The BBC Proms are enjoying a bumper year for musical anniversaries. Either Berlioz or Prokofiev would have been enough to furnish an armful of Proms spectaculars. The two together are almost too much of a good thing.
Daniele Gatti and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra ended their Prom last week with Prokofiev's Alexander Nevsky,a panoramic film score masquerading as a cantata. There have already been many performances of the work this year, but Gatti's threw itself into the bold colours and showpiece orchestral effects without any half measures - scraping wintry strings in "The Battle on the Ice", raucous trombones in the heat of the warfare. Ekaterina Gubanova brought authentic Russian mournfulness to the mezzo solo. The London Philharmonic Choir and Crouch End Festival Chorus sang with the boldness afforded by strength of numbers. Even the bells pealed out louder than usual and no matter that they were wildly off-key. The same brazen confidence had not helped the first half of the concert. The orchestra's brass section makes a splendidly euphonious sound, but it over-eagerly drowned the rest of the players in what was already a gutsy performance of Strauss's Tod und Verklärung.
In between, Mahler's lovely, poetic Rückert-Lieder fell completely flat. The young German baritone Detlef Roth sang politely, as though in a drawing-room with piano accompaniment. He made the impact of a mouse in the vast Royal Albert Hall and Gatti eked out the slow songs until they wilted away in the heat.
