pappano energised the movement with a very stirring first big tutti, and Jansen responded in kind thereafter. The lovely Andante, after a typically beguiling oboe solo from Juliana Koch, was entrancing throughout. Barber then recalls he was supposed to give a concert soloist a chance to show off, and provided a final Presto in moto perpetuo that offers more notes in three and a half minutes than it seems possible to play. But Jansen executed this tour de force with thrilling bravura. The consequent acclaim led to a gentle encore from Lili Boulanger, Pappano accompanying on the piano that was fortunately part of Barber’s orchestra.
Pappano, shortly to leave The Royal Opera after 22 years in charge, is Chief Conductor Designate of the LSO, which has just announced an ambitious programme for 2024-25, his first season at the helm. Doubtless he will still be heard from both pit and podium in London, but the balance will surely change to being much more above ground. His relationship with the LSO will doubtless also develop, with potentially exciting results in London and elsewhere.
Certainly their survey of the large terrain of Rachmaninov’s Second Symphony, land tilled more now than once it was, suggested a fruitful harvest lies ahead. There was a tell-tale note in the programme announcing a length of 60 minutes for this work, when 54-55 minutes is common for performances which, as here, omit the first movement exposition repeat. Even in his recording (also minus that repeat), Pappano takes an hour, as he did here. But he did not wallow, though many passages invite a swooning response, but had always a sense of flow even at broad tempi. He used the score, but gave a sense he knew it – and what he wanted – very well, and encouraged softer playing at several moments, always welcome in this hall where a general mezzo-forte can embalm the music in long works. The LSO principals responded to his direction with many a fine solo, not least the long clarinet theme from Sérgio Pires in the Adagio. In a work dominated by soaring lyrical music, the full LSO string band (the six basses of the Barber had become nine in the Rachmaninov) made a radiant sound. The composer’s trademark long sequences were expertly controlled to build powerful climaxes, and the work’s narrative was shown to be compelling when the conductor sees the long view.
