This evening was, in a sense, a tale of two orchestras. On one hand, the international heavyweight, returning to the Proms for the first time in more than 20 years. On the other, the rapidly ascendant homegrown outfit founded while its members were still at school, already making its fourth Proms appearance.
Taking the early evening shift, the LA Phil and Gustavo Dudamel performed Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony in an ultra-polished hybrid of period-performance style and modern instruments. String textures were a deluxe fine-knit, individual notes lifted but phrase endings subtly elongated so that the music seemed to breathe. The woodwind solos were cool and bright, offering further oxygenation to an already limpid sound, where massed trills spoke as one and countermelodies usually buried under orchestral busyness suddenly became audible.
