The playing produced that unmistakable sheen of glamour and style, bags of both, and Alsop steered the music faultlessly from low comedy to opera ecstasy with unflagging affection and bite.
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At the end of what must have been a busy Bernstein year for her, Marin Alsop conducted a lively LSO in music the orchestra must have in its bones.
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Orchestrally, inevitably, the poem of the evening was Debussy's Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune – exquisitely shaped and placed, perfectly timed and framed, Gareth Davies's flute rich in Sicilian warmth yet with a touch of Gregalian chill threatening.
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But my, oh my, that music. Those lyrics. That singing. And some really intelligent conducting. Marin Alsop, who studied with Bernstein, brought the score beefy lyricism, biting irony and sensible tempi.
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The LSO’s leader Roman Simovic played his solo part with great gusto and expertise, and the performance as a whole was most satisfying. An excellent concert all round.
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Marin Alsop conducted with vigorous precision and all the wit in the world, and the LSO’s response from overture to playout was exultant. Bernstein could not have asked for more.
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Roth, his tempos fleet but fluid, led a theatrical, pungent reading that alternated between bombastic climaxes and treacherously exposed section work, with the heady waves of increasingly ecstatic woodwind — the LSO’s winds are on magisterial form — especially evocative. Towards the end of the piece, after a dizzying waltz, the violinists Roman Simovic and Clare Duckworth took flight in a rapt duet, the silken delicacy of which stayed in the mind longer than anything else in Zarathustra or Strauss’s manifesto...The flautist Gareth Davies stole into the Prelude with a sultry glint and Roth — a Debussy specialist — led a performance imbued with voluptuous flair.
... the warmth and energy of the performance, along with Järvi's full-body conducting, makes for a lively piece that got plenty of toes tapping.
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Roth, airborne more than once, set an urgent pace, bending double as bassoons coiled and slithered. Moments of exuberance included the glorious LSO horns in full cry in “Of the Great Longing” and plenty of glockenspiel and triangle bling in “The Convalescent”.
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The work’s multiple layers draw the listener in and do not let go, a rewarding addition to 50 years of minimalism, and given a fine performance here by Jarvi and the LSO.
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There is a complete absence of percussion, and the LSO’s playing of the music’s elaborate skein of highly nuanced expression was a marvel.
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... ultimately this musical kaleidoscope was full of panache and good humour. An orchestra of the calibre of the LSO made its demands sound easy.
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Haydn’s good nature brought tears to the eyes; it could hardly have done so without such excellence of performance.
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