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Royal Festival Hall, London
Most conductors in concert save the best for last, but Kirill Karabits and the Royal Philharmonic, whether by accident or design, gave us the finest first: a performance of Respighi's Fountains of Rome that was exceptional in its textural beauty and finesse.
Karabits has a superb ear for orchestral colour, and the RPO do sensuousness uncommonly well. The end result was rich yet delicate, with wonderfully liquid woodwind solos and an exquisite sheen on the strings. Some of it sounded Russian rather than Italianate, fair enough given that Respighi was a pupil of Rimsky-Korsakov.
Next came Bruch's First Violin Concerto, with Sarah Chang as soloist, her second London performance of the piece in six months. The first, at the Barbican, was conducted by Colin Davis, who kept it on a tight rein. Karabits was more indulgent, with occasional loss of impact. Chang's playing was not as sharply characterised as it might have been, and she went in for a lot of hair tossing and fiddling with dress straps, which seemed miraculously timed to slip down at the end of climactic phrases. Karabits and the RPO did some nice, brooding things, but the work has been better served elsewhere.
After the interval was Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony, another performance that left me in two minds. The best of it, the Andantino and Scherzo, had something of the sad grace of Tchaikovsky's ballets; the finale was all hell-for-leather energy and drive. But once past the arresting opening, the first movement seemed oddly deliberate, losing its momentum, then becoming overemphatic. This was not Karabits at his considerable best.
