The London Philharmonic Orchestra and its music director, Kurt Masur, are kicking off their new season with a Brahms cycle - which, if this opening concert is anything to go by, will be less than ideal. Masur proves to be a reverential Brahmsian, loose-limbed and expansive in his approach, at times old-fashioned in his view of Brahms as embodying a mixture of solidity and grandeur, rather than taking the more modern view that his music constrains emotional wildness within the bounds of concentrated form.
The First and Second Symphonies formed his programme. The latter, frequently described as lyrical or serene, is better suited to Masur's style. Even here, his solemn conducting of the emotionally dark slow movement lent it a stentorian quality that was not always appropriate.
Elsewhere, however, there was much to enjoy. The first movement flowed with warmth, ease and tremendous grace. The Scherzo, with its chattering strings that affectionately recall Schumann and Mendelssohn, was shot through with mercurial wit and charm, and the finale had a pounding, almost bucolic energy. The LPO were on excellent form here, and the playing was wonderfully sensuous and beautifully honed.
The First Symphony, however, was rather different. The emotional extremes of the outer movements seemingly eluded Masur. The slow introduction, which ranks among the greatest tragic statements in all music, was hampered by a certain stolidity that robbed it of its relentless drive. The subsequent Allegro, with its jolting, angular contours, rarely achieved heights of elation or despair. The finale, in which the symphony's intense mood finally lifts, was full of ceremonial pomp and grandeur, but little genuine joy.
Masur only struck form in the inner movements. The hymnic, Beethovenian strings of the Andante and the rapt oboe solo spoke of release from emotional strife, while the patterns of gathering tension and relaxation in the Scherzo were beautifully judged. As a whole, however, this was an interpretation that failed to cohere. And the LPO's playing was less than assured, with occasional imprecisions in the ensemble.
