Mark Wigglesworth’s often remarkable Prom with the BBC Philharmonic marked, in part, the 50th anniversary of the Royal Northern College of Music. The players, many of them alumni, were joined on the platform by some of today’s students. Stephen Hough, the soloist in Rachmaninov’s First Piano Concerto, was a student there, meanwhile, as was composer Grace-Evangeline Mason, whose Ablaze the Moon, given its world premiere, opened the evening.
Brief but attractive, this is essentially an amorous nocturne, handsomely scored for a big, post-Romantic orchestra, and based on a poem by the American writer Sara Teasdale, the unheard words of which dictate the contours of the woodwind melody that forms its kernel. Impressionist string phrases hovering over penumbral dissonances suggest moonlight in darkness. It’s quietly effective, and was beautifully done.
The Rachmaninov, meanwhile, was stunning. Written in 1891 and drastically revised in 1917, this can be a tricky work to get right due to its slightly unstable amalgam of overt early influences (Grieg, Tchaikovsky) and expansive melodies such as only Rachmaninov could write. Hough, balancing bravura with lyricism, powered his way through the outer movements with thrilling exactitude, and carefully probed the emotions beneath the Andante’s delicate surface. Wigglesworth was comparably alert to its slightly unwieldy mix of drama and subtlety, while the orchestral playing was all fiery precision and brilliance.
Mahler’s First Symphony came after the interval, meanwhile. This was another great performance, marvellous both in its refinement of detail and steady accumulation of tension, from the opening string chord, sliding almost imperceptibly out of silence into sound, to the blaze of near ferocious jubilation with which it ended. In between, everything was impeccably articulated, the oscillations between optimism und unease finely judged, the ironies of the funeral march really hitting home without ever once resorting to exaggeration or self-conscious grotesquerie. And the originality of Mahler’s orchestration – this really did feel like the creation of a totally new musical world – came over in every single bar. Outstanding.
• Available on BBC Sounds until 9 October. The Proms continue until 9 September.
