Though Brahms and Szymanowski make for unlikely musical bedfellows, Valery Gergiev's latest project with the LSO is to perform in pairs each of the composers' four symphonies. Originally unveiled at the Edinburgh festival, the project made a whistle-stop European tour before opening the Barbican season in London last month. It's an excellent idea because it allows the LSO to draw on the Adam Mickiewicz Institute's considerable resources, and also because the Szymanowski, according to Gergiev, can add "a little bit of spice to Brahms".
Well yes and no, as far as this concert was concerned, in which Szymanowski's dizzy, disorienting Second Symphony met Brahms's unremittingly wholesome equivalent, preceded by that stalwart of disciplined Romanticism, the Tragic Overture.
Gergiev dislikes over-rehearsing his orchestras, preferring to tap into their survival instinct instead. But this must have been the fourth or fifth time in under two months that the LSO have played this exact programme. The Overture has suffered most. No amount of threatening his players with the toothpick he has taken to using as a baton could instil any sense of urgency, while his attempts to indicate some kind of beat – always a last resort for Gergiev – amounted to nothing. Spice is immaterial when your dish has curdled.
Matters improved for the two symphonies, the Brahms benefitting from an invigorating surge of expressive energy. The Szymanowski was given first-rate advocacy, Roman Simovic's opening violin solo setting the heady tone, and the orchestra following suit. Crucially though, textures and phrasing were kept sharply defined to avoid the whole thing turning into soup – interestingly, the brass are often used as the clarifying agent. Though Szymanowski's music is often more scintillating than satisfying, there was certainly enough to whet the appetite for the project's continuation in December.
