This was a refreshing way to start a BBC Proms season. Eschewing the usual choral blockbuster, Prom 1 was more of a curtain-raiser – tone poems, a piano concerto, a world premiere and an old favourite – to display the wares of this beloved classical music festival. It was also a great vehicle to display the wares of the BBC musicians: the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Chorus and – to a rousing pre-concert ovation – the axe-threatened BBC Singers.
With Finnish-Ukrainian conductor Dalia Stasevska at the helm, the programme lent heavily towards the Nordic – Grieg and Sibelius – along with a new work by Ukrainian composer Bohdana Frolyak, before touching home base with Britten’s exuberant Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra.
Stasevska’s Sibelian credentials are impeccable. In Finland, she is Chief Conductor of the Lahti Symphony Orchestra and Artistic Director of their annual Sibelius Festival. She is even married to Sibelius’ great-grandson. The patriotic tone poem Finlandia, composed in 1899 as a covert protest against Russian censorship of the press, was given in its 1940 choral version. From the brass snarls at the beginning, Stasevska led a fierce, defiant account, until the entry of the chorus in the noble central hymn.
The other Sibelius work was Snöfrid, a dramatic “improvisation” for narrator, chorus and orchestra that Stasevska was meant to conduct during 2022’s Last Night (the end of the season aborted due to the death of Queen Elizabeth II). It’s a bracing 15-minute piece, not unlike The Wood Nymph in its drive and drama. Rather than basing it on episodes from the Kalevala, Snöfrid, to a Swedish text by Viktor Rydberg, draws on Nordic sagas. Trolls offer our hero Gunnar gold and treasures in exchange for his soul and in the brief central narration – delivered by Lesley Manville in a dress that shimmered like the Nibelung hoard – the nymph Snöfrid implores him to resist temptation. The BBC SO played out of their skins for Stasevska, her dramatic gestures firing up the explosive timpani and whistling piccolo in the opening tempest. It’s an episodic work in nature, but well worth hearing.
The world premiere of Let There Be Light demonstrated Bohdana Frolyak’s deft orchestration. After a shadowy introduction, sparsely scored – not too distant from Sibelius or Rautavaara – a sense of anger brewed, eventually quelled in its eerie close, the sound of a breath being blown through a flute bringing the work to an uneasy close.
At the centre of this First Night was an evergreen, Grieg’s Piano Concerto in A minor, clocking up its 95th Proms performance. Paul Lewis did not approach it like a hackneyed war horse though, nudging and coaxing it to life in an understated, fresh account. His touch was often deft, emphasising the concerto’s essentially lyrical nature, Stasevska supporting him well, particularly the soft, muted opening to the Adagio. But there was energy in the vivacious finale, the hard floor – or Lewis’ hard-heeled shoes – percussively marking every pedalled note like the cobbler Hans Sachs marking Beckmesser’s serenade.
The percussion department enjoyed its moment in the spotlight – as did each section of the BBCSO – in The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra, a witty, inventive tour based on a theme by Henry Purcell in which Britten strips down the orchestral engine, demonstrates what each of the parts do, then puts it back together in a slick fugue. Among the highlights here were the playful clarinets, dainty double basses, pirouetting like the hippo ballerinas in Fantasia, and the boisterous percussion. Stasevska propelled the performance on urgently, a swift account almost exactly the same length as Britten’s LSO recording. The rousing conclusion bodes well for the new Proms season.
