WHILE we mere mortals, after a busy concert season, are preparing to decamp to our country estates, lakeside villas or the secluded turrets of Castle Hame'll-Dae-Me, spare a thought for the troubadours of the BBC SSO who, after a season that culminated last week with a pulverising Rite Of Spring, have set aside the buckets and spades to climb on a plane today and fly off for a seven-concert tour of Holland and Belgium with conductor Ilan Volkov and four different programmes: that's a lot of air miles and even more notes.
By way of a sampler for those of us earthbound, and a warm-up for the musicians, the SSO and Volkov gave a taster on Monday night with Liszt's first Mephisto Waltz, Bartok's Second Violin Concerto with Moldovan-born soloist Patricia Kopatchinskaja, and Brahms's Fourth Symphony.
Fingers crossed for the band in the concerto. On Monday Kopatchinskaja was not particularly impressive in the Bartok. Her pitch, confidence and certainty were wayward; her sense of command and control of the concerto, in its direction and structure, were unsettling: episodic pieces can be hell to tame and steer. But most of all (and this is a tough one, because it is unquantifiable) she didn't seem to be playing from within the music – more over the surface of it. Good luck to all in prestige venues such as the Concertgebouw.
The rest of it is bulletproof. Volkov did Liszt's Mephisto Waltz with the sense he absolutely believes in it, which is how the band gave it back to him, while Brahms Four was a masterpiece in action, superbly paced, dramatic and monumentally exciting.
Music
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