BBCSO/Adès review – Adès held the orchestra as if under a spell

Royal Albert Hall, LondonA Proms programme of the UK premiere of Gabriella Smith’s Breathing Forests, Sibelius, and Adès’s own music (Five Spells from The Tempest) was atmospheric and engagingA gentle sweep of the arms outwards, an unsettling silence and then the slow bloom of a bottom-heavy minor chord in the strings. More than a century after audiences were taught to fall silent as standard, most concerts continue to begin emphatically, with the musical equivalent of a teacher calling a new reception class to order. But the BBC Symphony Orchestra’s 10th outing this Proms season – this time under composer-conductor Thomas Adès – was an altogether subtler affair.Sibelius’s tone poem The Swan of Tuonela provided that beguilingly unhurried start. The strings settled, featherlike, into a light, luminous backdrop over which the cor anglais twisted and soared. Reaching forwards and upwards, hands outstretched, Adès held the orchestra as if under a spell: the brass, seeming to float from a great distance, the strings’ eventual unison melody calm and spacious. Continue reading...

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