Gazing at the podium at the Royal Albert Hall in growing disbelief, I gently pinched myself to check that I was awake. I was. I blinked and looked again. Could it be? Were the hips of the monastic Vladimir Jurowski... wiggling? Alas, cameras were not present either to capture this unexpected sight, nor this most rewarding concert. London audiences had become used to Jurowski’s interesting programming in his time at the LPO, and in his visit with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin he delivered an intriguing combination of Weill, Adès and Rachmaninov, the first of which featured the hip phenomenon.
Weill’s Kleine Dreigroschenmusik, an arrangement of eight extracts from Die Dreigroschenoper, is written for minimal orchestral forces – a stack of woodwind players, a couple of brass players and a pianist. Its performance here was delightful, with jaunty contributions from the bassoon, limpid saxophone and earthy punch from the trumpet, all underlain by pianist Kirill Gerstein who brought a skip to his playing. It was sultry and humorous, full of swagger but yet beautifully precise, particularly in “Pollys Lied”. It was a fine way to open the concert and slightly subversive too, for a visiting orchestra to hide the majority of its players at the start. What a tease.
Out they came, though, for Adès’ Concerto for Piano and Orchestra which premiered in Boston back in 2019, but is already on its way to becoming a cornerstone of the modern piano repertoire. On the strength of Gerstein’s performance it certainly deserves to. A frequent collaborator of Adès’, Gerstein gave the premiere and it was clear that he has a natural affinity for the piece which seems both to look back and forward. Redolent with jazz music, it feels very early 20th-century (in addition to Gershwin, I detected flavours of Stravinsky and Ravel) while simultaneously treating its heritage with a degree of humour. The writing for piano is gleefully excessive, with shattering chords and vivid glissandi that elicit an unconscious grin to the listener. Gerstein’s performance was precise, but free, in balance with the orchestra. Oddly though, it was in the second movement, the Andante gravemente that his playing gave the greatest impact; so much force in the silence and space between his notes. Immaculately handled, aided by Jurowski’s nuanced conducting which kept the chaos from becoming too disorderly, this was a triumphant Proms premiere. An encore of a transcription of In the silence of the secret night was a welcome amuse bouchée for the second half.
Rachmaninov’s Symphony no. 3 in A minor, written in exile during the composer’s summer holidays in Lucerne in 1935-36, received an uneven reception at its premiere. Jurowski’s interpretation leaned firmly into the modernist elements of the score, eschewing an overly romantic approach in favour of a leaner sound, particularly in the final movement. The cellos in the first movement had a crispness that cut through the brass, though there were one or two moments when the woodwinds were drowned out, no doubt a disadvantage of the venue. A fine horn solo opened the second movement, while later we had woodwind braggadocio as Jurowski whipped up tension, the pacing perfectly judged.
Trust Jurowski to dig up Sir Henry Wood’s arrangement of the composer’s Prelude in C sharp minor, a choice that epitomises how fortunate we were to have Jurowski in London for so many years.
