The velvety flow of the opening minutes, the electrifying buoyancy of the soldiers’ marches in Part 1, the throbbing double-bass heartbeats underlying Marguerite’s lament – the performance was full of memorable cameos, joining together seamlessly to form a rich and vivid picture.
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Exuberantly colourful and displaying a real melodic gift, [Helen Grime's] five-minute work traversed a brilliant series of sound-worlds, drawing on each section of the orchestra in turn, from high woodwinds to tuned percussion to violins, harp and celeste.
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The devil really does get the best tunes and Rattle ensured a demonic gallop into hell before that celestial finale.
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Now that he’s finally back with us again, the British public is in for the most amazing future: we’re once again going to hear music like we’ve really never heard it before. This is Rattle.
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And if the LSO-Rattle era unfolds in similar style, we’re in for some thrilling concerts. The orchestra sounded fabulous and the LSO Chorus was on fiery, agile form as, variously, soldiers, students, peasants, gnomes, sylphs, demons and the damned.
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This was a rigorous, uplifting kick-off for the LSO’s Rattle years, with all to play for.
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Orchestrally, perhaps the exceptional viola solos of Alexander Zemtsov in the “Ballad of the King of Thule” merit a spotlight of their own, but one has to acknowledge overall that this was the London Symphony Orchestra at its very best.
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The LSO played with tremendous commitment: one didn’t need to see the instrumentalists’ smiles to recognise the excitement and enthusiasm with which they are welcoming their new musical director.  This programme made enormous demands and they certainly rose to the occasion.
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As Faust’s fantasy beloved Marguerite, Karen Cargill was appropriately demure and ardent, in telling contrast to Christopher Purves’s Mephistopheles: singers don’t come much more infernal than Purves, who balances perfectly between malevolence and charm.
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Rattle began his formal public-facing relationship with the LSO with a bold statement of intent – a programme celebrating British composers that gives the UK concert scene a shot in the arm. A bold start to a new relationship a lot of us have considerable hopes pinned on.
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Cargill was not the only one visibly affected by the evening’s closing coup de théâtre, as rank upon rank of children from the Tiffin School gradually filled the floor of the stalls to play their part in Berlioz’s sublimely extended epilogue, which on this occasion was not a bar too long. I would gladly return for the repeat performance on Tuesday just to hear the last five minutes again.
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As a whole, though, the concert was hugely impressive; the start of this new era for the LSO could hardly have been more auspicious.
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