Esa-Pekka Salonen ends his decade-plus tenure as the Philharmonia Orchestra’s chief conductor this season, which is also its diamond anniversary. Given the current Coronavirus circumstances, the send-off and celebrations look much different than anyone would have anticipated a year ago. But an internationally live-streamed opening program of Britten and Ravel – which also included a very small socially distanced audience at the Royal Festival Hall — showed once again that this intrepid impresario can draw dynamic musicianship even under the most stressful of circumstances.
Salonen had a worthy partner in Julia Bullock, who performed Britten’s early song cycle Les Illuminations. These settings of Rimbaud have become so associated with Peter Pears (and, in more recent times, the likes of Ian Bostridge) that it’s easy to forget they were composed originally for soprano Sophie Wyss. Bullock has the right vocal quality for these enigmatic pieces; though not particularly opulent, her instrument is darkly colored and expressive, her liberal use of vibrato shading the emotional ambiguity in Rimbaud’s poetry. Her French phrasing is impeccable, and it’s no surprise to learn she supplied her own translations for the programme notes. Salonen matched Bullock’s eloquence. The rigid harmonics of Britten’s score can sometimes seem alien to the beguiling texts, but Salonen elicited a performance from the Philharmonia’s string players that highlighted the underlying experimental impulses.