LPO/Jurowski review – green Raskatov eclipsed by pastoral Beethoven

Royal Festival Hall
Beethoven’s Sixth was beautifully played, outshining the debut of Alexander Raskatov’s Green Mass – which has less to say and takes longer to say it.

On the face of it, and depending on how much you consider music to be a bearer of ideas, this might have been a fascinating compare-and-contrast concert. In the first half, Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony, a hymn to nature and life. In the second, the world premiere of Alexander Raskatov’s Green Mass, an extended reflection on our generation’s continuing sins against the natural world.

The trouble was that the comparison worked so lopsidedly in Beethoven’s favour. Before the interval, Vladimir Jurowski conducted a historically informed performance of the Pastoral in the modern manner, fewer than 60 players, avoidance of vibrato, with valveless trumpets and double basses at the back. The London Philharmonic played it beautifully, the string sound in Beethoven’s figurations clean and compelling throughout.

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