Intermezzo

Christian Thielemann is on his way to Dresden

Earlier this year, Mark Elder renewed his contract with the Hallé Orchestra. It's been a popular and successful appointment, but the event was only quietly celebrated in the specialist press and maybe one or two national arts pages, I don't recall. If he hadn't renewed, would press coverage have increased? I doubt it.

Things are different in Germany. London orchestras may have trouble filling a hall, but the Munich Philharmonic have 18,000 subscribers, and repeat some of their concerts three or four times to fit everyone in. When their music director Christian Thielemann fell out with them over contract extension terms this summer, the German press were all over it. Dozens of news items and interviews chronicled progress day by day. At one point Domingo, Barenboim, and a bunch of other heavyweight names pitched in on Thielemann's side with a petition (duly reproduced in every national newspaper) begging Munich to reconsider. In England only a football manager could dream of that sort of coverage.

A few days ago it seemed there might be a last ditch attempt to resume discussions. It's all over now though, as Thielemann has agreed to become chief conductor of the Dresden Staatskapelle from 2012, taking over from Fabio Luisi, who's off to Zurich. This places Germany's best Wagner/Strauss conductor at the head of one of its greatest Wagner/Strauss orchestras - albeit one which has been turning in some distinctly lacklustre performances in recent years. Thielemann could be just what they need.

It also leaves a gap in Munich, with no obvious successor in sight. My own wild guess here.

Prom 56: Lang Lang meets the Staatskapelle Dresden

Prom 56: Sachsische Staatskapelle Dresden / Luisi / Lang Lang - Royal Albert Hall, 27 August 2009

This is what the Proms are best at. Modestly-scaled works may be cruelly exposed by the troublesome acoustic, but the army demanded by Strauss's Alpine Symphony - 100+ musicians, a vast battery of percussion and of course the mighty organ - filled the Royal Albert Hall where others fail. The Staatskapelle Dresden's agile, propulsive performance was not without blemish. But Fabio Luisi balanced his forces beautifully, and telling details like pizzicato raindrops were perfectly framed against an unsentimentally-wrought landscape.

Inspired programming paired it with traces by Rebecca Saunders. Strauss takes us up the mountain and down again; Rebecca Saunders circles round it, contemplating from all angles. Monumental blocks of sound materialise and evanesce, shape and colour changing with each appearance. The leering, jagged crux warns this is not cosy mood music. It's hypnotic yet unsettling. 

Too many of the 'contemporary' slots in this year's Proms have been given over to John Adams and his warm baths in post-modernist cliche. This formed a rare and essential diversion.

Too bad a toddler's wails pierced through the quieter sections. I'm all for welcoming kids, but there are limits - a concert hall is not a creche.

And then on bounced the Saviour of Classical Music himself, Lang Lang. His hair was gelled to attention, his head tossed back, his face scrunched in ecstatic agony - it was impossible to watch him without wincing - but his usual exuberance at the keyboard was reined in. Chopin's second piano concerto was all restraint, not a note was hammered. He listened to the orchestra, they listened to him. Questionably, he sacrificed his usual brilliant articulation for a more smudged, impressionistic tone.

There was little that seemed spontaneous, but nothing garish or vulgar either. It wasn't a brilliant performance or one that will stick in my mind forever by any means, but it's further evidence that Lang Lang is at last exploiting his exceptional talent more wisely. Even his encore, a Chopin étude, was thoughtful and delicate. Has Lang Lang grown up?