Brahms, Chopin, Beethoven: the programme of he Royal Philharmonic Orchestra's most recent Cadogan Hall concert, under the baton of Fabien Gabel, was unashamedly mainstream. The opening item of the programme was the Brahms Tragic Overture. The opening strident chords managed to be agitated yet pensive, interrupted silence hanging in the air as each note dissipated once more. The melodic line was expansive and voluptuous, but the real joy in this particular interpretation was the highlighted attention to rhythm: the off-beat textures in the middle did not feel jaggedly spliced into each other, but instead melted into a tumultuous, unstable wall of sound that was positively enticing. The anticipation as the initial theme returned again was handled wonderfully, the tension almost tangible in the hall.
For the concerto, we were presented with Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 2 (the first he wrote of the two concerti but the second to be published), with pianist Janina Fialkowska joining the RPO as the soloist for the performance. Fialkowska played with an assured quality of tone and the phrases as a whole were beautifully nuanced, but the ornamentation seemed a little harsh for the otherwise pearlescent sound-world – strings of notes were pinballed through at a remarkable speed, but the suppleness and delicacy of the ornaments suffered in favour of the virtuosity. While Fialkowska had sure command of the situation in any and every piece of passagework, it sometimes felt like a race to the finish as opposed to the rise and fall of a sigh, the flourishes not quite translucent enough. Every technical hurdle, however, was made to feel completely non-existent, Fialkowska raging against the orchestra in the forte passages without ever sounding harsh, and her attention to detail in bringing out the individual voices in the more reflective passages was thoughtful and simply stunning.
The second movement fell into much the same category as the first: the trills seemed over-fast for the movement, not the languorous quiver expected so much as a full-speed ahead approach, but the overall sense of line was good, and the unwavering left hand keeping an admirably steady tempo and avoiding the urge to lapse into sugary overindulgence. The third movement was by far the most successful of the three; the charm of the returning rondo lit the room as Fialkowska effortlessly navigated the melodic sweeps, both a cogent part of the orchestra and an entity in her own right; the direct quotes from Chopin’s Nocturne in C-Sharp Minor playful and tongue-in-cheek over the clicking orchestra’s staccato. On the whole, the piece was clearly well thought through and interpreted, but there just needed to be a little more delicacy in the ornamentation.