BBC Proms — an inspired Berlin Phil, plus Chineke!’s exhilarating Beethoven 9

After the twin blows of climate change and the pandemic, there was a question mark over whether international orchestral touring would ever return. The jury is still out, but at least for its closing week in London the BBC Proms have attracted a couple of the world’s top orchestras.

First up was the Berliner Philharmoniker at the weekend. A pair of concerts was to have offered Mahler and Shostakovich conducted by Kirill Petrenko, Simon Rattle’s successor as chief conductor in Berlin, until a problem with his foot prevented him from conducting the Shostakovich (though not, bizarrely, the Mahler).

His single concert was worth the journey. Petrenko chose to bring Mahler’s Symphony No 7, coincidentally a longtime Rattle favourite. The two conductors are, if not chalk and cheese, at least very different in their understanding of what this music has to say. Where Rattle is darkly atmospheric, conjuring glimpses of decay and nocturnal phantoms, Petrenko is keen, lucid, articulate. He is the one with the light touch and barely a bar went past without the firefly-like flickering of detail, while his pace and clear sense of where the music was going meant the symphony never seemed to be losing its way, as it can. He is proving an inspired appointment in Berlin.

★★★★★

For the orchestra’s second Prom, Petrenko was replaced by Daniel Harding, though the Shostakovich was then itself replaced (again bizarrely) by Bruckner’s Symphony No 4. This made little sense in what was originally planned as an all-Russian programme, though retaining Schnittke’s Viola Concerto was a welcome decision when the eloquent Tabea Zimmermann was the soloist. This is a major concerto in its range and scale, and the lyrical intensity of her playing dominated the performance. The hypnotic tread of the closing pages will linger in the memory.

Harding has a long history with the Berliner Philharmoniker, having first conducted the orchestra at the tender age of 21, and that no doubt lies behind the high quality of playing they achieve together. His Bruckner balances still-youthful drive with patience that allowed the music to expand and breathe when it needed to. Although the Berlin brass section caps Bruckner’s climaxes with glorious, organ-like sounds second to none, it was the softest moments that made the biggest impact and had a packed Royal Albert Hall holding its collective breath.

★★★★★

Two days earlier a hardly less striking Prom was given by Chineke! Orchestra. Still only seven years old, Chineke! can claim to be an international orchestra too, as it prepares to set out for the Lucerne Festival, a feather in its cap. There are rough edges aplenty in its playing, but a Chineke! concert can deliver the goods.

At least one black composer is always on the programme with Europe’s first black and ethnically diverse orchestra and this time it was George Walker, whose Lilacs was sung with creamy lyricism by soprano Nicole Cabell. The main event, though, was a high-voltage performance of Beethoven’s Symphony No 9 that took off from the start and did not hit the tarmac again until the last bars.

Kevin John Edusei was the conductor, setting turbocharged speeds that only risked flying out of control a couple of times in the finale. Bass-baritone Ryan Speedo Green proudly launched the “Ode to Joy” and the newly formed Chineke! Voices did their utmost to raise the roof. Beethoven’s Ninth should always be as exhilarating as this.

★★★★☆

bbc.co.uk/proms