Increasing diversity may be the long-term strategy to win new audiences for classical music, but in the meantime hard-pressed managers know there’s nothing like the “dream ticket” of a top-rank international orchestra and top-rank soloist to pull in the punters. It certainly worked its magic on Friday night, when the orchestra many judge to be the world’s finest, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra from Amsterdam, was joined by Leonidas Kavakos, probably the most bankable violinist alive. Before the concert the packed foyers had that fever of excitement I haven’t felt since those far-off pre-Covid days.
The punters’ sky-high expectations were well rewarded, with a programme that admittedly scored zero for adventurousness: Brahms’ Violin Concerto and Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony. For that very reason it was greeted with special rapture, as it felt like a defiant assertion of the value of sustaining a great tradition – something the Arts Council of England no longer believes in, judging by the funding decisions it made on Friday. When the orchestra under Daniel Harding eased almost diffidently into the gentle opening of Brahms’s concerto, you could already feel the power slumbering in the orchestra, which soon burst out. This mighty build-up led to Kavakos’s explosive entry, which had exactly the magnificent, tragically heroic quality one hopes for.
This reminded us of Kavakos’s superhuman strength of tone, but would he be equally responsive to the tender and intimate side of this many-sided work? Yes, came the answer, but in that regard he shared honours with the orchestra. Even when Kavakos was in full flight my attention was often seized by an expressive phrase in a bassoon or in the violas. Not even Kavakos can put the Concertgebouw in the shade. The fruity richness of the playing and Harding’s sensitive moulding of the tempos meant that details I’d never noticed – such as the moment when the music slips into the sensuously swaying world of Brahms’s Liebeslieder (Love Song) Waltzes – suddenly shone out.
As for Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony, Harding led a performance of rich, easy-going amplitude that with a lesser orchestra could have seemed sluggish, but with this vintage Rolls-Royce seemed magnificently spacious. It meant that in the moments of peasant rumbustiousness, when the horns whooped and the violins romped, the contrast really made one sit up. My only caveat is that the innocently swaying final movement became so very relaxed towards the end I thought it might actually stop. But really, this was a magnificent evening. If you’re free tonight and can attend the Concertgebouw’s second concert, drop everything and go.
The Royal Concertgebouw is at the Barbican tonight at 7.30pm; barbican.org.uk