Royal Philharmonic Orchestra review: Vasily Petrenko has made Elgar his own

No evening starts on the right foot when a superstar soloist is off sick. When it turned out that pianistis being treated for a hand injury and could not play in the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra concert at the Royal Festival Hall, swathes of the audience evaporated. Lim is the piano world’s latest true sensation, a 20-year-old whose performance of Rachmaninov’swon the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition and has since had 14 million YouTube views. Not easy shoes for a replacement to fill.

Denis Kozhukhin stepped in, tawny of beard, golden of man-bun, and with muscular hands the size of beefsteaks. He performed that same giant Rachmaninov concerto with its gazillions of notes correct, clear and even, in the main at a volume that could probably have reached Waterloo station. Emotionally it was cool, without being entirely cold; but the moments of magic it can offer did not always come through, beyond glittering whimsy in the final movement.

Denis Kozhukhin played Rachmaninov’s Concerto No 3 in place of superstar soloist Yunchan Lim, who had injured his handideally honed and balanced the orchestra, finding enchantment there instead, whether through three horns sliding through mysterious modulations, soulful woodwind solos, or the finale’s snappy strings. Kozhukhin’s brief Tchaikovsky encore .

Petrenko has made Elgar his own: this was a riveting performance, full of depths and subtleties, with fabulous, unerring pacing and malleable transitions from one state of being to another – these happen frequently in the work – that always brought deepening revelations into the work’s philosophical condition. The orchestra palpably gave its all.. Smyth packs it with stormy musical ideas, yet this performance primarily offered elegance and bounce. Still, it was good to hear it at all.

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