London Philharmonic Orchestra/Jurowski, Royal Festival Hall, London - review

How is a composer to set a poem like Friedrich Holderlin's "In lieblicher Blaue" to music? Classically pure, it is probably too abstract and elaborate in its philosophical reasoning to make a straightforward song. Hans Werner Henze used it as the basis for his Kammermusik 1958 with instrumental ensemble. Now Julian Anderson has taken it as the inspiration for a concerto.

Comfortably settled into its seventh season with Vladimir Jurowski as principal conductor, the London Philharmonic Orchestra is looking the most adventurous of London's orchestras. This season is bringing one new work after another, including major pieces from composer-in-residence Magnus Lindberg and now this premiere of Anderson's In lieblicher Blaue.

Most people would call the work a violin concerto. Anderson prefers "poem for violin and orchestra" and it is true that poetry is its musical language. Imagine high, gleaming sounds, suggestive as metaphors, from the solo violin. Or the pastel tints of sensitively blended instruments, like atmospheric adjectives, in the orchestra. Images from the poem, such as the blue sky, the flock of swallows, the church bells, seem to be suggested, but nothing is literal. The pure world of Holderlin is evoked in allusive, impressionist music.

For much of the time the music seems to meander, which may be why Anderson does not want to call it a concerto. But the effect was as if Carolin Widmann, the dexterous violinist, was taking the listeners by the hand and leading them through the poem - literally so, as she moved around while playing (an unnecessary gimmick) - while Jurowski's orchestra evoked a series of crystalline landscapes of the soul.

Anderson's elegantly understated "poem" should make an easy fit within a concert programme. Jurowski paired it here with Ravel's Daphnis et Chloe. The two works have much in common: the play of sunlight, the precision of their sound-worlds, the hymning of ancient Greek culture. The LPO played the ballet score complete and Jurowski's care over every note made the score feel less discursive than usual. For each section the London Philharmonic Choir, on fine form, changed its placing and formation afresh to get the exact distancing of sound right. Not just another performance.

southbankcentre.co.uk

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