★★★★☆
From one perspective, filling a BBC Total Immersion day with music by the late, great Henri Dutilleux might be thought rather a waste of corporation resources. Doesn’t much of his fastidious, small repertoire get regularly played anyway?
On the other hand, what other contemporary composer offers such high-quality, immediate enchantment? It took only a moment for the spell to be total in his cello concerto, Tout un monde lointain . . ., featuring a yearning Alban Gerhardt weaving a path through an orchestral tapestry flecked with whispering cymbals, tincture of vibraphone and the muted tuba’s mating call. Besides, it’s the 100th anniversary of Dutilleux’s birth. Doesn’t he deserve a cake?
The BBC Symphony Orchestra’s evening concert did include a comparative rarity, his First Symphony, from the early 1950s. In hindsight it’s a transitional piece, but his fingerprints are still plastered everywhere: the mutating themes; the poetic colouring, so delicate and precise; jazzy inflections; sombre textures from a knot of double basses. Pascal Rophé, a past associate of Pierre Boulez, fruitfully conducted like a flouncy version of the Great One: no baton, mathematically exact arms, charmingly decorative hands.
The orchestra’s playing and cohesion grew tighter still during the cello concerto, a magic carpet of a piece haunted by the poetry of Baudelaire. Our ears tingled further with The Shadows of Time — a more perplexing piece for an audience to read, but given dark glitter and propulsive power by the BBC players, briefly laced with three soloists from Trinity Boys Choir. Then came Métaboles, from the early 1960s: smaller in length and ambition, yet a gorgeous display of musical alchemy, topped off with a firework explosion. Stirred on by Rophé’s benevolence and slicing arms, the musicians stroked and punched it all with loving panache. Happy birthday, Dutilleux, wherever you are.