Strasbourg Philharmonic Orchestra, Symphony Hall, Birmingham, 15 February 2024.

5✩✩✩✩✩ Review: David Gray & Paul Gray.

“A much loved Russian masterpiece surrounded with wonderful French orchestral showpieces.”

Hector Berlioz – Overture, Le carnaval romain

Sergei Rachmaninov – Piano Concerto No 2 in C minor, Op 18

César Frank – Le chasseur maudit

Maurice Ravel - Ma mére l’Oye, suite

Maurice Ravel – La valse

A slick, well-oiled orchestral machine, the Strasbourg Philharmonic kicked off its visit to Symphony Hall with a tried and tested orchestral show piece, Berlioz’s Le Carnaval Romain Overture. This is one of the composer’s crowd-pleasing - but rather formally insubstantial money spinners: it is a work that gives each section a chance to shine, and also to highlight the band’s strong sense of ensemble; an ensemble as tight as a game of sardines.

It was the first of number of works by French composers. But truth be told, the main focus of the concert - as is probably the case in any concert where is it played - was Rachmaninov’s timeless masterpiece, Piano Concerto No. 2.

Soloist, Nikolai Lugansky, delivered a reading characterised by a muscular energy; packing a powerful punch and layered with a good helping of Russian ‘toska’*. There was a real sense of Lugansky being totally immersed in the performance; reaching deep into dark internal places to expose the concerto’s complex emotional core.

A perfectly graded crescendo through the opening chords gave way to a darkly brooding, almost menacing, first section. The orchestra offered solid support. Balance was always perfect, and solo and orchestral passages were superbly dovetailed. Conductor, Marko Letonja, shaped everything carefully, never loosing sight of the work’s overarching drama, but also finding time to illuminate telling details.

During the Adagio, for example, the arpeggiated accompanying figure in the left hand of the piano is passed into and around the orchestra and then back to the piano. The way this was highlighted provided a beautiful example of the conductor’s technical skill, and the players constant attention to - and communication with - one another. This was a marvellous performance which brought lots that was fresh and new to this much-loved composition.

It often seems difficult for programmers to find a suitable way to follow this huge emotional rollercoaster of a work. Do you go for something even bigger? In the case, the choice was to ease off the romanticism and gradually lower the temperature.

Frank’s Le chasseur maudit, kept the romantic feel, but with a cooler French perspective. The piece provided lots of good things for the lower brass to do, some atmospheric hazy hovering string textures and textbook hunting calls for the horns. A very accomplished delivery.

The rest of the concert was dedicated to Ravel who can always be relied upon to display the strengths of an orchestra. His Ma mére l’Oye, suite is full of quirky character and colour. Again, the ensemble was drum-skin tight with some wonderfully glossy string playing and technical brilliance from the woodwind.

Ravel’s ironic yet evocative Le Valse seemed to provide a built-in encore. The orchestral perfectly captured its swirling, surging & dreamlike energy. And then rewarded the audience’s manifest appreciation with not one, but two actual encores. We would gladly have taken more, had it been offered. A truly glorious concert.

Marko Letonja – Conductor Nikolai Lugansky - Piano

*Toska – An untranslatable Russian word that speaks of melancholic sorrow and yearning for home.