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An awesome and ridiculous film that leaves you thrilled beyond the point of your natural endurance
2012
Theatre
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Music
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London,
Fiona Maddocks's rating
Reader rating
Description: The orchestra under Daniele Gatti performs excerpts from Prokofiev's Romeo And Juliet and Tchaikovsky's Symphony No 5 In E Minor.
Phone: 0207589 8212
Website: www.royalalberthall.com
Trains: Tube: High Street Kensington 
, Tube / Bus: 9, 10, 52, 360 
Extra info: Pub, Food
Fire and concentration made explosive magic of Daniele Gatti’s last Prom as music director of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. He’s been there 13 years.
Catch the final season of this partnership while you can, before he disappears to run the Orchestre National de France.
The RPO doesn’t enjoy the same critical attention as the other London orchestras. Its remit is wider, it plays classical pops concerts with titles like Filmharmonic and it has a burgeoning residency in Lowestoft.
Nor does it seek the usual media attention. I haven’t been disturbed by a press release from them for years.
So when these underrated players deliver a Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony which could rank as one of the best performances of the season, a stamping ovation is the right response. The Albert Hall is one of their regular venues, and in an all‑Russian programme they showed how to make this tricky acoustic sing.
Prokofiev’s ballet Romeo and Juliet (1938) is at its best in the turbulent opening, depicting the warring Capulets and Montagues — full of chromatic clashes, plunging melody and echoes of Stalinist terror.
Brass and timpani played with such exciting ferocity as to startle those of a nervous disposition. Woodwind were always eloquent, too. But the strings, led by Clio Gould, excelled. Their tone is strong and focused, with some captivating quiet passages, notably the second violins in their hushed triplet figure at Juliet’s grave.
Tchaikovsky, full of self-doubt with regard to his own music, wrote his Symphony No 5 in E minor in 1888. The entire drive of this work is to transform the dark “fate” motif of the opening into a bright, E major finale.
Played as here with passionate energy, this desperate optimism convinced absolutely. The ardent, slow movement horn solo, exquisitely played by Laurence Davies, characterised the general unsentimental urgency of the whole performance.
So cool he scarcely seems to break sweat, Gatti often relies on a mere shift of a shoulder or a generic wave of an arm, where precision and emotion become one and the same thing. How he does it remains a mystery.
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
Last night's performance of Tchaik.5 with Gatti and the RPO was absolutely magnificent and his rendering was worthy of Bernstein or Karajan. It is over 20 years since I last heard the RPO and for years I had written them off believing that the LSO was the only London Orchestra to effectively compete with the world's greatest, when in the hands of the right conductor.
This performance illustrates how an orchestra can change in world rank when in the hands of a brilliant Maestro. I believe that Gatti and the RPO can challenge the world - a tragedy that he is to leave soon and our loss will be the gain of the French.
A special well done to the RPO Brass section- they never sounded like this in the 80's. Also a final mention for the strings- superb- just get another 10 or so in the orchestra for some extra weight and I'll archive all my other DVD's and CD's of this symphony and just listen to the RPO.
A very electric evening!
- Norman Jones, Porthcawl, South Wales
