Busoni’s centenary marked by Gardner and Grosvenor at the BBC Proms

The twinning of Rachmaninov’s popular Symphonic Dances and Ferruccio Busoni’s rarely performed Piano Concerto may seem reminiscent of Twins starring Danny De Vito and Arnold Schwarzenegger. But whereas the latter is a piece of Hollywood fluff about unlikely siblings, the performance of these masterworks at the BBC Proms was one that would have swept the board at the Oscars, were it eligible for those baubles. Edward Gardner conducted the London Philharmonic Orchestra through a terrific reading of Rachmaninov’s last gift to the world before he and his A-Lister of a band joined forces with Benjamin Grosvenor, one of music’s forces of nature, for a fabulous exposition of Busoni’s monument to virtuosity.

As with so much of Rachmaninov’s music, the Symphonic Dances are shot through with a sense of gloom and doom, the Dies irae motif hovering around the piece like those unreal bats in the Hammer Horror Dracula movies. However, it is the elements of light and joy which gives the piece its vivid persona. In this performance there was much to savour: the sharply-delineated ensembles which were crisp and arresting; the woodwinds were of lunar radiance, particularly in the interlude where Martin Robertson’s saxophone sang delightfully; and the percussion etched bright highlights to counterpoint the warmth of the strings and brass.

Busoni’s five-movement concerto is 70 minutes of doom-laden grotesquery – sombre, macabre, shimmering, thunderous and freakish with, at its close, the magical, mystical and mesmerising. It is a work that cannot be conquered; the best that may be hoped-for is that the performers can meet the composer on his own terms. That, to my mind, is what the soloist, conductor and orchestra achieved here. Grosvenor’s playing was breathtaking; fearless where nerves of steel were required, majestic where pomp and ceremony held sway, dark and brooding where the score alights on the banks of the Styx. Gardner was with him all the way, providing expert navigation for the hazards of pacing, balance, colour and tone. In the Tarantella, soloist and orchestra were just great, revelling in that crazy dance which shows that Busoni was born Italian, whatever other stamps were on his travel documents.

For the Cantico last movement Busoni sets words from the verse-play Aladdin, by the Danish poet and playwright Adam Oehlenschläger. It is a paean to the Power Eternal, which is probably why the composer asks for the chorus to be out of sight. Here, the combined men’s voices of the Rodolfus Choir and the London Philharmonic Choir were arrayed in the Gods – so, out of sight of a good portion of the audience, if not entirely invisible. The appearance of the chorus in the fabric of the performance was one of those transcendental moments that define the very best the Proms can offer. It was like witnessing the blossoming of an exotic plant, an event that happens once every million years and one for which the only thing to do was to sit in wonder. It was heart-stopping.

For an encore Grosvenor played a little prelude by Bach, perhaps as a reference to Busoni’s association with the work of that power eternal. There is never any need for a special occasion to play the Rachmaninov, but it was great that the BBC marked the centenary of Busoni’s death with a handsome tribute.