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Post pandemic, the London concert scene needed a shot in the arm. Now audiences are returning and it is often the more adventurous programmes, such as these two presenting major new works for piano and orchestra, that are pulling them in.
The London Philharmonic Orchestra’s concert at the Royal Festival Hall was headlined by the premiere of Francisco Coll’s Ciudad sin sueño (City That Does Not Sleep), billed as a fantasia for piano and orchestra. It is not clear why Coll is shy of calling it a piano concerto, though perhaps the Lorca-inspired, flamenco-like atmospherics tilt it away from obvious concerto material.
The result is a highly detailed urban landscape, through which the piano takes an exotic nocturnal stroll, ambushed by muted trombone, tom-toms, whip and kick drum. In the slower passages the heat of the night hangs heavy in the air, “spirit of earthiness, authenticity, possession” in Coll’s description. The work demands precision to make its full effect and received that from the LPO and pianist Javier Perianes, though his rigorous, percussive playing did not suggest many of the impressionist colours in which the music luxuriates.
Coll’s new work has similarities to another fantasy for piano and orchestra, Falla’s Nights in the Gardens of Spain, and that was its well-chosen counterpart in the concert’s second half. A couple of works by Stravinsky completed this concert, conducted by Gustavo Gimeno, ending with a rough-and-ready, headlong performance of the Firebird Suite.
★★★★☆
Before the main concert there was a free, one-hour showcase by a young ensemble of LPO Junior Artists and Foyle Future Firsts, bolstered by a handful of LPO musicians. These pre-concert bonus events by the Southbank Centre’s resident orchestras are always worth catching, not least for their off-the-beaten-track music. This programme included three novelties by women composers, the Schumann-inspired overture to the opera Jery und Bätely (1873) by Ingeborg Bronsart, the atmospheric tone-poem Trencrom (1978) by Cornish composer Judith Margaret Bailey, and a premiere by Tayla-Leigh Payne. Inspired by Lewis Carroll, It’s Only a Dream evokes fantasy and mystery, though its spare writing for the instruments drew the only uncertain playing of the concert. Luis Castillo-Briceño was the youthful conductor.
The night before, also at the Royal Festival Hall, the Philharmonia Orchestra presented the first UK performance of a new Piano Concerto by American composer and guitarist Bryce Dessner. Given its premiere in Zurich by Alice Sara Ott earlier this year, the 20-minute concerto is compact and highly charged. Dessner himself has suggested a link to Baroque dance as a mark of affection for his sister, a choreographer and dancer, during her recent illness.
Minimalism lurks in the background as pounding rhythms drive the concerto along, though periodically it sinks exhausted, allowing a calm vista to open up, where the pianist weaves decorative filigree at leisure. Then the rhythms start beating again, energised equally here by Ott’s clean-cut playing and the driving power of the orchestra. There is not the detail or variety of timbre as in Coll’s work, but Dessner has conceived a concentrated concerto with an energy that makes it pass in a flash.
It was paired on either side with two colourful works, Berlioz’s Overture Le Corsaire and Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade. Both received performances with a dash of virtuosity under conductor Elim Chan.
★★★★☆
