“If I’d known that was the first half …”, the man next to me grumbled to his companion, interval drink in hand. Perhaps others in the packed Royal Festival Hall felt similarly as they awaited Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, one of classical music’s most revered monuments. But the enthusiastic response to the world premiere of Brett Dean’s In spe contra spem suggested otherwise.
His new work for two sopranos and orchestra marks the end of the Australian composer’s three-year term as the London Philharmonic Orchestra’s composer-in-residence. It might be a dramatic “scena”, Dean’s programme note tells us, or it might be a song cycle – but either way it’s an extract from what he describes as “a planned opera” about Elizabeth I of England and Mary, Queen of Scots. (Watch this space: Dean’s Hamlet, premiered by the LPO at Glyndebourne in 2017, went on to win multiple awards.)
Starting with a single woodwind note gradually bent out of shape as it spreads into the strings, the piece is all vivid orchestral colour and ear-catching textures: volleys of passagework exchanged over a ground of manic harpsichord figuration; natty oboes paired with curt pizzicato; terrifying rumblings from the LPO’s lower reaches as bass drum and timpani rolls intrude on a courtly Tudor dance. As Elizabeth, weighing up whether or not to sign Mary’s death warrant, Emma Bell revelled in spat-out consonants and powerful vocal declamation; Elsa Dreisig’s Mary was harder and brighter – a persuasive foil. The end of this “scene” felt unexpected (premature, even), but it was a tantalising glimpse of things to come.
And then there was Mahler. Under principal conductor Edward Gardner, the opening funeral march was suave rather than sad, the second movement almost nonchalant in its ultra-stylishness. The Scherzo danced, albeit with a nastiness starting to show through the excellent woodwind solos and raw open strings. The Adagietto was tender without any sentimentality, swifter than many performances. It was in the finale where Gardner’s play-it-cool approach paid off: solo turns oozed character, the string sound was eked from somewhere elemental and the lower brass blossomed ferociously, gleaming as the massive whole tumbled to a close.
