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Description: Yannick Nezet-Seguin conducts the orchestra in a performance of Haydn's Cello Concerto In C and Bruckner's Symphony No 7 In E. With cellist Truls Mork.
Phone: 0871663 2500
Website: www.southbankcentre.co.uk
Extra info: Air Conditioning, Pub, Telephones, Food
Riveting: Nézet-Séguin conducted an excellent show
The French-Canadian conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin made his European debut as recently as five years ago but the LPO wasted no time in snapping him up as principal guest conductor. This is his first season in that capacity and already he is creating a sensation.
He began last night’s programme by accompanying the Norwegian cellist Truls Mork in a lithe, supple account of Haydn’s C major Concerto.
While Mork is somewhat restrained, even phlegmatic, in demeanour, Nézet-Séguin generates every nuance with his bodily gestures. Sweeping the air, stooping, caressing, he exhorts his players to shape every phrase anew. That was the key also to one of the most remarkable performances of Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony I have ever heard. An intensely physical reading, its long phrases energised rather than coolly objective, it was wrung from the members of the LPO, playing their hearts out for this charismatic young athlete, conducting from memory.
Where a traditional Brucknerian like Bernard Haitink minimises his involvement, creating in the process a monolithic structure as awesome as a cathedral, the Canadian offers something far more subjective — more analogous to a living organism.
Changes of dynamics and tempo are strongly contrasted, phrasing is highly expressive and the nerve endings of the music exposed.
Passage after passage was revealed in a new light, but one stood out. After the massive climax of the slow movement, the Amen-like coda on Wagner tubas, joined by horns, sounded like a magnificently elegiac bellow, a great beast in pain. Then came the wind-down on flute and strings, detumescent and consoling.
Some may prefer their Bruckner to have more gravitas but I found it utterly riveting and emotionally draining. Judge for yourself by listening to the Radio 3 broadcast next Tuesday.
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