Andre Previn's concert with the London Symphony Orchestra celebrates the music of two of the most famous composer/conductors in history - Leonard Bernstein and Gustav Mahler.
The violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter is the soloist in Bernstein's Serenade, the piece inspired by Plato's Symposium, where the philosopher imagines Socrates and his contemporaries discussing the philosophy of love. Each of its five movements is dedicated to one philosopher.
The whole is a kind of concerto for violin, accompanied by an unusual orchestra of strings, harp and percussion.
For all its philosophical underpinnings, the Serenade is one of Bernstein's least convincing concert works: neither descriptive enough as programme music, nor sufficiently symphonic to work as a concerto.
Even Mutter's brilliance cannot disguise the verbosity of the outer movements. But the central slow movement is more successful. Bernstein creates a moment of poetry through the simplest of means: a fragile violin line hovering over a flickering ostinato. Mutter matches this unassuming music with playing of poise and elegance.
Mahler's Fourth Symphony is usually thought of as a depiction of childhood and innocence. But it's clear Previn has other ideas. The hero of his performance is world-weary, and the slow tempo turns the first movement into a meditation.
The novel interpretive approach quickly palls. Not only does it distort the emotional trajectory of the piece, it also deadens the effect of Mahler's orchestration. Instead of a shimmer, the central section of the first movement is an orchestral haze, and the scherzo sounds literal and lumpen.
But it's in the third, slow movement that the performance is fatally flawed.
Previn fails to create any musical momentum. The climax of this adagio should be one of the most shattering moments in any Mahler symphony. But in Previn's hands, it's the dampest of damp squibs, merely crass and overblown. Felicity Lott's soprano solo in the last movement cannot save the performance. With such characterless conducting, it's no surprise the LSO players are not on top form. But in passages like leader Gordan Nikolitch's solo in the scherzo, they can transcend Previn's lack of imagination.
· Further performance tonight. Box office: 020-7638 8891.
