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The Guardian
06-08-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
BBCNOW/Venditti review – 20th-century British classics shine at a potent patriotic Prom
In one sense, this stroll along the highways and byways of 20th-century British music was a throwback to an earlier era when Proms audiences were treated to grab bags of the latest popular odds and sods. What made this such a stimulating affair was the juxtaposition of undeniable old masters with works by composers underrepresented in today's concert halls. With the BBC National Orchestra of Wales on top form throughout, helmed by the energetic Italian-Turkish conductor Nil Venditti, there was much here to relish. The staples first, and Vaughan Williams's The Lark Ascending received a poetic and thoroughly idiomatic reading at the hands of Bulgarian violinist Liya Petrova. The orchestra laid the velvet-cushioned groundwork over which Petrova soared with elegant phrasing, silvery tone and exquisitely delivered top notes. An assured account of Britten's Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes teemed with atmosphere. Venditti was particularly adept at bringing out the music's underlying menace, though the hectic pace adopted for the Sunday Morning bells episode left musical details muddied by the acoustic. If Walton's Crown Imperial, taken a tad fast, lacked the final ounce of Technicolor chutzpah, Elgar's Enigma Variations was a painterly tour de force, Venditti holding the architectural line despite twice being interrupted by overeager applause. Tempi were ideal, whether depicting the aquatic high jinks of a bulldog in a river or sustaining a breathtakingly controlled build through Nimrod. The rarities – all Proms premieres – were a fascinating if slightly mixed bag. William Mathias's syncopated Dance Overture was a proper crowd-pleaser, the wizardly Welsh composer successfully locating his inner Carmen Miranda. The BBC Singers lent class to a pair of Edwardian part-songs by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, while his daughter Avril's The Shepherd, a haunting setting of William Blake for male voices and strings, was a fine discovery. Both rather showed up John Rutter's sugar-coated Bird Songs, here receiving its world premiere. Schmaltzy and curiously derivative, they felt dated in a way the older music did not. It was left to Venditti to right the ship with Grace Williams' affecting Elegy for Strings, its gently rocking rhythms and intricate interweaving lines crowned by Lesley Hatfield's heartfelt violin solo. Listen again on BBC Sounds until 12 October. The Proms continue until 13 September
The Guardian
31-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
BBCNOW/Otaka/Kholodenko review – Rachmaninov fills seats but magic is missing
Sometimes the simple tactics work best. It turns out that if you name a Prom after one of the best-loved works in the classical canon, you don't just get a full house for that piece, but also a near-capacity Royal Albert Hall after the interval for Witold Lutosławski's Concerto for Orchestra. Vivid, gritty, bracing: what the programme hails as the 20th-century Polish composer's 'most successful large-scale work' is many things, but it certainly isn't classical easy listening. And perhaps some of those drawn by the ultra-familiar will now have been set on a voyage of discovery. Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No 2 needn't be easy listening either, of course, even if its association with Brief Encounter sealed its status as the last word in impassioned pianism. It's a strange work, full of delicately balanced orchestral textures and vital dialogues between orchestra and soloist. But not in this performance, which was largely driven by Ukrainian pianist Vadym Kholodenko, making his Proms debut. After a thrilling crescendo in his opening chords, there was rubato galore (dragging the BBC National Orchestra of Wales forward or holding them back) but minimal subtlety of expression or dynamics. All the notes were there – and many in the hall were clearly delighted to hear them – but with little magic from either Kholodenko or BBCNOW, whose playing lacked the finesse demanded by Rachmaninov's score beyond the biggest of the big tunes. The orchestra fared better in Lutosławski's colourful shifts of timbre and mood. In his final appearance as BBCNOW's conductor laureate after a nearly 40-year association with the orchestra, Tadaaki Otaka commanded both massive, muscular interjections and passages of hushed, finicky counterpoint that stilled the audience, inviting attention. The orchestra continued to sound most comfortable in the loudest tutti passages, where brass was served in lurid splashes. The closest this concert got to genuine subtlety was in its opening piece, the Concerto for String Orchestra by Lutosławski's Polish contemporary Grażyna Bacewicz. There BBCNOW's XL string section produced a rich, generous sound (carefully blended, bowing as one), folk idioms occasionally breaking playfully through Bacewicz's mid-century musical nattiness – all led with energetic precision by Otaka. Listen again on BBC Sounds until 12 October. The Proms continue until 13 September.
