As programmes go, Edward Gardner’s concert with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, taking in Strauss, Canteloube and Kristine Tjøgersen was one of the most thoughtful and well-conceived of this year’s Proms. A journey that started among the Norwegian trees, ambled gently through the Auvergne and culminated in the Alps had much to recommend it, juxtaposing Strauss’ programmatic music with the modern soundscape of Tjøgersen, flavoured with the gorgeous early 20th-century Gallic light of Canteloube’s songs giving complementary and contrasting ideas that stimulated and inspired the musical tastebuds.
Gardner launched proceedings with Tjøgersen’s Between Trees, a short orchestral piece written in 2021 which takes the listener on an immersive journey through the forest. It’s one of those pieces in which there is so much to admire – including the inventive methods of playing Tjøgersen devises for so many of the instruments – but is difficult to love in its totality. A slow tapping opens the work, leading to a sinuous swishing. Throughout, there’s a sense of eeriness – the composer expertly removes us from man’s world – and tiny, delicate woodwind birdcalls that underpin the piece. At times, the orchestra pared back to just a couple of instruments, giving a chamber-like intimacy, but it was in those rare lush moments where the orchestra beamed, a bright, viridian light, that the piece really came to life.
Canteloube is not a Proms regular, and songs can always present a slight risk when in battle against the Albert Hall’s acoustic. Soprano Louise Alder gave us a selection, sung entirely off-book, and dealt admirably with the challenges of the venue. What impressed most was that consistent sense of dramatic narrative – no surprise, given the impact Alder so often makes in the opera house – she brought to each of the songs. Canteloube’s reputation is somewhat bound up with his support for the Vichy regime, but he played an important part in the preservation and reception of Auvergnat music at a time when moves from the centre sought to standardise French culture. The songs are all in Auvergnat, a dialect of Occitan – the tongue of the troubadours. The music is pastoral and gentle, taking the listener back to a simpler time, reflected in the purity of Alder’s line. That purity contrasted beautifully with the rich colour of the LPO, positively shimmering, with vivid colour from strings and woodwind. The most famous of the songs, Baïlèro, saw Alder’s voice at its strongest, rippling out from the platform, but she made much of the Lou coucut, the voice brimming with merriment. The highlight, though was La delaïssádo, which seemed to have the most local fragrance, but also gave Alder the greatest opportunity to imbue the mournful words with a plangent grace; here Alder was in perfect harmony with the LPO, making a compelling case for these songs and eliciting a strong desire to hear more.
After the interval, the Proms staple that is the Alpine Symphony. Gardner has an obvious facility for the big, bold repertoire, but in this performance he eschewed excessive drama, favouring a more balanced approach that at times felt slightly underpowered in the quieter moments, particularly in the strings, but delivered in the symphony’s climaxes. It was not note perfect, with particular fluffs in the brass and woodwind, though this did not detract from the wider quality of the playing. In the strings, Gardner drew an interesting fluidity which prevented the piece from becoming too ‘blocky’, instead giving a sense of ebb and flow. The moments succeeding the Thunderstorm had a hazy, crepuscular beauty, with a delicacy that was impressive to create in so large a space.
