Imagine a hundred elite athletes racing to a cliff edge and leaping over, not to their doom but to exhilarating flight. The opening of Richard Strauss’s Don Juan, Op 20, should sound like that, and unless disaster strikes in this most fiendish of works, usually does. In the hands of the Leipzig Gewandhaus orchestra and its chief conductor, Andris Nelsons, the eruption of energy was on a different scale, adrenaline palpable, impact electrifying. The floor vibrated, a novelty in the unyielding acoustic of the Barbican.
This is not a matter of hyperbole, though for once let’s allow some: this was my concert of the year so far, in repertoire that does not always appeal to me. More, it reflects Strauss’s absolute authority – even in his mid-20s when he produced this show-off piece – in getting the effect he wants from an orchestra. The strings kickstart the action in a tiny upward flurry, like an intake of breath, violins galloping from lowest note to high. Instantly the full orchestra lets rip with a noisy, propulsive fanfare motif: the libertine, his fate sealed, is at wild, erotic play. By the end, he is ruined, the hushed conclusion a sober whisper.
