Marin Alsop’s Brahms concert with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment here formed the Proms debut of the American mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton, winner of Cardiff Singer of the World in 2013. Her Brahms singing on that occasion marked her out as an important interpreter of his music, an impression confirmed by her Proms performance of the Alto Rhapsody, one of his greatest works, though the unusual forces required – a male chorus in addition to alto and orchestra – have made it something of a rarity.
Setting a text by Goethe, the rhapsody examines the nature of existential isolation and the potential of music to offer solace. Where some interpreters ramp up the angst, Barton was notably restrained: the only moment of overt passion came, tellingly, in the heft with which she uttered the statement that “human hatred” has forced Brahms’s traveller from his path. Elsewhere, the noble beauty of the sound was breathtaking. The tenors and basses of the Choir of the Enlightenment sang with focused refinement. Alsop conducted with the immediacy that characterises her Brahms as a whole.
It also formed a still point of reflection in an otherwise hugely exuberant first half. Alsop opened with the Academic Festival Overture, gradually warming to its wit and heartiness. She followed the rhapsody with the Triumphlied, written in 1871 to celebrate German unification in the wake of the Franco-Prussian war; it’s no masterpiece, but the choir did wonders with its tricky Handelian counterpoint. After the interval came the First Symphony, an emotionally compelling no-frills performance in which Alsop admirably avoided the loftiness that can all too easily creep in.
Brahms has long suited the OAE’s slightly sinewy sound: they played with tremendous energy and superbly finessed detail.
