BBC Symphony Mixes Tines with Rachmaninoff
Article by Mark Valencia from Musical America
LONDON—It’s hard to imagine a more quintessentially British outfit than the BBC Symphony Orchestra, nor a conductor more Italian than Daniele Rustioni; yet when on February 13 these European musicians brought a 1950s urban New York to the Barbican, you could practically taste the flavors incorporated in Leonard Bernstein’s most instantly recognizable score. London’s wet weather and a cheering audience were blown away by the Symphonic Dances from West Side Story. The charismatic maestro ensured that his musicians’ expressive freedom never compromised their meticulous sense of ensemble despite the loose-limbed swing of Bernstein’s music. Rustioni…put an interpretational stamp on the music that made it explode with subtext, finger snaps et al. His prologue was broad, loud, and aggressive, while the Gym sequence was less a dance than a confrontation whose venomous Mambo emphasized the antagonists’ barely concealed mutual hate. The ensuing finale, a conflation of Cool and The Rumble, rounded off a symphonic battle royal of bitter rivalry.
…It is surprising that Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 3 is not played as widely as the 2nd, for its three movements share with their beloved predecessor a slew of melodies that gravitate more to the mediant than the tonic…this is a work more about Rachmaninoff’s love of intricate musical expression than his devotion to big tunes.
Rustioni guided his BBC players with a sensitive ear for beauty, a sure sense of musical architecture, and an apparent love of the material, qualities that made as compelling a reading as one could hope to encounter. The opening movement (Lento—Allegro moderato) melds warmth with desolation, longing with anxiety, on its way to an affirmative climax. The central movement’s restless tempo shifts are less well defined but musically attractive, but the Allegro finale brought the evening full circle as the symphony’s Russian accent gave way to the sounds of his adoptive country. There is even the hint of a hoe-down in the music’s dance-like progressions…the noise [Rustioni] made was perfectly agreeable.
