The wrongs of The Rite of Spring

Their performance of Ravel’s La Valse caught the subterranean rumble, the sense of incipient doom behind the whirling waltz, to perfection. Not only that but the velvety Viennese textures of the dance music were realised impressively, too.

No less convincing was the newly commissioned Cello Concerto of the Korean composer Unsuk Chin, receiving its world premiere, even though its rarefied soundworld is a far cry from Ravel’s. It is a work that explores extremes of silence or near-silence and explosive outbursts: whispers and murmuring on the one hand, scatter-fire on the other.

The long first movement unfolds from a single note, the soloist and orchestra interweaving as tension accumulates.

The slow third movement begins in similar fashion but this time the soloist (here the eloquent Alban Gerhardt) weaves a line of desolate beauty against an ethereal orchestral background.

In the final movement, the soloist wanders in a bleak aural landscape like a survivor of some global catastrophe. Chin’s concerto demands close attention from its audience and a sensitive, virtuoso soloist, both of which it received last night.

From the first unevenly produced bassoon note of The Rite of Spring everything started to go wrong. It was not just the poor execution — wobbly horns and so forth — but also the fact that all the instrumental detail was spotlit.

Intent on highlighting every passing phrase, Volkov succeeded only in revealing the disparate elements of the score, not the way they cohere into a whole.

Ravel’s La Valse is often regarded as a work that stands on the brink of the volcano, while The Rite of Spring unleashes the full horror of the primitivism that erupted with the First World War. On this occasion it was preferable to be peering into the abyss.

Information: 0845 4015040; On BBC Radio 3, Wednesday 26 August at 2.30pm (www.bbc.co.uk/proms).

BBC Proms: BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra/Volkov