Seventy-nine years ago, the 83-year-old Richard Strauss conducted the two-year-old Philharmonia Orchestra in a programme of his own works at the Royal Albert Hall. With one tweak in running order, today’s Philharmonia and its Principal Conductor, Santtu-Matias Rouvali, brought their ongoing 80th anniversary season celebrations to a fitting climax by recreating that programme at the Royal Festival Hall.
Things did not get off to an especially promising start. The opening of Don Juan can be one of the concert hall’s most thrilling moments, but Rouvali chose a portly tempo that sounded as if our anti-hero, and possibly his horse, had been overindulging in the nosebag – a lot of buckle and not much swash. The orchestral sound, however, emerged as a plush, silky, Technicolor canvas, idiomatically gorgeous and featuring top-notch woodwind and brass solos. That was the real signal of what to expect as the evening progressed.
The Burleske is Strauss’ only piano concerto, written when he was 21, an 18-minute single movement in which the soloist throws the orchestra a catalogue of virtuoso effects, including wit, sparkle and plenty of supercharged octaves. It remains a curio, not least because the piano part is so challenging. As soloist, Benjamin Grosvenor made light work of this formidable task, bringing it such well-defined colour and character, and such a fine range of expressive shades, that it proved how much had been missing from Don Juan. He infused passagework with panache and humour, finishing runs as if with a freshly curled ribbon; the shining legato of the ‘big tune’ central section and the clarity and perspective of his textures were still more of a delight. His encore, a transcription of Strauss’ song Morgen, maintained that luminosity; time seemed to stand still.
Strauss in 1947 kept his own selection of waltzes from Der Rosenkavalier for the end of his concert, but Rouvali placed them directly after the interval. It opens with part of the prelude and later substitutes a double bass solo for Baron Ochs; cue deliciously deadpan humour from principal Tim Gibbs. The Philharmonia is currently playing the opera at Garsington and seems in the zone; it was as if Rouvali pressed the ignition to set a musical Maserati in motion, soaring and schwung-ing.
Finally, the Symphonia domestica loaded the stage with performers, including an outsize horn section and a saxophone quartet. Again, this symphonic poem is a rarity, overlooked in favour of its Nietzschean siblings. Some critics in Strauss’ day considered family life too trivial for such treatment. Full marks to the composer for recognising that the complexity of getting a young family to breakfast and off to the school run absolutely requires a double fugue.
He takes a forensic ear to the household: a toddler’s switch from cutesiness to earth-shattering tantrum, or the parents’ slide from intense bedroom activity and pillow talk (great solos from leader Zsolt-Tihamér Visontay and principal cello Richard Birchall) to a troubling argument, only dispelling when the clock strikes seven. Maintaining a sense of direction through the extensive final section is a challenge, however; perhaps Rouvali did not always pace it effectively enough. One half-expected a Strauss family child to pipe up “Are we nearly there yet?”.
Nevertheless, Rouvali has an exact, quick-spirited, fine-honed technique, give or take the occasional windmill. He has been Principal Conductor since 2021, the musicians play for him as if they’re purring, and he must take credit for an ample dose of their fabulously sumptuous sound. To misquote Sir Thomas Beecham – who conducted the Philharmonia’s first-ever concert – even if I didn’t particularly like all the details, I absolutely loved the noise it made.
