If an alien arrived from outer space and got hold of this year's UK concert schedules, he would probably come to the conclusion that Prokofiev's Alexander Nevsky was the most popular piece of music ever. In the year that marks the 50th anniversary of the composer's death, it has become ubiquitous - and this latest performance, with Vladimir Jurowski conducting the London Philharmonic, felt like overkill. Yet the piece also, in many respects, sums up the ambivalence of the composer's achievement, and the mixture of wonder and alarm that we experience listening to many of his scores, particularly the "official" works of his Soviet period.
Written in 1938 as the soundtrack for Eisenstein's film, it formed a warning, both necessary and admirable, of the encroaching rise of Nazism. Its values, however, are also propagandistic and Stalinist, and therefore awkwardly untrustworthy. Like all propaganda, it aims to pull you into its world without questioning its assumptions. There are big, hummable tunes to words like: "We mowed down the Swedes like grass." You get carried away in battle scenes against your better judgment, and end up enjoying them.
Jurowski opts for the concert version that Prokofiev prepared in 1939. His conducting is electrifying, no question, unleashing pulverising barrages of sound and taking you on a rollercoaster ride. Despite a couple of ropey moments from the tenors, the choral singing is vibrant, though the mezzo soloist, Marianna Tarasova, makes little impression during her key aria.
Jurowski brackets it with Khorovod by Julian Anderson, the LPO's current composer in focus, and with Mozart's 21st Piano Concerto. The latter was inserted into the programme at the insistence of the soloist, Maria Joao Pires, as a replacement for Beethoven's Second Piano Concerto. Her reasons for doing so are mystifying, since she brings little to the work, adopting an autopilot approach until she gets to the cadenzas.
Khorovod was wonderful, however. The title means "round dance" in Russian and Anderson presents us with a kaleidoscopic survey of dance music that glances at the ballets of Stravinsky and the cabaret bands of Berg's Lulu before whirling off through jazz and house music. Scored for 15 instrumentalists, it was played with edgy ferocity and furious panache, while Jurowski has a seemingly instinctive command of its rhythmic complexities that keeps you on the edge of your seat.
