Tchaikovsky famously denounced Brahms as a "giftless bastard". But this creative animosity was no barrier to Charles Mackerras, who programmed masterpieces by each composer in his concert with the Philharmonia Orchestra.
Mackerras made the accompaniment to Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto sound newly imagined. Gone was any hint of self-indulgence in the big opening tune, replaced by an energetic abandon, while the finale was transformed from a quaint folk melody into a rollicking, syncopated dance.
Soloist Nikolai Lugansky shared Mackerras's vision of the piece, and dispatched the work's terrifying passages of double octaves on the piano with astonishing ease. His understated virtuosity was commendably sensitive; however, he did not impose himself upon the piece, and the result was an admirable but prosaic account of one of the most fantastical and imaginative concertos in the repertoire.
If Mackerras's Tchaikovsky was impressively integrated, his Brahms was wild and explosive. His orchestration of the Third Symphony was shockingly vivid, from the blaring horns of the first movement to the finale's tenebrous contrabassoon. His speeds were no less surprising, at times almost catching the players off guard, but there was nothing inflexible about his approach. In fact, he revealed an expressive rawness in this piece, supposedly one of Brahms's sunniest creations. Most startling of all were the weird, static phrases for low strings and clarinet.
Mackerras made the third movement a heartfelt lament, framing a limping, fractured waltz. But the most revealing movement was the finale. The coda seemed to cut off all its energy, concluding the symphony with an elegiac restatement of the main theme of the first movement.
The conductor produced ear-opening sounds from the Philharmonia: never has Brahms's music sounded more like Debussy, with luminous, shimmering strings and woodwind. Instead of neatly tying up the symphony's argument, this spectral return of the first movement's theme opened up a new orchestral space, as if the music could find resolution only by moving outside the frame of the rest of the work.
