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You are here: Home Film & Arts Reviews 75 Years of The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra at Carnegie Hall

75 Years of The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra at Carnegie Hall

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts
Category: Reviews
Published on Wednesday, 02 February 2022 10:00
Written by Jack Angstreich

Vasily Petrenko conducts the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Photo by Richard Termine

At Carnegie Hall, on the evening of Monday, January 31st, I had the privilege to attend a memorable concert featuring the fine Royal Philharmonic Orchestra—in its first appearance at this venue in twenty years—under the effective direction of Vasily Petrenko. The conductor addressed the audience at the outset, noting that this is the 75th anniversary of this ensemble and that it was the first international orchestra since March 2020 to tour the United States.

The program opened splendidly with an excellent version of the extraordinary Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes by Benjamin Britten. The evocative “Dawn” was succeeded by the ebullient, impressionistic “Sunday Morning,” followed by the mystical “Moonlight,” concluding glitteringly with the tumultuous and thrilling “Storm” movement.
 
The accomplished Kian Soltani then took the stage as soloist in a credible account of Edward Elgar’s enduring Cello Concerto. After a mournful introduction, the body of the first movement was by turns elegiac, lyrical, inward and even sprightly—a complex journeying through variegated moods that drew unexpected applause. The ensuing Lento was even more melancholy but with a playful scherzo section. The third movement was soulful, preceding a rousing finale. As an exquisite encore, Soltani presented his delightful arrangement for cello ensemble of the marvelous Introduction from Dmitri Shostakovich’s score for the 1955 Soviet film, The Gadfly—notable for an adapted screenplay by the eminent Formalist critic and theorist, Viktor Shklovsky.
 
The second half of the concert was devoted to an absorbing realization of the acclaimed and wonderful The Planets by Gustav Holst, which received applause after several of the individual movements. It began with the riveting “Mars, Bringer of War” and the luminous “Venus, the Bringer of Peace.” There was a fanciful reading of “Mercury,  the Winged Messenger” before a celebratory “Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity” and a somber “Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age.” “Uranus, the Magician” was humorous and ultimately triumphant while, at long last, “Neptune, the Mystic” proved enigmatic and enchanted, a signal influence of the famous film scores of Bernard Herrmann. An enthusiastic ovation elicited another terrific encore: the exhilarating "Dance of the Tumblers" from Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s 1873 incidental music for the first production of the play, The Snow Maiden, by Aleksander Ostrovsky. I look forward to a less prolonged reappearance of these impressive musicians to a New York house.

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