First night of the Proms review – Batiashvili's magnificent Sibelius opens the festival

The Guardian

13 hours ago

This year's Proms began with a curiously uneven concert. The programme, conducted by Sakari Oramo with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, felt oddly disparate. The main works were the Sibelius Violin Concerto with Lisa Batiashvili as soloist, and Vaughan Williams's oratorio Sancta Civitas, a comparative rarity. There was new music, too, the world premiere of The Elements by Errollyn Wallen, Master of the King's Music. Oramo opened, however, with Arthur Bliss's Birthday Fanfare for Sir Henry Wood, before segueing, without pause, into Mendelssohn's Hebrides Overture, the latter most beautifully done, with finely focussed strings and woodwind, but something of a jolt after Bliss's jaunty little piece for brass and timpani in honour of the Proms' founder.
Wallen's new work, meanwhile, didn't feel entirely successful. The Proms Guide argues that it explores the 'periodic table of orchestral elements' that form the basis of composition, though Wallen writes, in her own programme note, that its prime concern is 'the fundamentals of music, life and love.' It's cast in a single-three section movement, the first dark and gritty, the second poised, elegant and sounding like Ravel, the third ringing changes on music from Purcell's The Fairy Queen. But it never coheres, and the Purcell quotes just leave you longing for the original.
The Sibelius, however, was unquestionably magnificent. Oramo conducted Batiashvili's first ever performance of the concerto when she was 16, they've given it together many times together since, and you really sense the almost instinctive give and take that comes from a fine collaboration. Though technically astonishing, Batiashvili never sounded showy, and the big first movement cadenza was all about musical logic rather than display. Oramo – always wonderful in Sibelius – gave us understated drama and intensity in the first two movements, before releasing the edgy mood into the exhilaration of the finale.
Vaughan Williams's choral depiction of the Holy City as described in the Book of Revelation, meanwhile, has never struck me as the masterpiece that some claim it to be, though you couldn't fault the fervour or grandeur of Oramo's interpretation. The choral singing – from the combined forces of the BBC Symphony Chorus, BBC Singers and members of London Youth Choirs – was all fierce exaltation and rapture. Gerald Finley was the visionary baritone, Caspar Singh the excellent tenor, making much of the precious little Vaughan Williams gives him.
Watch on BBC iPlayer, or listen again on BBC Sounds until 12 October. The Proms continue until 13 September.