Even among the staunchest classical music lovers, the phrase “star clarinettist” rings false. Compared with celebrity pianists, violinists and singers, virtuoso woodwind players don’t get much time in the spotlight. Yet Swedish clarinettist Martin Fröst isn’t just capable of technical wizardry, but is also a mesmerising, full-body performer. On stage at the Royal Albert Hall, he danced, struck poses and contorted himself like a rock icon shredding a guitar solo. All while producing a tone of astonishing refinement, absolutely uniform across the instrument’s multiple registers.
Fröst dominated the first half of the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra’s latest Proms outing. Copland’s Clarinet Concerto showcased his ability to blend minutely with orchestral timbres, his solo lines seamlessly interwoven with the cashmere warmth of the BBC Phil’s strings under Joshua Weilerstein. Meanwhile Fröst’s gear-change from the tenderness of its central cadenza into the sassy jazz-infused third section (here all hard-edged articulation and chippy, slightly rustic string playing) was utterly compelling.
The much shorter concerto by celebrated jazz clarinettist and band leader Artie Shaw followed. Launching with a vibrant sting of trumpets, the BBC Phil sounded every bit like an unusually well-behaved big band with a string section for added pizzazz. Fröst clearly relished every glissando, every tricky corner of vocalise, every flight into the squeakosphere. By the time he demanded audience participation in his encore (Gounod’s Ave Maria, with Fröst playing Bach’s original prelude in C major as the audience sang), I suspect we’d have done anything he asked.
Bookending the Fröst show: the short, beguiling Symphony No 2 by recently rediscovered French composer Elsa Barraine – its modernist angularity offset by hints of jazz, aerated by gracefully sculpted solos from the BBC Phil’s own excellent wind players – and a taut, high-octane performance of Rachmaninov’s Symphonic Dances. Weilerstein approached the latter’s many hairpin bends like a racing driver with a title in his sights, cleaving a direct line through changes of tempo and mood, drawing out colours that morphed from the ultra-dry to utter suavity in the central waltz, before letting rip in a thrilling, wild ride of a finale – the closing triumph of an orchestra on blistering form.
The late-night prom couldn’t have been more different. Celebrating Arvo Pärt’s 90th birthday year, the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir performed various vocal works by the Estonian composer (most in their first Proms performances), alongside a Bach motet, a couple of numbers from Rachmaninov’s All Night Vigil and two short works by Pärt’s Estonian contemporaries. Most were a cappella; Kadri Toomoja provided the minimal accompaniment demanded on organ and piano.
Under Tõnu Kaljuste, the choir’s fine-grained blend sounded almost studio-produced and their intonation was remarkable, open fifths and octaves ringing brilliantly into the dome. Yet even the kaleidoscopic late-night lighting couldn’t distract from the lack of variety in this blandest selection from Pärt’s musical world. Only Veljo Tormis’s haunting Curse Upon Iron, accompanied by shaman drum and climaxing in a blood-curdling collective scream, offered a glimpse of something more – but also felt entirely out of place amid the wall-to-wall soothing triadic harmony.
• Listen again on BBC Sounds until 12 October. The Proms continue until 13 September.
