Flashy Prokofiev and Respighi from the BBCSO and Antonio Méndez

A programme of flashy works showcased the BBC Symphony Orchestra at their most colourful and joyously virtuosic. Up-and-coming conductor, Antonio Méndez, stepping in at the last moment for an indisposed Jonathon Heyward, injected a note of fresh urgency into his interpretations. James Lee III, an American composer new to me, was represented by his awkwardly entitled Sukkot Through Orion’s Nebula of 2011, receiving its UK premiere. An effective concert opener, its simple ternary form has lively music of the John Adams ilk on the outside, encasing a longer atmospheric passage at its centre. It was in this central section that a more distinctively lush harmonic and melodic voice emerged. The BBCSO relished the finely crafted orchestral writing and the rousing final section.

Prokofiev’s over the top Piano Concerto no. 2 in G minor, was a blatant showpiece for the young composer and it remains one of the most technically challenging marathons in the repertoire for any soloist to reach the finishing line. The emphasis on the superhuman finger-twisting wizardry of the solo part, alongside a Technicolor orchestral part, make for a heady mix. In the wrong hands, there can be a relentlessness about the whole concoction, with the soloist pushed into a corner, fighting to survive, but nothing of this feeling was evident here. Yeol Eum Son had the ideal combination of technical abandon, lyrical control and power, which brought out the best in the music. 

Particularly memorable was the fiendish cadenza in the first movement, which the soloist presented like a coloratura aria, extravagantly lifting off her stool to produce the forcefulness needed, but never sounding hectoring. The lightness of the continuous fingerwork in the short Scherzo was also impressive and she brought gruff humour to the Intermezzo. By the time we get to the Allegro tempestoso, the listener can feel battered and bruised by what has gone before, the soloist on their last legs, but Yeol Eum Son maintained the intensity until the showy final passage, which she and BBC SO brought to a rousing conclusion.

Méndez, with the BBCSO were at their best, impressed in the first two of Respighi’s Roman trilogy of symphonic poems, Fountains of Rome and Pines of Rome. These lavishly scored works are unique in succeeding almost exclusively by means of their picturesque colour. The orchestration is dazzling, both in the quiet and grand dramatic moments. Méndez let the music speak for itself, never pushing the tempi or exaggerating the climaxes. The poetic elements of the Fountains, with its echoes of Richard Strauss and Debussy, were beautifully crafted. The tempo of the playful opening of the Pines was not as fast as some, but the atmosphere of children playing was captured well and the orchestral ensemble was spot on. The beautiful passage leading to the recorded sound of a nightingale, the first time pre-recorded sound was used in a live performance, was sensitively played. This lead to the final section depicting the Roman army advancing on the Appian Way, with its extra brass, was as awe-inspiring as it was intended to be.