Just 13 years separate the composition of Messiaen's L'Ascension, written in 1933, and Ravel's 1920 masterpiece La Valse. Yet they define the extremes of early 20th-century French orchestral music. This dramatic pairing made up the second half of Myung-Whun Chung's Prom with his Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France. The players proved as convincing in Messiaen's radical spirituality as in Ravel's spectacular secularism.
La Valse is a profound reflection on fin-de-siècle decadence. Ravel's waltz creates an atmosphere of nostalgia, before violently dancing itself to death. Chung and the players revelled in the music's luxuriousness, and captured the brilliance of Ravel's orchestration. But even more striking was the way they shaped the whole structure.
The performance began with half-remembered fragments of waltz tunes and rhythms. Out of this mist of memories the music coalesced into a sensual weave of melody. The effect of the final passage was overwhelming, as the tunes dissolved into a chaotic dissonance, and an excess of pleasure turned into an expression of horror.
There was another kind of decadence in the "Four Symphonic Meditations" of L'Ascension. The final movement was a luminous image of Christ ascending to God. The piece is scored for strings, but is symbolically weighted towards the highest register: the full first violin section plays against a reduced complement of violas and cellos. Chung drew a performance of rapt intensity from his players. But the orchestra's woodwind and brass were equally impressive in the first movement, as the music's ritualistic repetitions built towards a blazing climax. In between these imposing musical icons were two Alléluias, which celebrated their images of celestial perfection with full orchestral splendour.
The other French component of the programme was the glittering burlesque of Berlioz's Roman Carnival overture. But the highlight of the first half was the performance of Bruch's First Violin Concerto by Kyung-Wha Chung, the conductor's sister. There was a sensitive musical and emotional rapport between the two, and nowhere more so than in the slow movement. Taken at a mesmerisingly slow speed, Kyung-Wha's fluid phrasing was matched by her brother's delicate accompaniment. The finale was a joyous release of tension, as soloist and conductor took turns in leading the music's rustic, unabandoned dance.
