The international heavyweights have been coming thick and fast as this year’s BBC Proms hurtles towards its close. The Munich Philharmonic arrived with new chief conductor Lahav Shani hot on the heels of two acclaimed concerts from their Berlin counterparts. Once conducted by Gustav Mahler and Wilhelm Furtwängler, the Munich Phil is an unequivocally venerable orchestra. But the Berliners remain a hard act to follow. The opening gestures of Farrenc’s Overture No 2 were scrappy and the strings struggled to blend despite Shani’s energetic leadership, conducting without a score or baton throughout the concert.
But I suspect most of the capacity crowd hadn’t scrambled for tickets specifically to hear this orchestra. Instead the prom’s big draw was legendary 85-year-old pianist Martha Argerich, whose appearance on stage for Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No 2 prompted gales of whooping. After the concerto she was repeatedly called back by audience stamping until she sat back down (to another wave of applause), this time alongside Shani. Their encore, The Fairy Garden from Ravel’s Mother Goose suite, was oddly wooden, only occasionally illuminated by Argerich’s right-hand filigree, skimming the keyboard in delicate glissandos.
The concerto itself sees Beethoven at his most Mozartian, prompting some beautifully limpid wind playing and featherweight strings in the outer movements. Argerich took additional fractions of seconds on certain notes in certain phrases and paid them back elsewhere, her hands seemingly threatening to part ways at times as the music breathed. Her tone gleamed, her passagework was lucid, her first movement cadenza entirely stilled the audience. Yet Shani took the slow movement too ponderously for comfort, musical momentum draining away as Argerich and the orchestra fumbled to coordinate.
The orchestra was at its best after the interval in Brahms’ Symphony No 4. The strings sounded newly expansive, the crisp rhythmic tattoo of the first movement was precise and the scherzo of the third energetically vibrant, while the finale featured flute playing of remarkable, alien beauty. But even the most finely sculpted phrases – and there were plenty – couldn’t make up for the lack of larger-scale architecture or a clearer sense of overall musical direction.
• Available on BBC Sounds until 12 October. The Proms continue until 12 September.
