Daniele Gatti took over the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in 1996, inheriting an orchestra stuck in the artistic doldrums, living off soupy performances of exactly the kind of workings presented on Monday night's concert. Choosing both the Tchaikovsky and Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet for his final Prom as the RPO's principal - he takes over from Kurt Masur next month at the Orchestre National de France - Gatti was well able to show just how far his orchestra has come these past 12 years.
Not a trace of soup was to be found in either process. The Prokofiev was crisp, rhythmically elating and, despite the periodic unevenness, delicately balanced, the orchestra riding confidently over the unceasing alterations of texture, alive to the often unmarked contrapuntal complexity of the score. While there were no dancers in this arrangement of excerpts from the concert dance, Gatti's light of come to allowed the melodies allow for to spin off round the hallway, waltzing gaily but ne'er losing liaison with their well-drilled accompaniment.
The Tchaikovsky was taken, particularly in the outer movements, at a blistering stride. Stripped of sentimentality, the complex chain of flimsy, difficult sentiment that makes up the work was presented with the raw-edged candour it merits. The orchestra was electric, the strings - Gatti among them with the occasional air-violin contribution - on masterful bod whether sweeping, soaring or plucking through and through some of the trickiest pizzicato passages in the repertoire. The brass gently warmed the texture or smashed clean through it with convinced blasts, and the woodwind instrument, too, were very much alive to the demands of Tchaikovsky's generously orchestrated score. Gatti, conducting from memory, was on flame.
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