Go West! Pappano and the LSO head towards the Cornish coast

From Salisbury Plain to the Cornish coast via a detour along the Malvern Hills, Sir Antonio Pappano set his compass westwards for this London Symphony Orchestra concert. The topsy-turvy programme began with a symphony – Ralph Vaughan Williams’ craggy Ninth – was followed by a concerto and ended with a symphonic poem, a clever inversion on paper that also worked brilliantly in practice. 

When probed about the meaning of his Sixth Symphony, Vaughan Williams famously groused, “It never seems to occur to people that a man might just want to write a piece of music.” In the case of his Ninth, however, we do know his inspiration – Thomas Hardy’s novel Tess of the d’Urbervilles – although the indications in his rough score were excised when the symphony was published in 1958. But once you know the associations – the first movement was headed “Wessex Prelude”, while the second depicts Tess’ arrest at Stonehenge and the tolling bell sounding the hour of her execution – it’s impossible to unsee them in the mind’s eye when hearing RVW’s evocative, visionary score. 

Veteran conductor Sir Mark Elder was watching from the Stalls of the Barbican, doubtless with much approval because Pappano’s expansive view of the symphony – 37 minutes – clocked in at almost exactly the same duration as his own Hallé recording. From the off, Pappano went for broad tempi, the LSO weighing in with a razor sharp string attack in the pealing bell effect of the first movement. 

The Ninth features some unusual instrumentation: a flugelhorn, whose second movement solo – hauntingly played by James Fountain, if not ideally lontano – could be the wind whistling through Stonehenge. Also present are a trio of saxophones, orchestral imposters whose smoky timbre unsettled, particularly their contributions to close the first and fourth movements, posing questions destined to remain unanswered. In the black Scherzo, a malevolent cousin of Holst’s Uranus, the saxes took on the role of mischief-makers-in-chief, abetted by the pugnacious xylophone playing of Neil Percy. 

Sumptuous strings and dark brass characterised the finale, Pappano driving home the surging climaxes, waves crashing onto the shore, a reference to RVW’s Sea Symphony perhaps, before those saxophones undermined any sense of resolution. 

We stayed resolutely in E minor for Elgar’s Cello Concerto, featuring the LSO’s Co-Principal David Cohen. It’s admirable that the orchestra showcases its principals, even if they lack the pulling power of star soloists or don’t always shine in the spotlight. No such worries here. From the earthy splayed chords of the opening recitative, Cohen delivered the best performance of this concerto I’ve heard in years, overshadowing a stellar name or two with fat recording contracts who’ve had little to say about the work. 

Elgar considered the meandering viola theme from the first movement, taken up by the cello, to be his personal motif: “If you ever hear someone whistling this melody around the Malvern Hills, that will be me.” That tune unfolded eloquently here, blooming into a heart-on-sleeve orchestral statement. Cohen was introspective at the start of the second movement before breaking into the skittering Allegro molto. The Adagio was keenly felt, almost raw with intensity, before the finale broke into its jaunty theme, Pappano leading a Falstaffian romp. 

“Behold the Sea!” Waves again crashed onto the shore in Arnold Bax’s Tintagel. As vivid a seascape as Debussy’s La Mer, it was given a stunning performance here, all salty spume and mewing seagulls. A plaintive oboe solo quoted from Tristan und Isolde, Bax’s nod to Wagner’s opera set off the Cornish coast, before Pappano gave the brass their head in a simply majestic close.