Overlooking the 10 minutes of stray Webern at the start, this was a fluffy programme seemingly aimed at the casual concert-goer. But anyone who booked without clocking that this was the Israel Philharmonic will have got more of a show than they bargained for.
The audience contained enough pockets of anti-Israel protesters to disrupt the concert between every piece – as well as during the flowing account of Webern's early Passacaglia, which continued despite an unscheduled chorus by the protesters of the Ode to Joy. Radio 3 eventually abandoned its live broadcast, depriving its listeners of the chance to hear how angry a Proms audience can get when its music is interrupted. For those with a good view of the circle, there was even the tantalising prospect of an actual fistfight breaking out over a performance of Albéniz's Iberia.
If anything, the heated context did Bruch's Violin Concerto No 1 a favour, loosening its Classic FM Hall of Fame straitjacket and pointing up its muscularity. Would Gil Shaham have played so forcefully in other circumstances? Perhaps; his performance was refreshingly punchy, with every note clear, and if the slow movement lacked pensiveness it was often tender. The orchestra, sounding world-class, seized every brief opportunity to shine, the massed violins tearing into the gypsy theme of Rimsky-Korsakov's Capriccio Espagnol with panache.
All this reignited the age-old debate about whether it is, or indeed should be possible to separate music and politics. Conductor Zubin Mehta, the model of composure, was silent on the matter, talking to the audience only to announce the hard-edged encore, Tybalt's Death from Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet.
The musicians kept smiling and played like demons. The protesters made it on to the 10 o'clock news: job done. But inside the hall, the two combined seemed to turn the audience – many of whom were no doubt sympathetic to the protesters – into avid supporters of the Israel Phil.
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