The Bournemouth Symphony’s last live stream before Easter was also, due to the pandemic, Kirill Karabits’s first concert with the orchestra since November. It was a sombre occasion in many ways, consolatory rather than optimistic, “a reflection of the past year,” as Karabits put it in an online programme note. Penderecki’s Prelude for Peace, scheduled to mark the first anniversary of the composer’s death, was followed by the original orchestral version of The Seven Last Words of Christ on the Cross, Haydn’s severe set of meditations on the crucifixion, written to punctuate a (presumably lengthy) Good Friday sermon in Cádiz Cathedral in 1786.
The past hangs heavy over Penderecki’s Prelude, first performed in 2009, 70 years to the day after the Nazi invasion of Poland. Scored for brass and percussion, it’s a brief work (five or so minutes, no more), in which a serene, timeless chorale gradually assumes prominence over the unnerving percussive roar from which it first emerges and the dissonant fanfares that initially impede its progress. Karabits, who knew and admired Penderecki, conducted with great nobility. It was superbly played by the BSO brass.
Haydn’s Seven Last Words, meanwhile, is an extraordinary piece in many ways, though difficult to perform successfully. Its seven slow movements are prefaced by a similarly slow introduction, before the work is rounded off with a violent depiction, to the only fast section of the score, of the earthquake following the crucifixion as described in Matthew’s gospel. Until we reach that final cataclysm, everything hangs on interpretative understanding of subtle gradations of pulse, tempo and pace as the music gradually unfolds. Karabits’s performance was finely judged and carefully controlled, at times almost hypnotic in its fervour. The all important woodwind solos were beautifully shaped and focused, while vibrato-less strings added immeasurably to the mood of devotional austerity.
• Available online (£) until 22 April.
