Prom 18: BBCNOW/Fischer – review

Royal Albert Hall, London

The second of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales's Proms appearances with their conductor Thierry Fischer brought another brace of local premieres. Both were flute concertos, written for the dazzling principal flautist of the Berlin Philharmonic, Emmanuel Pahud, who played them here too.

Pahud gave the British premiere of Marc-André Dalbavie's concerto in Cardiff earlier in the year, five years after it was composed. It's a very French-sounding piece, and unlikely comparisons with Ibert's flashy concerto for the same instrument turn out to be spot on. The opening sounds like a spectralist take on the Flight of the Bumblebee; a swoony tune dominates the central slow section, and the finale threads the careering flute line between eruptions of tuned percussion. It's all wonderfully deft and attractively coloured, even if it doesn't leave a substantial impression.

By the standards of Elliott Carter's late music, though, his 13-minute Flute Concerto, composed in 2008 and new to Britain, is a substantial work. A typical mosaic of sharply contrasting musical episodes assembled with a watchmaker's precision, it brings the solo flute into alliances with instruments from all sections of the orchestra, seamlessly combining with the ensemble's flute at one moment, spinning a languorous line high over gossamer string chords or holding its ground against volleys of brass at others, before finally evaporating in skittering quintuplets.

Beethoven symphonies, the First and the Seventh, framed these concertos. Fischer's performances were scrupulously efficient but lacking intensity. Some ideas of period correctness – the strings using very little vibrato, the trumpets being valveless – were contradicted by others, such as the use of entirely modern horns. In a way, that characterised everything about the performances, which started with good ideas but never followed them through consistently.

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Andrew Clements

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