Looking frail, he conducted from a seated position and has pulled out of the lengthy and gruelling recording sessions of Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos he was due to have started work on yesterday, together with the orchestra and a glitzy array of soloists including soprano Christine Brewer.
But on Thursday, once that inimitable baton opened the gateway for the music, what poured out from the SCO all evening was some of the most utterly exhilarating orchestral playing you will hear anywhere, from anyone. The meaty version of Mozart’s Haffner Symphony had all the unmistakable Mackerras fingerprints: the unique drive, the biting attack, the emphatic propulsion from the engine room of trumpets and drums and bullish vitality.
The man is a life force, and that fact seemed to engineer an even greater sense of thrill in the electrifying
performance of Strauss’s First Horn Concerto by the Croatian wizard of the instrument Radovan Vlatkovic, whose playing was a supreme blend of
sophistication and raw energy. And,
confirming that Sir Charles has lost none of his raciness and wicked wit in performance, the SCO’s scintillating playing of Strauss’s Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme left both capacity audience and orchestra beaming. Sir Charles is a great man and musician; God bless him.
Star rating: ****
