Prom 33 – Dame Sarah Connolly (mezzo-soprano), BBC Philharmonic Orchestra / John Storgårds

Weber Oberon – Overture (1825-6)
Pejačević Zwei Schmetterlingslieder Op.52 (1920); Verwandlung Op.37b (1915); Liebeslied Op.39 (1915). [Proms premieres]
Mahler-Werfel orch. Colin & David Matthews Die stille Stadt (pub. 1915); Licht in der Nacht (pub. 1915); Bei dir ist es traut (pub. 1910)
Rachmaninoff Symphony no.1 in D minor Op.13 (1895)

Royal Albert Hall, London
Wednesday 9 August 2023

by Richard Whitehouse photos by Chris Christodoulou / BBC

This evening’s Prom brought a welcome appearance by the BBC Philharmonic with its chief conductor John Storgårds, in what was a typically enterprising programme that continued this season’s emphasis on the music of Dora Pejačević in the centenary (last March) of her death.

Among Pejačević’s sizable output of songs are four with orchestra, making a viable sequence in its own right. Dame Sarah Connolly (above) brought out the searching whimsicality from Karl Henckell’s Butterfly Songs, whether the fanciful imaginings of ‘Golden stars, little bluebells’ or the more concrete thoughts of ‘Flutter, o butterfly’ with delicate contributions by flute and glockenspiel. The setting of Kael Kraus’s Transformation taps deeper emotion, not least with those ecstatic violin solos between stanzas (eloquently rendered by Yuri Torchinsky), whereas that of Rainer Maria Rilke’s Love Song is notable less for the gently undulating phrases of its vocal writing than for the soaring ecstasy of its central interlude which only double one’s regret that neither composer nor poet lived long enough to collaborate on an opera project as had been mooted.

Making up this sequence were three songs by Alma Mahler-Werfel, taken from sets published in 1910 and 1915. Neither those contrived sentiments of Richard Dehemel’s The Silent Town or self-conscious emoting of Otto Julius Birbaum’s Light in the Night summons an especially personal response; only the winsome poise of Rilke’s I feel warm and close with you implies any individuality. The orchestrations by Colin and David Matthews are sensitive and apposite, but the latter might reasonably have expected more from the Proms in his 80th birthday-year.

Opening this concert was a beautifully judged reading of the overture to Weber’s final opera Oberon – less often heard now that overtures are no longer the automatic curtain-raisers they once were but which, in its deft interplay of evocative and energetic, still casts a potent spell.

By contrast, Rachmaninoff’s First Symphony has come much more into its own now that the composer’s orchestral output has moved to the centre of the repertoire. Unheard for 48 years after its disastrous premiere in 1897, it remains a testament to the young composer’s ambition – not least in an opening Allegro whose implacable ‘motto’ sets the course for this movement overall. Storgårds had its measure, not least in the mounting fervency of its development, then delivered a probing account of a scherzo the more ingenious for its pervasive understatement.

Although it will never supplant that of its successor in audience affection, the slow movement is a minor miracle of thematic subtlety and emotional restraint as came through via felicitous playing by the BBC Philharmonic woodwind. Launching the finale in suitably visceral fashion, Storgårds (rightly) made the most of its contrasts between the celebratory and the speculative – any remaining ambivalence not so much resolved as forced into submission through a coda which renders the fatalism of Tchaikovsky’s Pathétique from a distinctly personal vantage.

So, an unlikely programme which worked well as a concert – the more so given it proceeded without an interval. Those in the audience surreptitiously eating or drinking between pieces might have preferred otherwise, but for both music and performances it was nothing but gain.

For more on the 2023 BBC Proms, visit the festival’s website at the BBC. Meanwhile click on the names for more information on artists Dame Sarah Connolly, John Storgårds and the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra – and for information on the composers Dora Pejačević and Alma Mahler-Werfel