Erich Korngold began his Violin Concerto in 1945 after the fall of Hitler, as a result of a promise he had made to himself to only write film music while the dictator was still living. What a loss to music that he did not continue on the ambitious trajectory of his child prodigy years. In the concerto which finally emerged he plunders some of his best and least familiar material from his films and creates a seamless work of beauty, hampered only by a lack of genuine feeling. By then, one feels Korngold had lost the thread of his true creative edge to the excesses of Hollywood.
In recent years, with the pendulum swinging towards accessibility, the concerto has found its way back into the concert hall by way of the strength of its themes and its vaguely sweet nostalgia. Technically it is tricky to bring off because in the first two movements the soloist is pre-eminent and the long lines need to be delivered as if in one breath. The tone for this delivery is set from the very first bars and for Alena Baeva delicacy and refinement were the name of the game. The more schmaltzy style of Jascha Heifetz, who gave the premiere, was avoided. The accompaniment was also very restrained, with Delyana Lazarova keeping an alert BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra quietly on their toes. Even in the fun finale a certain restraint was leant into, which suitably matched what had gone before. On its own terms the performance was perfectly formed, but for my taste a dollop of kitsch wouldn’t have gone amiss.
Prokofiev wrote his Fifth Symphony in the terrifying final year of the war and the during the first performance in Moscow in January 1945, actual artillery shots in the distance added to those depicted by the composer. What makes the symphony so popular now is its larger-than-life sonic display and the counter-symphonic inevitability of its unfolding. For any conductor this poses formal challenges. Lazarova was particularly effective in the heroic battleworn first movement, which leads to one of the most genuinely thrilling codas in all music. The BBCSSO brass were particularly fruity and characterful here.
The Scherzo was alert and playful and, on its return after the relaxed middle section, appropriately spiky and threatening. Only in the slow movement did one feel Lazarova struggled to hold the elements together. Prokofiev’s long melodies come thick and not so fast here and can sound unrelated and processional. The tone of the movement is ambivalent and to make it coalesce requires a more passionate approach and a slightly more urgent tempo. However, the finale came off with aplomb, its last great climax cleverly eschewing the empty victory in favour of tragic inevitability.
This enjoyable evening kicked off with a splendid curtain raiser, Orpheus’ Comet, by the very musically talented Dobrinka Tabakova. Five minutes of orchestral colour with heart culminating in a quote from Monteverdi’s Orfeo.
