This balmy late summer weekend saw Kirill Petrenko bring his well-oiled Berlin machine to London for two Proms of large-scale late Romantic fare. Conducting only the first due to a foot injury, Petrenko guided a rapt audience through Mahler’s lesser-spotted Seventh Symphony with infectious affection for the music, creating a compelling dramatic arc in tandem with a strong sense of chamber music among friends.
The Seventh is often regarded as a curious beast, its unconventional structure, instrumentation and harmonies all too often seen as a gamble for promoters. Petrenko’s great success here, in a work he has only recently recorded with the Bayerisches Staatsorchester, was to make this symphonic titan feel at times as intimate as chamber music, and elsewhere as thrilling a ride as any other Mahler symphony. Details were presented in high-definition colour by the Berlin Philharmonic, themes graceful and grotesque stood boldly side by side, moonlit night fell gently, and the sun rose jubilantly. Above all, this most storied of orchestras appeared to enjoy the journey from dusk to dawn every bit as much as their Music Director. While the sea of strings moved and breathed as one, back desk basses leaning bodily into their lines with gusto, Petrenko conducted with such character as to be reminiscent of Carlos Kleiber. At times he would simply relax his arms to his sides and conduct with balletic head movements while his celebrity wind players did their thing. This was a conducting masterclass in balancing control and freedom of expression.
While the narrative structure of the huge symphony was always entirely clear, the details along the way were realised with thrilling clarity. The first movement opened resolutely, the tenor horn solo astringent and firm, before giving way to a feather-light bed of violins. Later the cor anglais solos and trumpet fanfares called out delicately amid a seemingly timeless hush, before golden indulgence took over for the strings’ chromatic themes.
Throughout the symphony, interactions between players – or perhaps more appropriately between friends, given the apparent intimacy of the music – were pulled off with unswerving accuracy and attention to balance. This was especially effective in the two Nachtmusik movements. In the first of these, the horn calls echoed one another with immaculate character, and the eerie clickety-clack of the strings' col legno rattled out crisply. The distant offstage bell effects worked well, and the movement dissolved into darkness after a heroically quiet afterword from Stefan Dohr’s horn and a breathy pianissimo murmur from the colossal tam-tam. The fourth movement’s mandolin and guitar offerings (the latter played by a back desk viola player) were allowed to project clearly, and dialogues between winds and string soloists were as clear as any quiet conversation between two people.
The third and fifth movements were cut from a very different cloth, in the case of the Scherzo, one more in the style of a weightless Prokofiev ballet. Both danced along with seemingly effortless grace, juxtaposing light and dark with equal importance. The finale flew off the pages at a fair lick, driven by timpani fireworks and festive brass fanfares. The breathless last minutes sprinted out of the tunnel and into the light with jubilation, and the delighted audience responded in kind.
