A decade ago, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra was regarded as the joker in the pack as far as London's orchestras were concerned. All that has now changed thanks to their authoritative music director Daniele Gatti, who has turned them into a force to be reckoned with. This concert marked the final instalment of their Beethoven cycle, and it is a measure of Gatti's achievement that the Festival Hall was packed with a returns queue winding round the foyer.
The Eighth and Ninth Symphonies formed the programme, both of them receiving wonderful if idiosyncratic performances. Gatti's Beethoven is by turns fiery, high Romantic and forward-looking. He understands, more than many, the conundrums and tensions implicit in the Eighth: the classicism offset by emotional volatility, the intensity generated by massive pedal points leading to sudden plunges into silence.
His speeds were sometimes wayward. The Minuet was on the slow side, though the Trio allowed the RPO's mellow horns to provide a moment of serenity amid the twitchiness of the whole - but this was a strong interpretation, moody and edgy, never lightweight.
Gatti's version of the Ninth generated a comparable power, with a severe, declamatory account of the first movement, while the carefully judged but unrelaxed tempo he adopted for the Scherzo allowed it to swerve between playfulness and nervousness. In many respects, Gatti saw the Adagio as the centre of the work, investing it with a prophetic quality so that we seemed to hear intimations of Brahms, Bruckner and Mahler in its unwinding contours.
The finale was wild, if at times raw round the edges. Gatti used as many double basses as cellos, giving the string recitatives tremendous clout. The recollections of the first three movements were tellingly taken at speeds different from those previously heard, so that they seemed like distortions rather than memories.
The singing, however, could have been better. The Philharmonia Chorus, on loan for the occasion, roared through it with great glee, though there were moments of suspect intonation from the sopranos. The soloists were a variable crew. Bass and mezzo, Alastair Miles and Jean Rigby, were excellent, but the tenor, Stephen O'Mara, was underpowered, while soprano Amanda Roocroft was shrill in her upper registers. The lush RPO sound, meanwhile, may not be everyone's taste in Beethoven - but few could have had doubts as to the quality of their playing, which was incisive, insightful and extremely beautiful.
