There has never been a shortage of great Italian conductors, but Italian orchestras of the first rank have always been rarities. The Orchestra of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome was the first from its country to appear at the Proms, for instance, as recently as 1995, and they were back in London with their principal conductor Myung-Whun Chung and resident chorus for two concerts in the South Bank's Classic International series. The focus was on the Italian choral tradition -Rossini's Stabat Mater was the main work in the first programme, while the second was given over to Verdi's Requiem, with a distinguished line-up of soloists.
The Santa Cecilia Orchestra isn't a great band, but it is a decent, highly responsive instrument, which Chung can use with great finesse. His view of the Requiem wasn't explicitly apocalyptic - the audience didn't emerge shaken, or even stirred - but it was a thoughtful and carefully considered one. The drama was all there but never overdone; the chorus was lively, while the detail which Chung found in the orchestral accompaniments - the woodwind lines slithering around the second stanza of the Dies Irae, for instance, or the feathery strings underneath the Sanctus - offered some unexpected perspectives.
There wasn't quite the same sense of freshness in the solo singing, though the contributions of the two Italian-born singers, the rich, characterful mezzo Luciana D'Intino and the thoughtful and highly musical bass Carlo Colombara, were distinctive, and D'Intino's incisive power in the Lacrymosa was the highlight of the performance. The tenor Sergei Larin seemed to be going through the motions, with plenty of power but not too much finesse, while Alessandra Marc has all the vocal qualities for great Verdi singing - a soprano of huge range and even tone, which seems capable of meeting any challenge - but here showed little sense of involvement. With singers of the right calibre it's hard to produce a downright indifferent account of the Requiem, but much, much harder to come up with a truly exceptional one.
