Antonio Pappano's latest pair of concerts with the London Symphony Orchestra focused on British symphonies. In the first evening it was Walton's familiar First Symphony, but in the second it was a brand-new work – Peter Maxwell Davies's Tenth, which required a baritone soloist, Markus Butter, and the London Symphony Chorus, and was a co-commission between the LSO and Pappano's Orchestra di Santa Cecilia in Rome.
The score references the life and work of Francesco Borromini, the baroque architect whose buildings Davies first encountered when he went to study in Rome in 1957. It includes settings of passages from Borrimini's architectural treatise and the testament of despair he wrote in the hours following his attempt at suicide, as well as two sonnets, one anonymously attacking Borromini's work, the other by Leopardi. But as well as harking right back to the start of Davies's career as a composer, the symphony has a much more immediate personal element, too, for soon after starting on it he was diagnosed with leukaemia, and worked on the score while undergoing treatment for the disease in London. It's hard to separate those circumstances from the music they produced, and from the heartwarming presence of the composer at the premiere, as spry and lively as ever.
There are four movements. The purely orchestral first and third, whose structures apparently reflect Borromini's architectural plans, are a measured, slowly gathering exposition and brief scherzo respectively, both with prominent percussion. In the second, the chorus sings the anonymous sonnet while the baritone responds with Borromini's thoughts on creating spaces for music in his buildings; in the fourth, the baritone delivers his despairing testament, as the chorus finds solace in Leopardi's words.
It's put together with an unfailingly sure touch. The orchestral writing is vivid and, for the brass especially, often fiercely virtuosic. The baritone part is effectively a dramatic scena, overlaid on the mostly serene and homophonic choral writing, and all three layers were beautifully, precisely presented in Pappano's performance.
It's one of the most movingly personal of Davies's recent scores, and a major new symphony.
• Available on iPlayer until 9 February
