The chorales of brass, essential to all Bruckner, blasted out in visionary splendour. If the strings kept too much in reserve, after the marathon of travel from Salford, and rehearsal, who can blame them. This majestic music needs a full hall, with audience and musicians an equal part of the equation: that’s the thrilling dynamic the Proms, with standing room for 1,000 (still only £6), can deliver in more normal conditions. It suited the mood and circumstance of the day. The symphony, the Austrian composer’s oddest but arguably most appealing, had a restrained leanness of texture – heft and richness being the more typical Brucknerian order. The MacMillan was the centrepiece of a Prom that included Webern’s mysterious arrangement of Bach’s Ricercar a 6 from The Musical Offering and Bruckner’s Symphony No 6. The Sinfonia of London is made up of leading principals who want to play for Wilson. His encore, the Imitations of Bells from Johann Paul von Westhoff’s Sonata No 3 in D minor ( 50 minutes in on BBC Sounds), turned the viola into a shimmering carillon. Power, who plays an Italian instrument from 1610, achieves an expressive range of limitless variety, from muscular to lyrical to ethereal. The orchestra’s long association with MacMillan showed in expert playing (they have recorded the concerto with Power and Martyn Brabbins).Īll this endeavour was as nothing compared with the demands made on the soloist, who has to sprint the equivalent of 10 laps to everyone else’s one. This expansive work spits and glitters, with restless activity in the orchestra and vivid ensembles of lower strings, flute, brass, percussion, always allowing the viola to sing out. Lawrence Power was star soloist in James MacMillan’s Viola Concerto (2013), dedicated to him. Monday’s severe heat warnings meant a depleted but enthusiastic crowd turned up for the first of two consecutive BBC Philharmonic Proms, this one with the orchestra’s former chief conductor, Juanjo Mena. The problem last week was how to get to the hall.
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