Two years in, the partnership between the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and its music director Vasily Petrenko continues to be transformational for the RPO. They must be getting the marketing right too: this concert was packed, something rare for the home orchestras since the pandemic, and which moved the players to dole out a mini round of applause for the audience during Petrenko’s introductory speech. The musical director went on to outline briefly the elements of common ground shared by Rachmaninov and Elgar, the two composers on whom the orchestra will be focusing this season, both of them working in the fading glow of an empire’s sunset.
Two warhorse works dominated this first concert of the series. Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No 2 felt more than usually like a team performance between soloist and conductor, with Petrenko shaping the orchestra to support and spark off Nikolai Lugansky’s detailed playing. From the sombre opening onwards, Lugansky was always forwards in the mix, his playing taut and disciplined, the orchestra weighty yet finely coloured in support, maximising the music’s lushness without making it sound indulgent. Lugansky’s encore was a Rachmaninov Prelude, Op 32 No 12, showing another side to the composer: a few minutes of eerie fairytale shimmer created with playing of cut-glass clarity.
Elgar’s Symphony No 1 similarly showcased the orchestra’s current form, the strings rich and velvety, the wind and brass soloists dovetailing skilfully in Elgar’s endlessly shifting combinations of tone colour. Petrenko’s conducting balanced solidity with lightness, bypassing the bombast and making something especially effective of the moment in the finale when the fierce march tune is transformed into something tender.
The concert had opened with something a century newer than either of these: Lera Auerbach’s Icarus, a 2011 piece Petrenko has previously championed with the National Youth Orchestra. Its driving rhythms came across powerfully, but the most striking aspect was the sci-fi sound of the theremin adding to the ominous heat-haze of the quieter passages.
