Royal Albert Hall, London
The centrepiece of a programme of Schumann, Sibelius and Tchaikovsky was Hans Abrahamsen’s seamlessly inventive Horn Concerto, played immaculately by Stefan Dohr
With visits from European orchestras so few and far between at this summer’s Proms, the BBC is making sure that it is getting full value out of its house ensembles. This was the Manchester-based BBC Philharmonic’s third visit to the Albert Hall in just nine days, and its second concert there under its chief conductor John Storgårds. The programme was mostly mainstream repertoire – Schumann’s Genoveva Overture, Sibelius’s tone poem Pohjola’s Daughter, and Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony, all in routinely efficient performances – but its centrepiece was the UK premiere of arguably the most intriguing new work in the entire season, Hans Abrahamsen’s Horn Concerto.
Before he began studying composition, Abrahamsen was a horn player, and this concerto seems at least partly an exercise in nostalgia, a remembrance of things past. He completed it four years ago for Stefan Dohr, principal horn of the Berlin Philharmonic, and Dohr was the immaculate soloist here, too. The three seamless movements move from slow, gentle dreaming to urgent activity and then back to consoling melodic lines, as the horn lines drift over fragile orchestral landscapes, with the large orchestra used very sparingly.
Available on BBC Sounds. The BBC Proms continue until 14 September
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