AUDIENCE and players alike were panting, drained of moisture, and whence came relief? Certainly not from the Albert Hall’s air-cooling system, installed several years ago for a pretty sum. Not from Death and Transfiguration either, for all the care and effort applied by Daniele Gatti and the Royal Philharmonic. Out came Strauss’s velvet opulence, the big theme rising splendidly from the brass on the orchestra’s back row. But it was of little use; in this performance Strauss’s hero clearly died of heat exhaustion.
With Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky cantata after the interval matters were different. Gentlemen in the orchestra had removed their jackets. And there was ice, packs of it: not merely in the Battle on the Ice movement but in the very instrumentation. Gone was the coagulating German Romantic sound. Here were cooling asperities: shivering strings, brass and wind pitching high registers against low, with the lusty battle cries of the London Philharmonic Choir and Crouch End Festival Chorus cleaving what passed for air.
Where did everyone find the energy? Gatti clearly helped. Still in his jacket, he jumped around like a man electrocuted, alive to every snarl and drama in Prokofiev’s adapted film score. The young mezzo Ekaterina Gubanova walked on and off for her mourning song like a character trapped in a Tarkovsky long shot; no fireworks in her voice either, just tender sobriety. Then the razzle returned and the Teutonic crusaders lay dead; Mother Russia and Prokofiev had triumphed again. It was a rousing performance.
In a smaller way, Mahler’s Rückert-Lieder also survived the heat. Another young singer, the expressive German baritone Detlef Roth, tested the hall’s acoustics by singing quietly as a mouse whenever the lyrics indicated. ("Breathed a gentle fragrance . . . tranquil domain"; and we heard him too.) The RPO suffered a few ragged moments - maybe their instruments were melting - but winds especially shone in Mahler’s chamber textures.
