15th July 2016
Royal Albert Hall, London, United Kingdom
TCHAIKOVSKY Overture "Romeo and Juliet"
ELGAR Cello Concerto
PROKOFIEV Alexander Nevsky
Sol Gabetta (cello)
BBC Symphony Orchestra
Sakari Oramo (conductor)
Here we go again. We actually mixed up the starting time and missed the France national anthem tribute and the Tchaikovsky "'Romeo and Juliet' Overture". Argentinian cellist Sol Gabetta then took the stage and performed Elgar's evergreen "Cello Concerto". If you paid serious attention, the execution was incredibly elegant and refined, and the orchestral part was no less graceful. However, it was the classic RAH acoustic problem again, where nuances just disappeared into the ether without doing justice to the music nor the performance, and the end result sounded like the performance lacked emotional depth. Compared to, say, Alisa Weilerstein, it was perhaps a less weighty take on this Concerto, but it had some fabulous refreshing lyricism to it. It was quite enjoyable, if very frustrating. The Pēteris Vasks encore was astonishing. It called for much extended techniques on the cello and the eerie Latvian sound world pierced through the atmosphere seamlessly, and Gabetta even sang along as she played. The second half was 40 minutes of film-music-turned-cantata "Alexander Nevsky" by Prokofiev. It is not performed very often for very good reasons: musical material minimal, there is almost no substantial development, the music is completely linear, relentless and tedious. For what was worth, the performance was quite good, with some fantastic playing from the BBC SO under Sakari Oramo. Sadly, it is not a piece that can be saved by outstanding performance, but we must give credits to the respective and respectable parties.
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