Drama and passion from Grosvenor, Boreyko and the London Philharmonic Orchestra

There was a good house at the Royal Festival Hall to receive Andrey Boreyko, standing in for the indisposed Karina Canellakis, and it was regally entertained with superb music-making from London Philharmonic Orchestra and Benjamin Grosvenor. The change of conductor required a tweaking of the programme, so instead of two pieces by Sibelius there was one only: En Saga. Tchaikovsky’s Symphony no.4 in F minor replaced the Lemminkäinen Suite. Mozart’s Piano Concerto no. 21 in C major provided classical glamour to counterpoint the Romantic brooding of the other pieces.

Vivid Nordic storytelling is one of the great pleasures Sibelius added to the orchestral repertoire and En Saga was his earliest attempt at finding his voice. Its themes and colours are as distant from the Germanic and Gallic as it is possible to imagine and that much was evident in a Slavic interpretation. Boreyko found a lovely soft touch for the enigmatic twilight sounds and a charming sprightliness for its puckish jauntiness. Tom Bloomfield’s oboe, Benjamin Mellefont’s clarinet and John Ryan’s horn were a ghostly trio haunting the score. Their voices enriched an orchestral narrative that reached the ears with clarity of diction and a sense of enjoyment that was utterly compelling. Sibelius would write more tales that are richer in content and more expansive in gesture, but this one has a charm all of its own.

In days gone by there were rumblings about Tchaikovsky’s credentials as a symphonist, including disparaging declarations about a supposed lack of coherence in his structures. Perhaps there are still people who harbour such views, but I don’t think Boreyko is one of them. He obviously knows that high drama and intense passion is what drives the Fourth Symphony and that is what animated his highly entertaining reading. When not being ceremonial the brass swaggered good-humouredly; at times the trombones growled with the menace of Lion in Pyramus and Thisbie, as imagined by Shakespeare’s Mechanicals. The woodwinds, in solos and ensembles, delivered their lines with superb diction – colloquial utterances and time-honoured quotations. As for the strings, they were the honey-voiced chorus bearing the weight of the narrative with a stylishness enriched by experience. Behind it all was Simon Carrington’s timpani, gently prodding in the quiet moments and wielding the big stick with authority. At the end it really was all passion spent.

The drama and passion of Mozart’s magical concerto was of a completely different character, as might be expected. Arguably one of the great essays of the form, it is endowed with so many riches, not least of which is the achingly beautiful Andante. As played by Grosvenor it was the glowing sun around which the delights of the outer movements were reflected. There wasn’t much in the way of physical interaction between soloist and conductor – that had obviously been sorted out in rehearsal. Instead, the performance was a piece of theatre-in-the-round with the cast all giving an impression of improvising their roles on the authoritative cues of a charismatic conductor/director. In such a context the passion arose out of Grosvenor phrasing – a sublime shaping of themes and motifs – and tasteful variations in dynamics. He is always such a delight to hear and see, with his understated gestures  and his subtle ways with tone, even when he plays a little Bach prelude as a gift to the house.