PLACED next to a rampaging gypsy band from Macedonia, classical music will inevitably sound strait-laced, even puny. There at eight o’clock sat the BBC Philharmonic, a decent bunch, with the conductor Vassily Sinaisky pleading and beaming through the Fifth Symphony of that succulent melodist and bleeding heart, Tchaikovsky. Hot stuff? Not compared to the incendiary commotion in the Late “Late Junction” Prom at the midnight hour, when 11 members of the Kocani Orkestar, four with tubas, blared, twirled and snapped fingers in a riot of oom-pahs and manic folk rhythms.
Surely an electrifying classical soloist could get the blue touch-paper lit? The early show offered pianist Nelson Goerner, much regarded, mounting the challenges of Prokofiev’s Third Concerto with an ease, brilliance and kaleidoscopic colouring that did the work proud. But what price those attractions next to the Finnish wonder Kimmo Pohjonen in Mohican haircut and skirt, rocking the five rows of his chromatic accordion? Out from the instrument flew cathedrals of sound, minimalist, jazzy, thunderous, bluesy — every aspect fused by Pohjonen’s breathtaking technique and truly Finnish sense of the odd.
One of his pieces bore the translated title of Psychedelic Ant Hill. Not something Jimmy Shand ever played.
But part of Tchaikovsky’s poor showing had nothing to do with the “Late Junction” artists’ brazen parade. Sinaisky and the orchestra were getting the notes out but saying nothing new with them. The late Prom had its failures too. The regular intervals were annoying. So, over time, was Arto Tuncboyacian, Armenian percussionist, wailer and strummer, who diddled about with simple ingredients, more childish than childlike.
Give me instead the overload technique of the Austrian H.K. Gruber, who earlier steered the BBC Philharmonic through the British premiere of his Dancing in the Dark. First came a multilayered dirge, then a slow-motion foxtrot, plus a bizarre, even menacing, homage to Fred Astaire’s tap-dancing feet. I couldn’t detect Arthur Schwartz’s title song in the stew, but Mahler, yes, and Berg, and other glories of the Viennese tradition whisked to the edge of madness.
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Zeitfluren, another Gruber work premiered here recently, seemed stronger, more focused; the BBC Phil, at any rate, gave this trembling and troubled new score a rousing send-off.
On the decibel level, the BBC orchestra never approached the “Late Junction” crowd, particularly Britain’s over-amplified Jazz Jamaica All Stars, who launched and closed the Prom with a pounding mix of ska and jazz — good for the feet, bad for the eardrums. Sweeter by far were the fusion team of Ellika & Solo, a Swedish folk fiddler and Sene- galese kora player. More Proms boundary crossing next year, please; but rethink the mikes and the intervals.