And the effect, in this performance under Bernstein’s former protégée Marin Alsop? Electrifying.
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In this performance Alsop found plenty of depth in their declamation, the LSO string desks digging in to the Harris-like rhetoric
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In contrast was Bernstein’s modest-scaled flute concertante Halil, in which Adam Walker was the nimble soloist, and whose typical conjunction of popular and modernist idioms brought Malcolm Arnold to mind.
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The orchestra came into its own in the Mahler, creating wide, sometimes wild, sonic perspectives. There were moments when the music seemed to emerge from deep underground, others when we might have been in the open air.
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Bloom delivered the text with fierce calm, Alsop ever vigilant in cueing her as well as the rest of the multilayered forces.
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Alsop worked hard to shape the climaxes powerfully, eventually reaching exuberance when the horn section – and the fourth trombonist – rose to their feet for a triumphant close. You had a feeling Lenny would have been on his feet too.
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LSO principal flautist Adam Walker brought out the poignancy of the lone flute to the percussion’s sounds of battle.
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[Marin Alsop] clearly believes passionately in the viability of the Kaddish, and like her performance of the Jeremiah Symphony, it was superbly played and sung by the LSO and its Chorus, and blazed with conviction.
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The orchestra bit hungrily into the ominous prelude, danced ferociously in that strange middle section, then made way for a terrifically impassioned Jamie Barton to sing verses from the book of Jeremiah. When she was in full cry you could probably hear the American mezzo-soprano from Tel Aviv.
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Alsop drew out its anguished melodic lines with loving care, making its climactic dissonant outbursts all the more startling. Great music, finally; and sterling music-making too.
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Barton has a big voice, yet she phrases with intense musicality, full voiced and anguished yet tender. Solo strings from the LSO’s fine body created a web of the utmost beauty. This was a wonderful performance of a significant work that simply deserves more credit.
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At the end the symphony blossoms in optimism, prefiguring the heart-warming end of Candide. This could be no other composer. Bernstein was a 20th-century one-off.
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