LSO/Pappano Review – Musgrave’s Phoenix Rising and Vaughan Williams’ London Stir the Soul | London Symphony Orchestra

AAntonio Pappano’s evangelical embrace of British music continued apace with a concert that included a rare piece by Thea Musgrave, a strangely neglected Viola Concerto by William Walton, and the latest in Vaughan Williams’ ongoing cycle, the evocative London Symphony.

Musgrave, who is still composing at 97, wrote Phoenix Rising in 1997 for the late Andrew Davis, to whom Pappano dedicated this concert. A 23-minute rollercoaster that pits the black drummer and his stick-wielding allies against the devil’s horn player and his backup brass band. A trumpeter enters from offstage, a drummer launches into a hum, and somewhere in the middle, for no immediately apparent reason, a phoenix soars high in an iridescent mist of harmonious percussion. Pappano and the London Symphony Orchestra gave an extensive rehearsal with marimba, vibraphone, glockenspiel, xylophone and tubular bells creating a magical aura. The musicians certainly enjoyed its spiky harmonies, although the theatrical elements may have been pushed too far.

Walton’s Viola Concerto was premiered in 1929 by Hindemith, no less, and something of the German composer-violinist’s taste for crisp timbres and wry humor lies beneath its lyrical charm. Antoine Thamstet was the instinctive soloist here, his graceful tone and expressive fingerwork casting a soulful spell over the pensive opening movement with its dramatic orchestral outbursts. The syncopated scherzo encouraged him to release his inner Buck, but it was the finale – alternately romantic, lively and tender – that found the sensitive Frenchman at his richest and most expressive.

“The London Symphony,” as Williams described his second essay on symphonic form, is an affectionate portrait of the city he knew and loved: a bustling city glimpsed through the fog and mist that regularly enveloped it. Although he was never short of drama, it was this impressionistic quality that Pappano regularly brought to the fore, drawing comparisons throughout with Debussy and, perhaps most surprisingly, with Respighi. The startling weightlessness of the opening strings, the haunting street cries, and the noise of the Embankment in the night led to the expansive, haunting finale with the palpable aura of a vanishing empire. Exquisitely played and clearly conducted, this was music at its most soul-stirring.