This was Edward Gardner’s first appearance in front of the London Philharmonic since being announced as the orchestra’s next principal conductor. He will take up the position in two years’ time – and who knows what life for UK musicians who tour will look like then? Only one of the works on this programme obviously tied in with the orchestra’s year-long thread of “landmark classics inspired by the British Isles”: Walton’s Violin Concerto. But it wouldn’t take too much imagination to say that Bartók’s 1923 Dance Suite, written as a defiant celebration of unity even as the composer’s beloved Hungary was being forcibly split apart, might be a more accurate reflection of the current national mood.
These two works together formed a first half that was solid, not electrifying. The Bartók had poised energy and moments of striking tenderness, but the different characters of the dances remained muted. The rough edges of the Walton were mostly smoothed over, despite James Ehnes’s thoughtful brilliance in the solo part, his violin singing almost as lyrically as it did in his unruffled Bach encore.
Something ignited for the concert’s second half. Nielsen’s “Inextinguishable” Symphony hasn’t been in the LPO’s repertoire for decades, yet the performance Gardner drew from his players was exhilarating for all the right reasons. He drove the music hard and the players dug in, the wind especially, finding new depths of tone and character. The stereo duet for timpani towards the end seemed a natural outburst, an extension of the exuberance that had gone before.
If this is what Gardner and the LPO can achieve together we have much to look forward to.
