Prom 43: Ravel, Mozart, Holmes, Mussorgsky – City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra – Kazuki Yamada

Maurice Ravel
Mother Goose – suite

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Piano Concerto No. 27 in B flat major

Augusta Holmès
Ludus pro patria – ‘La nuit et l’amour’

Modest Mussorgsky
Pictures at an Exhibition (orch. Henry Wood)

Paul Lewis
piano

City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra

Kazuki Yamada
conductor

The main item in this most enjoyable concert by the visiting City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra under their chief conductor Kazuki Yamada may have been Sir Henry Wood’s orchestration of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, receiving a comparatively rare outing, but there were other things to enjoy as well in an attractive programme that drew a full house to the Royal Albert Hall. Yamada and the CBSO are already a splendid partnership even though he has only been Music Director since 2023.

Wood’s 1915 orchestration predates Ravel’s by seven years and some things seem strange in comparison with that version – all the promenades are cut except for the opening one and there is no saxophone. A large orchestra is used with an off- stage euphonium, plenty of bells and gongs and the RAH organ is pressed into service. Wood creates a large, meaty sound and it feels quite Russian with an emphasis on raw power and orchestral bluntness, with hints of Orthodox mysticism. The world of early Stravinsky seems close. It is certainly over-scored – Ravel gives the work’s opening melody to a solo trumpet whilst Wood has three trumpets, two trombones and a bass trombone – but it works in performance and seems made for the Albert Hall.

Kazuki Yamada conducted a performance that held the small details in balance and trod a line between the refined and the raucous. Gnomus was aggressive and direct and Il vecchio castello (The Old Castle) had an off- stage euphonium followed by a haunting muted trumpet set high up and illuminated in the gallery. Eugene Tzikindelean had an urbane violin solo in Tuileries and there were further playful strings in Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks. Catacombs, with organ, descending harp cadenza and spooky violins sounded perilously close to Hammer Horror. Wood’s lento segue into the last movement with tolling off-stage bells (Graham Johns) was electrifying and The Bogatyr Gates (In the Capital in Kiev), had a roof-raising impact and decibels off the Richter scale. Yamada knows how to work an audience, but he may have gone over the top in whipping up applause before the last chord had died – they were going to anyway.  Overall, it was a performance of visceral impact that looked splendid in the hall. Yamada saluted the bust of Sir Henry at the end and rightly so. Ravel’s version may be more sophisticated and subtle but there is a place for Sir Henry Wood’s version as well. The Promenaders roared at the close, but there were things to appreciate elsewhere in the evening too.

Ravel’s Mother Goose Suite started the evening and, despite some excellent playing, failed to cast its spell. The Sleeping Beauty’s Pavane seemed too tranquil, and Petit Poucet too slow. Laideronnette, impératrice des pagodas had fine, vigorous playing and notable woodwind and The Beauty and the Beast conversation had an evocative clarinet for Beauty. Le Jardin féerique was taken too slowly and, surprisingly, given such good playing the golden glow of nostalgia failed to descend over the work.

The most unusual item was La nuit et L’amour by Augusta Holmes, receiving its Proms premiere and only the second of her works played at the Proms. Barely six minutes long, it is a symphonic excerpt from her large-scale 1888 cantata for choir, orchestra and narrator, Ludus Pro Patria. It is lush and rich with a passionate melody for the lower strings, but without being especially distinctive.  It evokes the sound world of Cesar Franck (who was her teacher and whose relationship with her is celebrated in Ronald Harwood’s 1979 novel Cesar and Augusta). The CBSO played it for all it was worth, and Yamada drew out the long lines of the piece without over- indulgence. It would be interesting to hear her nationalistic symphonic poem Irlande (1882) at a future Prom.

Mozart’s Piano concerto No. 27 in B flat major is his most subdued and introspective and is not a natural fit for the vast spaces of the Royal Albert Hall. Paul Lewis, in a performance that was conversational and polite, yet suggestive of hidden depths, drew the listener in. The first movement was natural and without fuss, the second was contemplative and the final movement had a dance-like quality that reminded me it was used in the Mark Morris ballet Mozart Dances. Throughout the accompaniment was elegant and smooth with the players aware of tonal shadings, and it seemed light- years away from the Mozart of Ensemble Resonanz earlier in the week. Lewis declined to give an encore and was right to do so – anything else would have been redundant.