Scriabin's Poem of Ecstasy arouses extreme feelings. For some this mystico-erotic extravaganza is the greatest post-Romantic wallow of all. For others - myself included - it's onanism embodied in music, and experiencing it is a bit like being locked into someone else's masturbatory fantasy. Yet you can't ignore it, and it did change musical history. It ushered in a new phase in orchestral sonority and the Stravinskyan revolution - Firebird in particular - is unthinkable without it.
Whatever one's qualms about the work, it has to be said that on this occasion the London Philharmonic, visibly relishing every note, gave it their all. Few conductors get to the textural heart of a piece as well as the wonderful Ingo Metzmacher, and the throbbing horns, velvety strings and priapic trumpets all conspired to produce the sense of delirium for which Scriabin strove. You could almost see steam rising from some members of the audience. During the sudden pause just before the final climax, the air was rent by a loud masculine grunt - an apt testament to its impact.
More important, however, was Metzmacher's inclusion of Bernd Alois Zimmermann's Photopsis in his programme. The concert formed part of the LPO's Regeneration festival, and no composer belongs in such a retrospective more than Zimmermann. Written in the aftermath of fascism, his work constituted a determined effort to restore to German music all the elements that the Nazis had forcibly stripped away: avant-gardism, atonality, jazz, the sense of an evolving tradition open to a myriad influences.
Photopsis, opening in a quarter-tone murk and ending in a euphoric blaze of colour, enacts the final encroachment of light upon terrible darkness. The performance can only be described as stupendous. What would Zimmermann, who committed suicide after years of rejection from the musical establishment, have made of it? He would at least have felt vindicated.
A treat of a radically different order came before the interval, with the Beethoven Violin Concerto, with Kyung Wha Chung as soloist. Chung is a great artist, but we haven't heard as much of her lately as we should. Her beauty remains ageless, and as the emotions of the music seem to be torn from her trembling body, she's mesmerising to watch. I prefer the weight and density of, say Viktoria Mullova in the Beethoven - but for sweetness of tone and restrained, yet intense rapture, Chung still has few equals today.
