Interestingly, all three works in BSO’s programme were composed in the last five years of the 1890s – Rachmaninov’s being the earliest. The context of the overture to Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera The Tsar’s Bride premiered in 1898 and Saint-Saens’ Piano Concerto No.5 in 1896 contributed much to appreciation of the innovative power of Rachmaninov’s nascent symphonic mastery hidden for nearly half a century.
The delightfully catchy Rimsky overture oddly belies the opera’s marital and murderous intrigues at the court of Ivan the Terrible. Chloe van Soeterstede encouraged a jaunty martial clip prompting a spritely-sprung response from BSO almost doffing their hats to Arthur Sullivan. Great too to hear something from R-K other than Scheherazade.
Saint-Saens’ fifth and last piano concerto The Egyptian teems with stylistic nuance from its title. Soloist Javier Perianes delivered exotic allure combined with all manner of digit-defying technical fireworks conjuring the sounds of frogs, crickets and the pounding of ships’ engines. The orchestra stuck with him like limpets full of capricious eastern promise. Before parting, Javier delivered an encore of alluring Spanish delight with Albeniz’s Sevillana.
Watching the concert relay live via BSO’s Digital Concert particularly enhanced the concerto, especially with close-ups from the orchestra’s side of the keyboard allowing Javier’s jaw-dropping technical prowess and interplay with the orchestra to be fully appreciated.
After the interval, back to Russia and a hot-blooded life-and-death journey through Rachmaninov’s First Symphony with BSO collectively on their A*1* mettle as though their lives depended on it. Every section of the orchestra delivered intensity, flexibility and contrast on the work’s emotional narrative – listening to each other, while watching nuance and flexibility from Chloe van Soeterstede. The baleful close of this devastating journey can rarely have been realised with such terrifying intensity and finality looking into the abyss. This really was The End and total vindication for a groundbreaking first symphony.
Critic Ian Julier
The Digital Concert is available to watch until 7 November here