Since being appointed music director in 1996, Daniele Gatti has turned the once lacklustre RPO into a force to be reckoned with. Their Prom found them on blistering form in a programme of Prokofiev and Shostakovich, which proved a riveting evening despite the occasional idiosyncrasy. The final item consisted of extracts from Romeo and Juliet - a conflation, in fact, of the first two orchestral suites which Prokofiev prepared before the ballet's 1940 premiere. Gatti fuses the various movements into a narrative whole, which might displease some purists, but which makes compelling listening. The rich, sensual RPO sound and Gatti's fondness for extreme dynamics and tempi are telling in this music. The lovers' passion is kindled into tremulous life in the ballroom scene before Gatti plunges into an account of the balcony pas de deux which is flagrantly erotic, almost brutally sexual. Around them swirls the sectarian violence, which Gatti infuses with thrilling terror.
The whole grabs you from start to finish despite the occasional flaw. Tybalt's death is taken at such a lick that the players occasionally seem hard pressed to get all the notes in. The famous Montagues and Capulets sequence came unstuck balance-wise in places with the brass and percussion occasionally drowning out the strings. A similar weight pervaded the Classical Symphony, which came over as anything but the usual volatile jeu d'esprit. Gatti favours slower tempi than most conductors and fills the symphony with a nostalgic sweetness, only allowing irony to punctuate the gavotte, a quiet reminder, perhaps, that the work dates from 1917, when revolution was in the air and the classical world was about to vanish for good.
In between came Shostakovich's great, controversial First Violin Concerto with the glorious, glamorous Vedim Repin as soloist. It ranks among the most bitter of Shostakovich's outpourings during the Stalinist years, a strange, unique entanglement of threnody, rage and grotesque bravado. The demands it makes on the soloist are formidable. Repin, who has made the work his own of late, is superb throughout, whether conveying the morose stillness of the central passacaglia, mourning lyrically in the opening nocturne or swirling through the scherzo with almost demonic fury. During the awesome cadenza, the audience held its breath and you could have heard the proverbial pin drop. Gatti's conducting is dark, febrile and tense throughout. He isn't well known as a Shostakovich interpreter. After this, he should be.
***** Unmissable **** Recommended *** Enjoyable
** Mediocre * Terrible
