Saturday 15 October 2016

B list Philharmonia

Richard Wagner: Overture, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
Sergey Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto No.2 
Gustav Holst: The Planets

Philharmonia Orchestra
Damian Iorio conductor
Ronan O'Hora piano
City of London Choir

14 October 2016, Royal Festival Hall, London
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The story goes that the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra reached its nadir a decade or so back when it was performing on the same night in London and Manchester.   The Philharmonia is hardly in crisis, but lends its name and a B list to evenings such as this.

While it's off the books of its official season, nothing was disastrous, or memorable, from this Philharmonia OrchestraA general adequacy prevailed.  Its counterpart was an audience of insistent applauders, destroying every atmospheric coda, and presumably as welcome as an internet troll for the conductor.

In many ways the Wagner was the most cogent performance of the evening.  The Rachmaninov featured a fluid soloist in Ronan O'Hora, and an unwelcome star performance from an alarmingly loud clarinet in the AdagioThe clarinet threatened to overwhelm our unpreposessing pianist - surely a Rachmaninov first.  But it could not spoil a movement in which O'Hora bewitched an audience otherwise prone to distraction.   


Holst's The Planets could not help but engage, with Saturn particularly finely done.  But orchestral balance was a constant problem for conductor Damian Iorio.  The conclusion of Mars was white noise plus timpani.  Jupiter was jolly, and unwieldy.

Bizarrely, tickets for this were more expensive than the real Philharmonia concerts.  So if no musical memories will linger, I can feel a charitable donation has been made to the orchestra's balance sheet for the year.  

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