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Ano Sinfonia from the London Prom, another five-star concert. Indeed, this Technicolor masterpiece played out in the magical hands of John Wilson, a director whose respect and passion for MGM’s golden years is well known. None of these were movie soundtracks, however, and Hollywood panache is only part of what makes this hand-picked band one of the best in the world.
First, there is the sound of full fat, where each singer can be a soloist, but the combination is dead. Then there’s the parade and the eagerness to follow Wilson – who doesn’t often – into the fires of Mordor. Spirit, too, is clear. Whole sections sway as one, sometimes with smiles on their faces, thus enjoying the music.
If a conductor has a strong will, it is an instinct to get into the little things, not to paint them but to actually make them. meaning something. Take the rich string accompaniment to the clarinet lead in Verdi’s La Forza del Destino. You probably already knew it was there, but it often doesn’t feel important or overwhelming.
Verdi’s dramatic story was the curtain raiser to Walton’s Cello Concerto, a golden Mediterranean curtain with ugly ticks and squiggles that sounded like they had strayed from a Hitchcock movie. Lead singer Jonathan Aasgaard was a generous soloist, eloquent and talented, but refreshingly understated.
The second half was dedicated to Respighi’s Roman Trilogy, music that has a more cinematic history, but still the works received by Toscanini who was certainly not vulgar. Wilson played the Albert Hall like a fiddle, whether he was showing the pride of the Circus Maximus, Neptune’s chariot emerging from the Trevi Fountain, or the nightly whispers on the Janiculum hill, nightingale notes and all. As the Roman army swept relentlessly down the Via Appia, brass bands blaring from the portico, the audience rose as one. All that was left to round out the evening was William Tell’s chaser who was a rabble rouser by way of inspiration and history.
