The auditorium flamed scarlet. The dome darkened to indigo, while the gallery pulsated orange, yellow and pink. This was an attempt to recreate the effect of Scriabin’s “colour organ” for his visionary Prometheus: The Poem of Fire — an instrument that would cue the projection of the corresponding “colour” of the notes he had composed in a state of heady synaesthesia.
Lucy Carter, the lighting designer, did it with somewhat jerky computer sequencing, and nearly lost the concert a star in the process. It was a mistake to use that narrow arc of screen at the back of the orchestra for the additional projection of dancing green molecules, dancing blue stars and rainbow balloons, rather like the light show for a home birthday disco. But the playing of the London Philharmonic under Vladimir Jurowski was superb, as was the pianism of Alexander Toradze. So shutting the eyes revealed a kaleidoscope of imaginative colour within the score.
It was Henry Wood who gave the UK premiere of Prometheus, as early as 1913. And, just the year before, he had introduced Schoenberg’s Five Orchestral Pieces to the Proms. In this artfully planned programme we heard the original 1909 version for large orchestra, exquisitely played, with every instrumental voice beautifully placed and poised. The third movement, Farben, revealed colours of intense subtlety, as a single chord shifted from stasis almost imperceptibly, like the movement of light on water. A revelatory performance of Holst’s The Planets was the perfect companion piece.
The following evening Daniel Harding conducted his Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra in a three-star performance of Mahler’s Symphony No 2, the Resurrection Symphony. The Swedish Radio Choir and Philharmonia Chorus were superbly focused, especially in their almost inaudible hushed singing. But neither Kate Royal nor Christianne Stotijn had quite what it took as soloists. And Harding’s soft-focus approach, exploiting the silken quality of his strings and their matchless wind ensemble, nevertheless shied away from the terror, the raw nerve endings, the fever and the fret which must precede the heavenly apotheosis of this work.