The Berlin Philharmonic, under chief conductor Kirill Petrenko, delivered a performance of flawless musical beauty at the Royal Albert Hall during their second Proms concert, featuring Beethoven's Violin Concerto with Augustin Hadelich as soloist and a detailed take on Scriabin's Symphony No 3 in C minor, “The Divine Poem”.
Clarity and precision in Beethoven's Violin Concerto
The clarity of the orchestral sound struck immediately. The soft thuds of timpani that open Beethoven's Violin Concerto landed from the back of the stage with the immediacy of taps on the shoulder, quietly urgent. The string sound was simultaneously luminous and translucent. Pizzicato bass-lines were shaped as if the main event and bubbled upwards through the rest of the texture.
Such crystalline polish is typically achieved on high-end studio recordings, where the entire process can be geared to perfection. The BBC's sound engineers can work miracles in real time on radio broadcasts of Proms performances. However, producing such lucidity live, particularly in the Royal Albert Hall with its monumental bathroom acoustic, is another thing entirely.
Hadelich's breathtaking virtuosity
For that level of live clarity, an orchestra of the calibre of the Berlin Philharmonic under Petrenko is required. Violinist Augustin Hadelich also served up his own brand of astonishingly flawless musical beauty as the soloist in the Beethoven. In the first movement, his rising octaves appeared to float out of the orchestra, his bowing inaudible—the kind of violin-playing that appears to defy the laws of physics.
The slow movement was a masterclass in bel canto, while the third was a biting, bouncing romp as both Hadelich and Petrenko pushed gleefully through the rondo theme. The apparent ease of Hadelich's virtuosity, with all his energy seemingly focused on phrasing and dialogue with the orchestra, was nothing short of breathtaking.
Scriabin's Divine Poem: a rare treat
Where Beethoven's Violin Concerto is conventional programming by any measure, Scriabin's Symphony No 3 in C minor, “The Divine Poem”, does not get out much. That is probably just as well, given its tendency towards late-Romantic colour saturation—the musical equivalent to eating an entire box of champagne truffles in a single sitting.
Petrenko eked out the details: glistening shimmers of violin, razor-edged tuba, bright flares of horn cutting through the sensuous haze. His movements were by turn angular and majestic—a touch of waltzing here, a vigorous jab towards a soloist there—as he conjured with sound, before finally allowing the vast orchestra to bloom into a magnificent closing apotheosis.
The concert is available on BBC Sounds until 12 October. The Proms continue until 12 September.
