Valery Gergiev's latest concert with the London Symphony Orchestra marked the start of Anne-Sophie Mutter's residency with the orchestra, as well as forming an 80th birthday tribute to the Russian composer Sofia Gubaidulina. Mutter played In Tempus Praesens, a one-movement violin concerto Gubaidulina wrote for her in 2007. It's a big work that questions the form. Gubaidulina argues that the idea of the heroic clashes between soloist and orchestra that once characterised the classical concerto are a thing of the past, and symptomatic of a relationship in need of redefinition.
The piece is built on the contrast between Mutter's famously sweet tone and a vast, dark-sounding orchestra awash with tuned percussion, but missing its own violin section. The overall impression is not so much one of conflict as of a sometimes stormy dialogue that is ultimately striving for some sort of mutual accord. There's an electrifying passage roughly two-thirds of the way through in which Mutter enunciates a slowly rising double-stopped line over a sequence of violent chords. It's too long for its own good, but a superb vehicle for Mutter, while Gergiev and the LSO do fine work with its complex sonorities.
Shostakovich's Tenth Symphony came after the interval, a work often interpreted as an expression of relief, if not triumph on its composer's part that the Stalinist era was over. Gergiev gave us something infinitely more ambiguous. The performance was tinged with melancholy. There was a wonderful sense of cumulative tension throughout, which the breezy allegro of the finale did little to ease. The playing was faultless, and Gergiev again reminded us that when he is on form as a Shostakovich interpreter, he is matched by few.
