Even though The Philharmonia’s Prom should have been conducted by its newly installed principal conductor, Santtu-Matias Rouvali, but in the light of the event, Rouvali couldn’t travel to London and his place was taken over by Paavo Jarvi. He took over the scheduled program unchanged and along with it came the much-anticipated appearance of another Prom’s debutant, the famous Icelandic pianist named Víkingur Ólafsson in concertos by Mozart and Bach.
It was three years ago when Ólafsson’s clean and crisp solo disc of Bach had fetched him international acclaim and also a handful of recording awards. It was also the artist’s flashes of impressive musicality, immaculate musical technique, and the limpid tone that had won him so many fans and admirers in this performance of the F Minor Keyboard Concerto BWV 1056.
When played on a modern concert grand level with Jarvi and the strings of a symphony orchestra playing all along in its spirit, everything seemed quite bizarre and before-time, as if cumulating the spirits of Henry Wood and Myra Hess, and the Proms of the 1930s.
Surprisingly, Mozart’s C minor Piano Concerto K491 was similarly well mannered and was never too indulgent and not exaggerated even if the persistent playing of Ólafsson’s glitteringly designed passage work stood out as too much of a good thing in the finale. But what always stood out as one of the most personal and looked out for on Mozart’s piano concertos was perhaps missing or a bit too impersonal which is surely beautiful but never fully touching or shaped with utmost realness and individuality. The two encores namely the arrangements of Mozart’s Ave Verum Corpus and Bach organ sonata, both of them infolded without much affection and were mere reminders of Ólafsson being his very best!
What rightfully shaped the concertos were two of the 20th century’s symphonies. Also, there was not a lot that the Philharmonic and Jarvi could do with Prokofiev’s Classical Symphony other than just dispatch it efficiently but Shostakovich’s Ninth was comparatively much more interesting as it uncovered the troubling subtexts to its apparent frivolity.
Overall, it was a much-anticipated performance that met all the expectations with its somewhat uncommon anachronistic arrangement.
All Proms have been made available on the BBC sounds until the 11th of October. Additionally, Andrew Clements has listened to this fabulous concert via the live Radio broadcast. The full article is now available in The Guardian.
