Conductor Myung-Whun Chung doesn't do sensuality. His performance with the London Symphony Orchestra of Wagner's Tannhaüser Overture was a cool-headed analysis of the score, but it lacked any sense of orgiastic abandon. The voluptuous dance of the central section, Wagner's depiction of Venus's debauched realm, was cold and earthbound. Chung sounded much more at home in the stoical pilgrims' music that closed the piece, which had a resplendent power in the LSO's performance.
In fact, Chung made Wagner sound like Brahms. His performance of Brahms's First Symphony was a much more successful demonstration of his serious, sincere music-making. Chung's command of the work's huge structure was never in doubt, and each movement had a powerful sense of purpose: the tempestuous first movement developed an unbearable emotional tension until the moment when the main theme returned; the finale grew from its lowering introduction into a triumphant, noisy coda.
What was surprising was the visionary quality Chung revealed in this music. The slow movement glowed with rich colours, and the LSO strings played their melodies in the heart of the movement with aching intensity. Even in the middle of the unstoppable finale, Chung revealed the subtlety of Brahms's orchestration. There was a thrilling moment when a tune played by the violins suddenly descended to the thunderous depths of the double basses, opening up a vast abyss of orchestral sound. As Chung inspired a violent energy from the LSO in the final moments of the piece, this was a passionate, transcendent performance.
In Brahms's Double Concerto, the soloists were stellar players within the LSO's ranks - violinist Gordan Nikolitch and cellist Tim Hugh - and they proved themselves better matched than many of the celebrity pairings who have attempted the piece. The expressive intensity of Nikolitch's playing in the first movement was complemented by the lyrical immediacy of Hugh's performance in the slow movement, each inspiring the other to greater risks and flights of musical imagination.
