In the last week we learned of the sad news of the death of conductor Christoph von Dohnányi, at the age of 95.
You can read an obituary for him on the Guardian website, and tributes from each of the orchestras with which he had a special relationship – the Cleveland Orchestra, where he was chief conductor from 1984 until 2002, the Philharmonia Orchestra, where he was principal guest conductor, then principal conductor from 1997 to 2008, then honorary conductor for life – and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, with whom he worked from 1966 to 2019.
Dohnányi’s prodigious discography, mostly recorded on the Decca Classics, Telarc and Signum Classics labels, is rich in opera and symphonic repertoire, but he also had a reputation for fine recordings of modern music, including colourful examinations of the worlds of Webern, Carl Ruggles and Lutosławski. These recordings, together with a special Cleveland account of Dvořák’s Symphony no.6, make up the playlist below:
by Ben Hogwood Picture by Kauppo Kikkas, used from the ECM Records website
Today marks the birthday of one of our most important and best-loved composers, the Estonian Arvo Pärt.
Pärt is best known as a composer with the ability to write music with a deep, spiritual connection, that often has a haunting and meditative quality. Yet a listen to a range of his works confirms that he is – and has been – so much more than that, with an early body of work that is uncompromising and challenging, to be heard alongside the deceptively simple, child-like pieces that make such an easy transition to relaxing playlists.
Pärt is most definitely a ‘playlist composer’, as short pieces such as Fur alina, Fratres and Cantus in memoriam Benjamin Britten confirm…but the playlist below brings these together with some of the earlier pieces, where a rebellious, pre-punk approach brought startling and compelling results. Try listening without skipping, so that you include the fascinating Symphony no.2 and the Credo. In context, the remarkable qualities of the shorter pieces take on new meaning.
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra / Franz Welser-Möst (above)
Mozart Symphony no.38 in D major K504 ‘Prague’ (1786) Tchaikovsky Symphony no.6 in B minor Op.74 ‘Pathétique’ (1893)
Royal Albert Hall, London Tuesday 9 September 2025
Reviewed by Ben Hogwood Photos (c) BBC / Chris Christodoulou
The music of Mozart is the lifeblood of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, so to describe their performance of the composer’s Prague symphony as routine is to say that everything was present and completely idiomatic.
Completed in Vienna, the Prague deserves to be mentioned with the last three symphonies as among Mozart’s greatest. In the hands of guest conductor Franz Welser-Möst, its phrases were stylishly turned, violins silky-smooth but keeping clear of full fat over-indulgence. This performance drew the audience in, with a chamber orchestra sound that acquired more beef when needed in the first movement, which had appropriate drama, or the boisterous passages of the finale. The woodwind were superb throughout.
Most intriguing was the Andante, a thoughtful repose whose chromatic melodies were lovingly shaped, while the central section was notable for its autumnal frissons whenever the music headed for a minor key. Meanwhile the faster music was imbued with the spirit of the dance, a performance carefully considered but let off the leash when appropriate.
Tchaikovsky’s Pathétique symphony took a while to get going, revealing the composer’s own Mozartian influence in the process. Initially the first movement felt underpowered, its sense of dread kept to a minimum and the second theme kept within itself – though that did mean a particularly beautiful clarinet solo from Matthias Schorn. This turned out to be an effective interpretative ploy on the part of Welser-Möst, for the impact of the stormy section was heightened, the orchestra suddenly playing hell for leather.
The 5/4 metre of the second movement was persuasively realised, the lilt of its dance compromised by unexpected syncopations, alternating between charming and disturbing. By this point the Proms audience notably rapt in their attention, and still between movements.
The scherzo felt Viennese yet acquired a manic need to please more in keeping with Mahler – not encouraged as much by Welser-Möst as previous Vienna Philharmonic incumbents (Herbert von Karajan, for example) but effective, nonetheless. It all set up the devastating pathos of the finale, taken relatively smooth and never lingering, but still uncommonly moving. Double basses were appropriately knotty, while the effect of the stopped horns, playing low and loud, was genuinely chilling. The fabled gong stroke, on the light side, was still a telling moment in the hall, as was the silence following the last note, Welser-Möst giving us over a minute to consider the masterpiece we had just heard. After that, there could be no encore.
Franz Welser-Möst is a subtle conductor who over the years has developed a close relationship with his charges in Cleveland and Vienna particularly. His poised approach brings optimum virtuosity and watertight ensemble, to which can be added artistic approaches with a great deal to commend them. In this case both Mozart and Tchaikovsky were the beneficiaries.
You can listen back to this Prom concert on BBC Sounds until Sunday 12 October.
Lukas Sternath (piano), Elizabeth Watts (soprano), Laurence Kilsby (tenor), BBC Singers, BBC Symphony Chorus, BBC Symphony Orchestra / Sakari Oramo
Gipps Death on the Pale Horse Op.25 (1943) [Proms premiere] Grieg Piano Concerto in A minor Op.16 (1868 rev.1907) Bliss The Beatitudes F28 (1961)
Royal Albert Hall, London Sunday 7 September 2025
Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse Photos (c) BBC / Chris Christodoulou
This evening’s Prom – launching the final week of the present season – was billed as ‘Grieg’s Piano Concerto’, no doubt the reason why many in the audience were attending while hardly being the most interesting aspect of a typically adventurous programme from Sakari Oramo.
In the event the Grieg received a responsive reading from Lukas Sternath (below, with Oramo), the Viennese pianist who, still in his mid-20s, was most at home in more inward passages. The second theme of the initial Allegro was enticingly taken up after a heartfelt rendering by cellos, as was the Adagio’s eloquent melody and that first emerging in the finale on flute, where it was soulfully rendered by Daniel Pailthorpe. Nor were the more demonstrative aspects underplayed – Sternath having the measure of a cadenza whose mounting rhetoric was pointedly reined-in, while the finale’s outer sections were incisively inflected prior to an apotheosis which felt the more exhilarating through its absence of bathos. A melting take on Richard Strauss’ early song Morgen!, transcribed with enviable poise by Max Reger, served to reinforce Sternath’s formidable pianistic credentials.
The 50th anniversary year of Sir Arthur Bliss’s death has seen a gratifying number of revivals, few more significant than that of The Beatitudes. The misfortune of its premiere having been moved from Coventry’s new Cathedral to its Belgrade Theatre, thus freeing up rehearsal time for Britten’s War Requiem, rather condemned it as an also-ran from the outset. Yet Bliss had created a piece unerringly suited for the consecration in what, in itself, remains an impressive conception. Unfolding as 14 short sections which can be grouped into six larger movements, this is less a cantata than a choral symphony. Setting all nine Beatitudes, Bliss none the less merged several of these and interspersed them with settings from three 17th-century and one 20th-century ‘metaphysical’ poets to commemorate the past from the vantage of the present.
The texts, drawn from Henry Vaughan, George Herbert and Jeremy Taylor, anticipate a future redemption – as, more ambivalently, does Dylan Thomas in And death shall have dominion which builds implacably to the climactic Ninth Beatitude and Voices of the Mob prior to the hard-won serenity of the Epilogue. That The Beatitudes has enjoyed relatively few revivals is less to do with its intrinsic quality than the demands of its choral writing, to which the BBC Symphony Chorus and BBC Singers did notable justice. Elizabeth Watts responded with real sensitivity and perception to some radiant soprano writing and while Laurence Kilsby was a little effortful in the more demonstrative passages, he brought conviction to a tenor role both fervent and compassionate. Nor did Richard Pearce disappoint with his extensive organ part.
Oramo paced the 50-minute entity superbly as to make one hope he will tackle more works by Bliss – not least the masterly Meditations on a Theme by John Blow, which has inexplicably fallen through the net this year. He had started tonight’s concert with a most welcome revival for Death on the Pale Horse – the succinctly eventful tone poem by Ruth Gipps which, while it might not capture the visceral drama of Blake’s eponymous engraving, distils an evocative atmosphere from pithy initial ideas that audibly reflects the circumstances of its composition.
Coleridge-Taylor The Bamboula Op.75 (1910) Coleman Fanfare for Uncommon Times (2021) [UK premiere] James Lee III Visions of Cahokia (2022) [European premiere] Shostakovich Symphony no.10 in E minor Op.93 (1953)
Royal Albert Hall, London Friday 5 September 2025
Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse Photos (c) BBC / Andy Paradise
Sir Simon Rattle may have stood down from his second Prom this season, but as his replacement for Chineke! Orchestra’s eighth appearance here was the highly regarded Jonathon Heyward (current music director of the Baltimore Symphony), a positive outcome was all but ensured.
Curious, if not unexpected, that Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s The Bamboula enjoyed 16 Prom performances in 22 seasons before going into oblivion for 91 years. Although this ‘Rhapsodic Dance’, inspired by a West African drum that found its way into Haitian spiritual practice, is not among its composer’s major works, the increasingly fluid juxtaposition of animated and soulful dances makes for highly sophisticated light music of its period. Certainly, it came up newly minted in this effervescent and responsive reading under Heyward’s assured guidance.
Two pieces from American composers of the middle generation afforded productive contrast in this first half. Aside from its titular play on Copland’s evergreen, Fanfare for Uncommon Times found Valerie Coleman reflecting societal as well as musical ambiguities in a piece that builds not a little ominously in waves of activity towards a latter half whose interwoven brass and percussion conveys a vibrant if disturbing impression: her call to ‘‘face these ‘uncommon times’ with a renewed sense of hope and determination’’ shot through with not a little anxiety.
From here to James Lee III’s Visions of Cahokia was to be transported back into a Medieval settlement which became a centre for Mississippian culture until its still-unexplained demise in the 14th century. Whatever else, this provided inspiration for an orchestral triptych whose fusing elements from Stravinsky with those of Villa Lobos or even Revueltas was evident in the music’s variegated textures and evocative colours. Effectively a ‘concerto for orchestra’ of compact dimensions yet immediate impact, it might well prove a highlight of this season.
As, interpretively speaking, might the performance of Shostakovich’s Tenth Symphony after the interval. Interesting that this piece is currently the most often heard here of its composer’s symphonies – this being its 36th appearance – with Heyward having its measure not least in an opening Moderato such as built methodically yet assuredly from sombre beginnings to a powerful central climax before regaining its initial introspection. After this, the brief Allegro provided explosive contrast as made its being allegedly a ‘portrait’ of Stalin more irrelevant.
Unexceptionally fine as was Chineke!’s playing in these two movements, it came into its own with the Allegretto that ranks among Shostakovich’s most distinctive and personal creations – not least for its motivic interplay of boundless subtlety capped by a stentorian motto on horn to which Pierre Buizer was in accord. Heyward paced it ideally, as also the lengthy Andante whose plangency is swept aside only to return intensified by the finale’s ensuing Allegro; at the close, giving this music its head on route to a decisive and almost affirmative conclusion.
A memorable reading that rounded off a worthwhile concert and likely this orchestra’s most impressive Proms showing yet. Hopefully Chineke! will go on to tackle further symphonies of the later 20th century – maybe a much-needed UK premiere for Allan Pettersson’s Sixth?
Arcana.fm 