BBC Proms 2015: Hallé / Mark Elder review - Ravishing and deeply felt

The quality of the Hallé under Mark Elder shone throughout, says Barry Millington
Glorious: Sir Mark Elder, Iain Paterson and the Hallé (Picture: BBC/Chris Christodoulou)
BBC/Chris Christodoulou
Barry Millington31 July 2015

They may have to endure more rain than most, but Mancunians are fortunate to have in the Hallé one of the finest orchestras in the country, if not Europe. Under Mark Elder the Hallé has in recent years been emulating the glory days of Barbirolli.

The quality shone out from the opening bars of Debussy’s Prélude à l’Après-midi d’un Faune. Rarely has the intoxicating sensuality of the afternoon haze been captured so ravishingly.

Eloquent winds and velvety strings were prominent too in Elgar’s Second Symphony in E flat, as were the superbly voiced brass. Orchestral colour may be only one element, but Elder deployed it to fashion a serene, spiritual reading. Just three months ago, Daniel Barenboim offered a far more anguished, restless and highly differentiated interpretation at the Festival Hall. Elder’s was more tightly-knit, less sharply contrasted, the climaxes noble rather than cataclysmic. But if Elder’s account was less daring than Barenboim’s, it was no less deeply felt.

Rarely heard, on account of its forces, Vaughan Williams’ Sancta Civitas features a baritone soloist (here the excellent Iain Paterson) pitted against massed choirs — the well-drilled Hallé and London Philharmonic Choirs with the Hallé Youth Choir ranged behind them and the Trinity Boys Choir up in the gallery. Also aloft were a trumpet soloist and a tenor (Robin Tritschler), uneconomically required for just the last few bars. The visionary nature of the piece arguably creates structural problems, but in its climactic moments it made an undeniable impression in what proved to be an ideal acoustic for it.

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