Karina Canellakis and the London Philharmonic Orchestra will certainly be bumping up their air miles over the next few days. Six different locations over the next week will take them on a mini-tour of Europe, with only one repeat programme. And I rather suspect the athletic conductor will already have her yoga coach on speed dial. With yesterday evening's programme at the Royal Festival Hall, you might also be persuaded that Canellakis was on another mission, seeking to quash the likes of George Bernard Shaw’s assertion that Brahms was “nothing more than a sentimental voluptuary” and the rock musician Ritchie Blackmore’s suggestion that the cello was “an isolated, miserable instrument” (and he did actually play the cello!). The dark clouds and intensity of the chosen works seemed to put paid to all that.
As a precursor, however, something much more calming, Dawn on the Moscow River, the prelude to Mussorgsky's unfinished opera Khovanshchina, in the orchestration by Shostakovich. Flowing undulations permeated this short piece, the LPO’s satin strings shimmering and woodwinds smooth and rounded, with delicate celesta and harp twinkling in the background, all creating a gentle sunrise over rippling waters.
In Shostakovich’s demanding Cello Concerto no. 1, Pablo Ferrández was more than equal to the task, showing a wide variety of moods and timbre, from the impressive opening growls digging deep into the strings to wispy lyricism, turning from percussive to expressive in a flash. Canellakis complemented with subtle ebb and flow, wonderfully argumentative horn and woodwinds, appropriately sharp and shrill, and relentless grinding in the outer movements.
Ferrández found dark melancholy in the second movement, and the cadenza was cryptic and patient, like a spider coaxing its prey. The finale was jumpy, with full-on sardonic bite, the energetic orchestra typified by acidic clarinet, piquant piccolo and grumbling bassoons, although some of the cello detailing was lost in the melee at times. Ferrández looks like the complete package, and with the LPO under Canellakis seeming really up for it, this performance was the real deal.
After being hyped up with the Shostakovich, intensity levels actually went up a notch with a meaty Brahms symphony (is there any other kind?). His Fourth found the LPO hitting the Richter scale, with Canellakis’ well-honed sense of shaping majoring on flow and detail and allowing taut energy to pervade the score. The pensive lilt and sway of the first movement soon stretched to breaking point, while the grace of the woodwinds and horns over pulsating pizzicato strings in the second movement and the vibrant and punchy Allegro giocoso provided a welcome contrast.
Canellakis pulled out all the tricks of the trade in the Passacaglia finale, moving effortlessly between waves of dark power and punctuating blocks of sound, the sweeping strings seemingly finding an extra few inches in their bows. Canellakis had two masterstrokes though: somehow making the whole second movement feel like one long extended breath; and her slowing down in the middle section of the finale, suspending and straining all tension almost painfully before the final anguished flourish.
