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Philharmonia's Dazzling performance

By Barry Millington, Evening Standard  06.06.08

Gustavo Dudamel is the young lion who shot to worldwide fame on his appearance with the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela at the Proms last year. Piotr Anderszewski has long established a reputation for his dazzlingly inspirational approach to the classics.

The pairing of Dudamel and Anderszewski in Brahms’s Piano Concerto No 1 in D minor therefore offered the tantalising prospect of one musical genius striking sparks off another.

Initiating the performance with a particularly arresting drum-roll, Dudamel set the scene with a heroic and, well, leonine delivery of the first movement’s introductory material. What made the reading special, however, was the rapt, poetic quality elicited from the more introspective music that happens to play an equally dominant role in the unfolding of the movement.

Both conductor and soloist have the ability to generate mystery and awe. Anderszewski especially gives the impression of making music on the wing, and the improvisatory nature of his playing was exploited to excellent effect, too, in his encore: the Sarabande of Bach’s First Partita, which he ornamented with rhapsodic liberality.

Dudamel and Anderszewski complemented each other tonally also, the Venezuelan’s warm, sensual phrasing providing an ideal backdrop for the Pole’s crystalline virtuosity.

In Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony Dudamel galvanised the Philharmonia into a high-octane performance such as he might have drawn from his own young compatriots.

If the icy emotional landscape of the Largo plumbed the depths of despair, the outer movements had an edge-of-precipice feel with just the right touch of desperation.

Nor was it only the players who were susceptible to the blistering intensity of the finale: the surge of adrenaline in the stalls was palpable. Within seconds of the last great timpani thwack, the entire audience was on its feet. You don’t see that every day at the Festival Hall.

Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.

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