Encores can mean different things to different conductors. For some it’s a chance to let their hair down and simply have some fun. But Mariss Jansons isn’t the sort of conductor who does anything lightly. And so, at the end of two triumphant evenings at the Albert Hall, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra gave us two small mission statements: Sibelius’s Valse Triste, heart-stoppingly breathed into life by the tenderest of touches, and an interlude from Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk: janglingly exuberant, but painted with absolute precision and fastidious care nonetheless.
And that was the same approach that had governed the rest of the concert — deep expression achieved through intimacy and lucidity. When it comes to Shostakovich, such a finely wrought approach can come as a shock, even in one of the composer’s most concise arguments, the Symphony No 10. The frenetic fast movement, often likened to a portrait of the recently deceased Stalin, was a case in point: not stormed through like a white-knuckle terror ride, but still punched out with verve and theatricality.
That approach rang true when seen in the context of the whole. The first movement was brilliantly paced, the waves of plangent woodwind softly cued in and gradually intensified as the temperature increased. But the heart of it lay in the third movement’s mercurial turbulence, laid out with the close warmth and detail of chamber music. It’s hard to imagine another orchestra and conductor finding as much clarity in this composer as this team manages.
Jansons’ Haydn, too, is rich and refreshing. There was great warmth and affection to the performance of his Symphony No 100, the Military , and Jansons’ trademark concern for rhythmic finesse kept us on our toes. What was slightly more elusive was the fog of war itself, so vividly expressed in Haydn’s battery of percussion. Even though Jansons brought his percussionists marching to the front of the platform for their final hurrah, the results felt just a little bit tame.