Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
Leeds Town Hall
Saturday 15th October 2016
The opening pages of Weber's Overture to his opera Der Freischutz wonderfully conjures up the supernatural atmosphere of this opera. It is considered by many as a high water mark of German Romanticism. The young Spanish conductor Eduardo Portal coaxed a virtuosic sheen from every section of the Royal Philharmonic. The five horns glowed with warmth and the strings bristled with menace; the Overture ending in a triumphal coda with all guns blazing. Weber's absolute mastery of descriptive detail was followed by Chopin's attractive, but unadventurous orchestral accompaniment for his Piano Concerto No 2 in F minor. However, the partnership of Portal and 2015 Leeds International Piano Competition first prize winner Anna Tsybuleva lifted the performance to a stratospheric level of artistry. The Russian pianist's myriad colouring of notes and her exquisite phrasing were mesmerising. Especially ravishing was the central Larghetto movement in which Chopin's orchestral writing attains a degree of rich dramatic intensity. Piano and Orchestra were in perfect accord. Portal and the RPO created a magic carpet of sound for Tsybuleva's keyboard poetry which culminated in the scintillating dance-like final movement.
After the interval, the melancholy descending phrases of the first movement of Brahms' Symphony No 4 in E minor ushered in a reading of luminous intensity. Portal's expansive tempi in the first two movements revealed every expressive nuance in the achingly beautiful andante moderato. The lively scherzo with the famous tinkling triangle ornamentation exploded with energy and the recurrent motto of the finale emerged in all its majesty. A deluge of applause greeted both conductor and orchestra at the end of a performance of quite extraordinary visceral power.
Geoffrey Mogridge