Mariss Jansons's visit to Edinburgh with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, following their Proms appearance, was among the most keenly anticipated events of this year's festival. As in London, Beethoven's Fourth Piano Concerto opened the first concert, with Mitsuko Uchida as soloist. While the promenaders then heard Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique, however, the Edinburgh audience was treated to Tchaikovsky's Pathétique.
Jansons made his name some 20 years ago with his Tchaikovsky symphonies for Chandos; he hasn't performed them nearly as often in the UK as one might wish. His interpretation of the Pathétique ranks among the greatest: to hear this was, quite simply, a privilege.
First and foremost, he avoids the overtly psychodramatic. This was not so much a study of confessional angst as the exploration of a mature tragic vision, superbly articulated and devastating in its impact. There were hints of nobility in the bassoon's opening assertion, and genuine yearning in the expansive melody of the second subject. But the violence with which Jansons launched the development ushered in a sense of titanic struggle that set the tone for much of what followed. The slower-than-usual second movement suggested a sensual idyll under threat. The march was all measured grandeur, rather than manic excitement. Combining rage and grief in equal measure, the finale reached levels of unendurable intensity, and Jansons looked drained when it was over.
The Beethoven was equally superb. Uchida had distractions to contend with – the protracted admission of latecomers after the first movement, and coughing in the second. But the poetry and dignity she brings to this work remained untarnished and remarkable. Jansons brought fresh insights at every turn: the aggression with which he opened the Andante seemed at once startling and totally right. The BRSO, meanwhile, is one of the world's great ensembles, and their playing, immaculate in its warmth and subtlety, was incomparable.
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