Yunchan Lim, still only 20 and already making waves in the musical world, was forced to withdraw from this Royal Philharmonic Orchestra concert conducted by Vasily Petrenko, which would have marked his London concerto debut. Hand injuries are the risk that all pianists run. Fortunately, Denis Kozhukhin stepped into the breach with the same advertised work, Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto no. 3 in D minor.
Kozhukhin’s way was not to revel in moments of virtuosity or indeed hark back to the opulence of pre-revolutionary Russia. His playing was marked by great restraint, evident in the plaintive simplicity with which the opening theme was voiced. The first movement cadenza was built carefully and with controlled power, carried by crystalline clarity rather than whirling cascades of sound. I noted the many dainty instances of filigree pianism in the Finale, his keepsakes of quiet intimacy while duetting with flute and horn, the wistfulness that pointed ahead to the symphony. It was Rachmaninov with all the vulgarity excised, but a lot of the stormy passion too. In his Tchaikovsky encore, Kozhukhin again demonstrated poise and lucidity.
Before the concerto there was a chance to sample the writing of a brick-throwing suffragette in the overture to Dame Ethel Smyth’s best-known opera, The Wreckers. Lots of turbulence and implied violence in jagged rhythms, the blade-like brass and timpani used like weapons. But it was the central lyrical episode which interested me more, with echoes of Dvořák’s Rusalka in its evocation of a sylvan landscape inhabited by darting wood-nymphs and water sprites.
The second half symphony rather than the concerto proved to be the highlight of the evening. Elgar’s Symphony no. 2 in E flat major had a tough time being accepted as the masterpiece it is, the first audience sitting there, in the composer’s words, “like stuffed pigs”. Expectations in 1911 were rather different on account of the phenomenal success of the composer’s barnstorming First Symphony three years earlier. The merit of Petrenko’s interpretation was that he made Elgar sound much less English and much more universal. Gone was any hint of the staid Edwardian gentleman with all the fustiness of tweeds, deerstalker, handlebar moustache and pocket-watch. This was a composer with a romantic beating heart.
Petrenko held onto the opening ritardando at the very start as if to signal that this would be an expansive traversal of the score, just as he sustained the final chord a little longer than expected as if reluctant to bring the curtain down. Petrenko gets all the elements of swagger, the nods to imperial hegemony, those sudden surges of power and self-confidence, most evident in the whiplash changes of rhythm and pacing that characterise the short third movement. Here, the Falstaffian touches were offset by a hint of malevolence before a veritable witches’ cauldron of effervescence brought this Rondo to an end.
Yet much more than this I was struck by the countless examples of sweet tenderness and introspection which Petrenko, mining the deep shafts of Elgar’s writing, brought to the surface, his long, outstretched and elegant left arm always delineating the broad sweep of the melodic lines. To hear the RPO strings playing with such hushed poise, and not only in the tribute Elgar paints in the Larghetto to a recently departed sovereign, was an unalloyed delight. Heart-stoppingly still and beautiful moments where whispering violins are answered by an ache from the violas – this is what gives this work a singular depth. Was the unease that others have found in the long opening movement a mite underplayed? Possibly. But rarely has Elgar’s rich tapestry shone with such conviction.
