Herbert Blomstedt strode on to the platform looking nowhere near his 88 years, and if the Philharmonia seemed pleased to welcome him at the start of this concert, by the end they were positively beaming. Blomstedt’s conducting may be slightly more economical of gesture these days, but its vigour is uncompromised.
In Mozart’s Symphony No 39, he drew out a sound that was richly textured, even opaque – when the solo woodwind got their moment in the second movement, it was arresting to hear these characterful voices finally emerging from the blend. Yet Blomstedt shaped the music so as to emphasise its geniality, drawing out little bursts of sunlight as the first movement danced to a close, and throwing the rising figures in the third movement up into the air.
Dancing to Mozart, definitely; dancing to Bruckner, less likely. And yet there was something about the flowing tempo Blomstedt set for the first movement that almost made one’s toes twitch. The buzzing strings behind the horn solo created tension, but the expectation was not for something staidly Brucknerian – hulking and monumental – but for something energetic and alive, and that is what we got. The players were responsive, and even if they did not quite give Blomstedt the extreme pianissimos he seemed to ask for, the performance was full of beautifully paced, gradual crescendos, peaking in a full orchestral sound with gleaming brass on top. Nothing in this symphony is exactly fast, but nor did any of it, on this occasion, seem slow.
