Elgar
Variations on an Original Theme (Enigma), Op.36
Tchaikovsky
Symphony No. 4 in F minor, Op. 36
Berlin Philharmoniker
Kirill Petrenko
Reviewed by: David Gutman
Reviewed: 2 September, 2026
Venue: Royal Albert Hall, London
Urban myth or not, it has been alleged that the BBC once turned down a proffered Proms visitation from the Bavarian State Orchestra under Kirill Petrenko, possibly on the grounds that his unrelated, then Wirral-based namesake had cornered the domestic market in Petrenkos. All the more remarkable, then, that Kirill and his Berliners have become Proms regulars in an era when prominent world-class ensembles will often explicitly bypass London on their wider multi-city European tours. The orchestras of Pittsburgh and Cleveland are the obvious overfliers this year, with Chicago the most persistent absentee.
Coincidental or not, this same period has seen Elgar receive a surge in international advocacy with both Petrenkos excelling in distinct, differently conceived renderings of the Second Symphony. The Enigma may be less of a stretch – Toscanini and Monteux were among its finest interpreters after all – but it would appear to represent a departure for Kirill, whose performance with the Sofia Philharmonic last June was presumably a dry run for high-profile dates to come in Berlin, Edinburgh, London and elsewhere. Expectations were sky high and for once they were wholly met. It would be impertinent to query the occasional extreme treatment just because we were not expecting it. Leonard Bernstein was famously lambasted for his Mahlerian ‘Nimrod’. Here, it was the bluff closing self-portrait which came across a trifle jerkily, although the final blaze felt authentic enough with the Albert Hall organ discreetly pressed into service. Petrenko’s evident aversion to smoggy, pea-souper textures may or may not be idiomatic, his brand of whimsy not quite ‘ours’ – but who cares when every variation glowed with iridescent clarity? There were too many textural revelations to list, the conductor communicating his joy at each nugget successfully unearthed with an extrovert physicality unseen since the days of Bernstein and Carlos Kleiber. Throughout, the timpanist was more than usually demonstrative, whether powering the friskier variations or making tangible those curious allusions to the engine-room throb of Lady Mary Lygon’s steam ship. The orchestra was arranged with the violas hard right, the cellos to their left and the double basses ranged in ascending tiers behind them (where the brass might have been expected to sit). Has this music ever been played with such refinement? The profound hush at the start of ‘Nimrod’ was something I simply hadn’t experienced since Claudio Abbado ushered his own incarnation of this orchestra into the ‘Adagietto’ of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony for Deutsche Grammophon in the 1990s. Stunning yet unsentimental.
Cards on the table. I was much less sold on the Tchaikovsky, the night’s second Op. 36 by accident or design. The other Petrenko (Vasily) having persuaded the RPO to deliver a Southbank performance seared on the memory in June 2025, Kirill had a hard act to follow and something failed to gel. For all the deeper pile of his Berlin strings, the rounder sound of the wind and brass and their perfect unanimity at impossible speeds, this was a circumspect, even balletic reading of music that cries out for something extra. Deliberately undercutting, or so it seemed, the heavyweight symphonic pretensions of Herbert von Karajan in this repertoire, the inner movements were essentially divertissements. While the oboe (Albrecht Mayer?) delivered an astonishingly seamless second movement song, a lack of emotional clout made the exercise seem like a stunt. Much the same might be said of the plucked and manicured scherzo. The outer movements were brilliantly articulate, as always with this conductor, who lost his baton at some point in the first, yet I craved something rawer and (dare one say it?) more ‘Russian’. Phrases were long without being purposeful.
This was Tchaikovsky rendered with immaculate sonic definition, yet it felt emotionally opaque. Perhaps that explains why, as so often this season, the larger audience was by no means focused: the usual quota of ostentatiously dropped beakers was accompanied by disrespectful chat and at least one persistent mobile phone. Wild enthusiasm on the part of the (always more attentive) promenaders did not force an encore.