Classical review: WDR Symphony Orchestra

Published on Wednesday 21 July 2010 12:51

WDR SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA COLOGNE **** ROYAL ALBERT HALL, LONDON

RECKLESSLY lavish in its scoring, Gunther Schuller's Where the Word Ends, receiving its UK premiere on Tuesday night as part of the BBC Proms, is unlikely to be slotted into regular orchestral schedules.

Knowing it was originally to be played alongside Ravel's Daphnis and Chloe, Schuller indulged himself with a massive orchestra.

Last night, Ravel was not on the programme but Strauss's Alpine Symphony, with its generous brass, including four Wagner tubas, was.

Where the Word Ends addresses the point at which music expresses the inexpressible. The exotic instrumentation is one means at Schuller's disposal. Another is his rich, neo-Mahlerian harmonic language, allied to a jazzy idiom honed over decades of immersion in the style. High seriousness and playfulness overlap in a piece which should not be relegated to the sidelines.

The Alpine Symphony, charting a day of climbing in the Bavarian Alps, is on one level a glorious evocation of natural phenomena: the WDR Symphony Orchestra, under Semyon Bychkov, rose to the challenge with their realisation of a spectacular sunrise, a mountain waterfall, the breathtaking view from the peak, a thunderstorm (wind machine and thundersheet vigorously deployed) and a glowing sunset.

The Alpine trek may occasionally become a ramble but Strauss's mellifluous note-spinning is always worth the detour.

Bychkov is a remarkable conductor. His account of the Prelude to Wagner's Lohengrin was simply ethereal. Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto, with lithe soloist Viviane Hagner, was no less buoyant, its finale tripping along with elfin delicacy.

Bychkov's podium manner is always elegant and unflappable, even in the face of torrential Alpine downpours. But the secret of his success is that he also captures the element of spiritual affirmation that underpins Strauss's depiction of natural phenomena.