Emotion milked to gratifiying effect with Karabits
By
Barry Millington
11 Aug 2009
The lush harmonies of Tchaikovsky and the spare aesthetic of Stravinsky may seem poles apart, but the later composer pays an unmistakably affectionate tribute to the earlier in his ballet The Fairy’s Kiss.
This latest instalment of the Stravinsky ballet cycle was offered by the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra under its new principal conductor, Kirill Karabits.
Notwithstanding a few dodgy moments, the enchanted world of Hans Christian Andersen’s Ice Maiden and the tender music she evokes were realised by these players under a conductor alive to the nuances of an understated score.
After Tchaikovsky refracted through a Stravinskyan prism came the genuine article in the shape of the Violin Concerto. Karabits again proved responsive to expressive flexibility, not least when the soloist, the Lithuanian-born Julian Rachlin, elected to veer off-piste, in a subjective rendering of choice passages, to rather captivating effect.
Rachlin also demonstrated an eagerness to engage in artistic communion with orchestral members: woodwind soloists in the second movement, the string ensemble in the earthy dances of the finale.
The full-blooded Romantic rhetoric of Khachaturian’s Spartacus makes even Tchaikovsky sound inhibited and Karabits certainly couldn’t be accused of failing to milk the emotion of the famous Adagio.
At the end of another long evening — the notion of less being more seems to be out of favour this year — the audience were ready to help the Hopak from Khachaturian’s Gayane on its ever-accelerating way with a clap-along.
Information: 0845 4015040, www.bbc.co.uk/proms. To be broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on 20 August at 2pm.
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