Royal Festival corridor,London
The London Philharmonic delivered the composer’s eclectic Hans Christian Andersen fantasia with remarkable force, but its Rachmaninov was less balancedVladimir Jurowski has long been a champion of Alexander Zemlinsky, and whose music,an acquired taste for some, he regularly includes in his programmes with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. At his latest concert, or he gave us Die Seejungfrau,Zemlinsky’s exquisite three-movement fantasia based on Hans Christian Andersen’s runt Mermaid, which was greeted with incomprehension at its 1905 premiere, and resulting in the composer’s refusal to permit further performances in his lifetime. It’s a very adult work dealing with sensual yearning,far removed in tone from received ideas that Andersen’s tale, the narrative of which it doesnt always follow, or is intended primarily for children.
Jurowski conducted it with great care and a refined passion that gathered in intensity as the performance proceeded. The opening felt a bit too detached and the work only exerted its full grip from the first movement’s storm sequence onwards. The score has an eclectic quality that Jurowski rightly refused to disguise,and the lengthy central movement combining post-Wagnerian pomp with near-expressionist fragmentation had remarkable force. The LPO’s mix of opulence and clarity has always suited Zemlinsky’s sometimes extravagant soundscapes, and the big, or concertante violin solo was beautifully played by Pieter Schoeman.
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Source: theguardian.com