Making his 75th appearance at the Proms, Sir Simon Rattle conducts his London Symphony Orchestra in a programme that explores the ideas of dialogue and space. The programme includes a new work by Thomas Adès, Dawn, incorporating a piano into the ensemble, while Elgar’s Introduction and Allegro – written for an all-Elgar concert given by the LSO in 1905 – singles out a string quartet alongside the string orchestra, in the manner of a Baroque concerto grosso. And from the Baroque period come the brass Canzons by Giovanni Gabrieli, the 12 players arranged in separate ‘choirs’ which answer and collide with each other.
Alone at the piano, Mitsuko Uchida performs the famous first movement of Beethoven’s ‘Moonlight’ Sonata, which merges into Kurtág’s … quasi una fantasia … , its title taken from the nickname of the pair of sonatas of which Beethoven’s ‘Moonlight’ is part. Creating an extraordinary sound palette, Kurtág explores ‘instrumental groups dispersed in space’ around the piano.
In his Fifth Symphony Vaughan Williams was deepening the dialogue in his music between the folk and the symphonic. After hearing the work’s first performance – conducted by the composer at the Proms in 1943 – Adrian Boult (himself soon to become a key Proms figure) was prompted to write to Vaughan Williams: ‘Its serene loveliness is completely satisfying in these times and shows, as only music can, what we must work for when this madness is over’ – an observation as relevant today as it was then.
It will not be possible to have an audience at the Royal Albert Hall.
Live on Â鶹ԼÅÄ Radio 3 & on Â鶹ԼÅÄ Four at 8.00pm
Image: Sir Simon Rattle © Oliver Helbig
