Proms:Tippett, Debussy, Ravel

Royal Albert Hall, London - 10/07/25

 London Philharmonic Orchestra, Edward Gardner (conductor), Aigul Akhmetshina (mezzo-soprano)

 The pairing of ‘symphonic sketches’ by Claude Debussy and a lyrical, exploratory ‘song without words for orchestra’ by Michael Tippett formed the centrepiece of an evocative concert given by the London Philharmonic Orchestra on a sweltering Sunday night at the Proms.

 LPO principal conductor Edward Gardner has become a significant advocate of the sometimes-less-than-fashionable Tippett in recent years. His account of the composer’s last great work, The Rose Lake, was beautifully articulated and powerfully persuasive. Given the challenging acoustic of the Royal Albert Hall, the decision to take the scored tempo down a notch proved wise. It allowed the different instrumental configurations and soloists, who often need to operate independently, space to converse, interlock and breathe.

 Based on a visit to Lake Rebka in Senegal, where a particular alga can lend the water a translucent pink hue around midday, Tippett’s orchestral poem, moving from dawn to dusk, opens and concludes with energetically balletic work from two percussionists across a row of 36 rototoms. These chromatically tuned, plastic-headed drums span three octaves, providing subtle colouristic material for response and development by other instrumentalists. 

 Composed at the end of the twentieth century, The Rose Lake invites intriguing comparison with Debussy’s extended tone poem La Mer, written at the beginning of the same era. Both Tippett and Debussy eschew traditional symphonic form, preferring to generate expressive sonic images inspired, but not defined, by the natural world. Gardner and the LPO gave Debussy’s best-known work a feel as fresh as that of his later English counterpart.   

 Tippett had to struggle with macular degeneration, depression and exhaustion to complete his final  composition over the greater part of a year. Debussy likewise battled criticism for his unorthodoxy after less-than-successful initial performances of what is now recognised as a masterpiece. Unlike the three sketches that comprise La Mer, the five scenes making up The Rose Lake are infrequently performed. Yet both instil unforgettable moments of fluid and occasionally unsettling beauty into the listener’s ear.

 Complementing these two extraordinary works was the short ‘symphonic poem for orchestra’ by Jean Sibelius entitled The Oceanides, Op. 73. Originally Rondeau der Wellen (‘Rondo of the Waves’) before its reworking, the piece opens with haunting woodwind, ends with emphatic brass, and in between navigates surges and perambulations of orchestral thematising. The LPO weaved the whole together confidently.

 The fourth work, less obviously fitting to an overall nautical theme, was Maurice Ravel’s 1903 song-cycle Shéhérazade – not to be confused with the overture of the same name, penned five years earlier. In-demand mezzo-soprano Aigul Akhmetshina gave a convincing performance of a piece which requires a careful blending of instrumental and vocal patterns.

 The “setting sail” second verse from the first of three poems selected from a collection by Léon Leclère offered a painterly bridge to the other works in this Prom, as well as Ravel’s connection to Debussy at the time it was written. So too did the determination of all four composers to innovate in the face of grudgingly conservative responses to their work.      

 photo credit: Andy Paradise bbc