BBC Philharmonic Orchestra. Royal Concert Hall, Nottingham. 01 October 2024, 5✩✩✩✩✩. Review: William Ruff.

“Sonic spectacle combined with subtle detail.”

The weather was grim and world news deeply disturbing but there was much to celebrate at Nottingham’s Royal Concert Hall on Tuesday.  The BBC Philharmonic were in the city to kick-start the new season with a programme which combined sonic spectacle with fine detail.

Stravinsky’s Petrushka is a display piece for the whole orchestra, especially in its massive original 1911 version.  It tells the story of a puppet show in 19th century St Petersburg, a love triangle in which the flashy Moor and downtrodden Petrushka compete for the love of a Ballerina.  Its music contains everything from fairground tunes, folk dances, tenderness, violence and magic.  There’s nowhere for any of the players to hide in Stravinsky’s virtuosic score: searing trumpet calls, eerie flute solos, imitations of barrel organs and hurdy-gurdies and much more besides.  Everything in John Storgärds’ direction was clearly delineated, all the sharp between humour and pathos deftly handled, individual characters vividly brought to life. Ian Buckle’s handling of the solo piano part deserves special praise.

It was good to hear violinist Simone Lamsma playing two shorter pieces for violin and orchestra: the sort of music that often gets squeezed out of programmes by longer concertos.  The Saint-Saëns Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso was inspired by one of the 19th century’s most famous soloists, Pablo de Sarasate for whom S-S had huge admiration.  It’s a delightfully tuneful work, full of Spanish flavour and sunshine, and given a dazzlingly virtuosic performance by Simone Lamsma.

Ravel’s Tzigane was also inspired by a famous soloist: Jelly d’Arányi, a young woman who thrilled Ravel with her apparently inexhaustible knowledge of Hungarian gypsy music (‘tzigane’is French for ‘gypsy’).  It opens with a long, slow introduction in which the violin plays an increasingly complex unaccompanied cadenza, earthy and mournful.  Then the fireworks begin – with super-fast high harmonics and cascades of prickly pizzicato.  It must be one of the most technically demanding pieces in the repertoire – but it clearly holds no terrors for Simone Lamsma, who played it for all its worth and earned a huge ovation from the audience.

It's not unknown for the first concert of a new series series to end with music which pins you back in your seat.  This year’s hypercoaster was Saint-Saëns’ ‘Organ’ Symphony, a piece which rattles the rib cage as well as giving the ears a thorough work-out. 

The symphony’s nickname derives from the prominent role the organ plays in two of its four movements: the Adagio where it provides a soft bed of sound for a gorgeous string melody that rises to an ecstatic climax; and the finale where it becomes a mighty beast unleashed with full force amid great fanfares of brass.  It also plays an unforgettable part at the work’s conclusion, its pedal notes adding to an orchestral mix of Christmas cake richness.  Along the way Saint-Saëns uses the orchestra in all sorts of ingenious ways, even including a part for piano duet.  The BBC Philharmonic under conductor John Storgårds relished every challenge; Jonathan Scott shone whenever the spotlight fell on the organ – and the audience roared their approval.  An encore followed – and what better way to end a celebratory evening than Jonathan Scott playing Widor’s Toccata?

BBC Philharmonic Orchestra.  John Storgårds (conductor).  Simone Lamsma (violin). Jonathan Scott (organ).