IS PROKOFIEV a symphonist to be reckoned with? The argument rages on, but the problem in tackling the issue has so often been that we seldom hear enough of them played.
Not so this weekend, as Valery Gergiev and the London Symphony Orchestra perfo
rm all seven symphonies over three potentially explosive nights.
I can say that confidently following last night's expansive survey of the first three, interspersed with an ethereal moment as soloist Leonidas Kavakos joined Gergiev in a translucent performance of the sparingly beautiful Violin Concerto No 1.
It was a useful moment to cleanse the palate between the vicious "iron and steel" of the rarely heard Second Symphony – Gergiev making much more of its gritty textures than mere demonic abstraction – and the harrowing density and daring imagination of the Third.
But above all, these performances were triumphs of clarity, a surprising quality that leapt out from the very outset of the evening in an account of the famous Classical Symphony that few would have expected to be so revelatory. Don't we all know it backwards?
Apparently not. With his characteristic finger-quivering conducting style Gergiev elicited colours I never thought existed in this work – subtle, interwoven melodies charged with their own independence, yet integral to the wider harmonic conception.
This series has much to say. I can't wait for the rest.
The full article contains 233 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
