Renée Fleming and Christoph Eschenbach have become well-established, if occasionally controversial interpreters of Strauss's Four Last Songs over the years. They recorded them together in 1995 and then went on to give a performance at the 2001 Proms that is still remembered both for its extraordinary beauty and for Fleming's intransigent diction. A decade on, we find them performing the work again, this time at the centre of Eschenbach's latest London Philharmonic concert, and it is apparent that a few things have changed.
We have the words, for starters, admirably clear, albeit delivered in a rather arch, self-conscious manner that occasionally intrudes upon the shape of the line. Fleming's voice, however, has darkened a bit with time, and its greater richness in its lower registers is now immensely appealing. The overall beauty remains intact – the product, you gradually realise, of Eschenbach's immense attention to the details of Strauss's score and to Fleming herself. The orchestra is rightly a protagonist, capturing the transient glory of a world subject to mortality. And you notice how Eschenbach lets the music breathe precisely where Fleming does, so that everything just seems to ebb and flow with perfect naturalness. As an encore, they gave us Strauss's Waldseligkeit, nicely judged in its refined rapture.
The overture to Wagner's Tannhäuser and Beethoven's Seventh Symphony formed the rest of the programme. The Wagner was wonderful, partly because Eschenbach's understanding of the polarities between sex and spirit is marvellously acute, and partly because the LPO, on superb form, produced some blisteringly good playing. The Beethoven was performed, very unusually, without breaks between movements, but got off to a rather stately start, only reaching the requisite momentum with the Dionysian elan of the finale.
