A century of British music with Sir Antonio Pappano and the London Symphony Orchestra

Thea Musgrave
Phoenix Rising

William Walton
Viola Concerto (revised 1962)

Ralph Vaughan Williams
A London Symphony (Symphony No. 2)

Antoine Tamestit (viola)

London Symphony Orchestra
Sir Antonio Pappano (conductor)

One of the things Sir Antonio Pappano set out to do when he became Chief Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra was to explore the rich panoply of British music, a project he was keenly interested in after many years spent at Covent Garden focusing largely on the Italian and Austro-Germanic operatic repertory. This latest concert programme took in both ends of the 20th century, from Vaughan Williams’s Second Symphony, premiered in 1913, to Thea Musgrave’s Phoenix Rising, first heard in 1998. With Walton providing the concerto sandwich, this was an excellent opportunity to savour British compositions manifesting different styles and drawing on different veins of inspiration.

Thea Musgrave, now nearly a century old herself, was once intrigued by a sign outside a coffee shop in her adopted home of the United States depicting the fabled creature of a phoenix rising from the ashes. From that encounter grew the idea of a work that moves from darkness to light, from mystery to illumination, within which a short middle section centred on two antiphonally placed harps and four pitched percussion players (marimba, vibraphone, xylophone and glockenspiel) represents the moment of rebirth and renewed flight of the legendary bird. Musgrave is known for her acute awareness of theatrical gestures and her Phoenix Rising has elements of deliberate confrontation between a solo horn, timpanist and other members of what is a large orchestra. When I first heard (and reviewed) this work, it was as part of a Prom back in 2018, and the larger platform space in the Royal Albert Hall lent itself more easily to dramatic entrances and exits as well as the movement of players within the orchestra. Not so here. Nevertheless, Pappano conducted the piece with energy and commitment, riding the initial waves of anger and fury with no lack of vigour, as well as unfolding deeper well-springs of Romantic ardour in the final section that leads to peace and serenity. On the way principal players (violin, cello, and of course timpani and horn) contributed stylish solos.

When Brahms first heard Dvořák’s cello concerto, he is reputed to have commented that had he known it was possible to write such a work, he would have done so himself. Hearing afresh this performance of Walton’s Viola Concerto, with a wonderfully authoritative Antoine Tamestit as soloist, I kept thinking that this piece should be an inspiration to many more composers to follow in his footsteps (Musgrave delivered such a solo work in 1973) by expanding the concerto repertoire for an instrument that has all too often been treated as an orchestral Cinderella.

It did not get off to the best of starts. Originally written with Lionel Tertis in mind, it was rejected by the star violist who found it too modern for his liking (he later recanted “with shame and contrition” in his autobiography), and the first performance was given in October 1929 by none other than Paul Hindemith. Even Elgar remained unconvinced, muttering that his younger colleague had “murdered the poor unfortunate instrument”. How our ears have changed in the meantime.  Even in its revised 1962 version which has the instrumentation somewhat thinned out, it comes across as quintessentially Walton. There is this dazzling combination of autumnal tones, deep-throated and melancholy-filled, married to a playful vibrancy which is rare in any other composer. From his first entry in the opening Andante comodo, Tamestit’s playing commanded attention. I was struck especially by the singing quality he brought to the work, evident in his rich and mellow tone, coupled with the hints of sadness he conjured up from the depths of the C string as well as moments of aching tenderness that constitute Walton’s characteristic mood of nostalgia. It is also an undeniably virtuosic piece, as Tamestit demonstrated in his furious double-stopping and quicksilver changes from animation to reflection.

For the short, central Scherzo and Trio there were smiles of playfulness on Tamestit’s lips, as he negotiated with deftness all of Walton’s high-spirited exuberance, the shifts from C string to the much brighter A string creating splashes of sparkling iridescence. At the start of the Finale, which is as long as the preceding two movements put together, there was a gentle reminder of Walton’s earlier success in Façade in the cheeky bassoon solo, its note of nonchalance picked up seamlessly by Tamestit. His ability to build up a head of steam and then release it almost imperceptibly was quite remarkable in a concluding movement that was full of incident, not least in the fully engaged accompaniment from Pappano and the LSO, the gurgling clarinets and extended cello solo contributing to the bittersweet qualities of this concerto. Tamestit clearly loves this work, and it showed throughout in this performance. As if to underline the considerable range of the instrument, his encore, Henri Vieuxtemps’s posthumously published Capriccio in C minor, intended as an homage to Paganini, was full of virtuosic displays and burnished quality of sound.

Like Walton’s concerto for the viola, Vaughan Williams’s second symphonic work, A London Symphony, underwent a number of revisions from its composition in 1911 to what is regarded as the definitive version of 1933. Emerging from sketches for a tone poem about the capital city, it owed much to the encouragement of its dedicatee, the composer’s friend George Butterworth. Despite many indications to the contrary, Vaughan Williams always insisted that the work represented “absolute music”. Hearing it again immediately after the Walton, I couldn’t help feeling that in its broad and majestic sweep of impressionism its sound-world is less distinctive than what his younger colleague produced a short time later. Parts of the second movement, the slow Lento, could have come straight from Grieg, and not just because of folksiness; many of the harmonies sounded positively Mahlerian. That said, the lessons which Ravel gave Vaughan Williams in 1908 enabling him to acquire, as he put it, “a little French polish”, clearly left their mark: the extensive mood painting is shot through with precise and striking instrumental detail.

Pappano directed an expansive reading of the work running to 48 minutes, and the performance was recorded as part of his ongoing cycle of the composer’s symphonies. In this he was magnificently supported by a highly responsive LSO, the saturated string tone and precision of woodwind and brass being particularly notable. As a piece, this symphony is undeniably atmospheric, encompassing all the sights, sounds and moods of a great metropolis. In the opening movement Pappano’s slow awakening, like a gradual stirring from the deep, was quite magical, but equally effective was the sudden explosion into life, the coil-springs of compressed energy cascading through the entire orchestra. Pappano’s spacious approach repaid dividends in the slow movement where so many details were evocative of what the composer called “Bloomsbury Square on a November afternoon”: the mournful cor anglais solo, a solo trumpet rising above the fray, a ruminative solo horn, shafts of darkness suggested by the solo viola, and string tremolos which ran like shivers through the ranks.

In the final movement it was again the abundance of atmosphere that impressed: a hint of anguish at the start engendered by high-lying upper strings set against pizzicatos from cellos and double basses, the recurrence of Westminster chimes on the two harps, river-like oscillating textures present in contrasts between growling trombones and tuba and ostinato string patterns, a haunting solo from the leader towards the close. 

I am tempted to call this symphony a day in the life of a great city. It has, and had in this performance, an outpouring of energetic life, a sense of an organic flow mirroring the progression of the Thames, and a cycle encompassing daybreak and dusk, itself reflective of the bounds of human existence. In an essay written in the 1930s Vaughan Williams declared: “If the roots of your art are firmly planted in your own soil and that soil has anything individual to give you, you may still gain the whole world and not lose your own souls.”