Victory Symphonies? Pappano and the London Symphony in Leningrad and Vienna

Shostakovich’s Symphony no. 9 in E flat major is far from the mighty celebration of victory expected in Russia in 1945, but a five-movement work offering about 25 minutes of brilliant musical banter. Here it sounded witty, satirical, even light-hearted in its first and third movements. The first is classical enough to have Shostakovich’s only symphonic exposition repeat (duly observed here). The second movement Moderato was touching in its melancholy, and the Largo brooded briefly, but only to introduce a finale which grew from a tentative start to a high-spirited close. 

These swift changes of mood cannot be easy to bring off in concert. The London Symphony Orchestra under Sir Antonio Pappano, now into his second season as Chief Conductor, caught its essential spirit, both exploratory and celebratory. Exploratory in teasing out the moments of transitional tension essential to symphonic form, and celebratory in recognition that even a Soviet symphony can revel in sheer fun, even if the Soviet music police were not themselves amused. The LSO strings had a superb night, and many woodwind solos, whether poignant or perky, were outstanding, not least from Sérgio Pires (Principal Clarinet) and Rachel Gough(Principal Bassoon).

Prokofiev’s Second Piano Concerto is appearing more on concert programmes than once it did, although its spikiness (and difficulty) might prevent it supplanting the composer’s lyrical Third as his most popular, the only one of the five some pianists play. Seong-Jin Cho finds the work “very dramatic and deep”, and played as if he believed in every note. What in some hands can sound like overlong note-spinning, here seemed organic, even natural. Cho has the technique of course to get around the score’s challenges (even Prokofiev complained of the labour of learning it), but said of the Scherzo, with its rapid semiquavers in unison octaves, “I don’t think I breathe when I perform the second movement.” But he brought poetry as much as power. This performance opened Seong-Jin Cho’s ongoing LSO Artist Portrait series, with London events across the season as well as on tour.

Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony is perhaps the best known of all symphonies, its opening the most familiar phrase in classical music. Yet many good judges have seen that opening as difficult. What is the right tempo, and the length of the fermatas? Is the manner to be portentous and weighty – Beethoven supposedly said of it “Thus fate knocks at the door” – or propulsive and thrilling? And is it not a perilous moment even to give the first downbeat, when the score opens with a pause? Pappano and the LSO gave this piece at this year’s Edinburgh International Festival, and the conductor preceded it with a short talk on these matters, concluding that the biggest challenge was “finding the courage to start”. 

Start he did, and found the gesture and timing to launch the opening motto on strings and clarinets with striking unanimity. Tempo was of the modern precipitate school, more headlong than heavy. Something is lost perhaps when those fermatas are quite short, less “fate knocks at the door” more “knock back fate with determination”. But the LSO rarely sound routine, not even in this work, and there was plenty of eloquence here and in later movements. The finale opened majestically, the trombones and piccolo making their first appearance in a Beethoven symphony to add weight and colour to the Fifth’s inexorable march to musical triumph.