F ince this fall, the UK’s musical landscape will experience a seismic shift. From now on and over the next two years six of England’s largest orchestras will see their conductors depart. Whether for personal, professional or philosophical reasons, it is clear that some big names do not see a future in Brexit Britain.

The one doing it (while still keeping one foot in Bergen wisely) is Edward Gardner, who will open his first season tonight as Principal Conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra. He succeeds Vladimir Jurowski, who has moved to the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, a city that will also host Simon Rattle when he joins the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra after leaving the London Symphony Orchestra in 2023. Rattle took German nationality. .

This month, Santtu-Matias Rouvali will replace compatriot Finn Esa-Pekka Salonen as Principal Conductor of the Philharmonia. And in two years, Kazuki Yamada will succeed inspirational Mirga GražinytÄ—-Tyla in the Birmingham City Symphony Orchestra – a tragic loss for Britain. The end of freedom of movement made touring an orchestra a bureaucratic nightmare. No wonder some conductors are looking for opportunities far from these shores.

Vasily Petrenko, new musical director of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Its first outing last week coincided with the celebration of the RPO’s 75 years since its acrimonious founding under Sir Thomas Beecham. (He had fallen out with the LPO and started RPO in direct competition.) Petrenko comes to RPO after 15 successful years at the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, where Venezuelan Domingo Hindoyan is now in charge. Petrenko has been widely acclaimed for raising standards at the RLPO and for making several award-winning recordings. Hopes are high that he will do the same at RPO.

After the opening with the inconsequential opening of Delius Above the hills and far away – the first piece performed by the RPO in 1946 – the orchestra was joined by star cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason for what became his calling card, the Elgar Cello Concerto. The 2016 BBC Young Musician of the Year matured in this work, and his performance was far more nuanced and deep than the 2019 recording he made with the LSO, with Petrenko giving him plenty of room to shine. .

Then came the shock of the evening – the amplification. Walton Belshazzar’s Feast is a fabulously showy choral work that requires around 150 singers to slice through the opulent orchestration. The Philharmonia Chorus collected 112 of them. Apparently Petrenko felt they needed help at the Royal Albert Hall, so microphones were scattered around the platform. The effect was startling, with bewildering vocals pushed to the foreground of the sound. While this undoubtedly improved the chorus, it also made them very exposed. There was nowhere to hide, so it is to their credit that they sang so well, recounting the fall of Babylon with enthralling verve and crystal clear diction.

The only bass-baritone that doesn’t need upgrading is Bryn Terfel, who electrified with his descriptions of the lavish riches of Babylon and the passing of King Belshazzar, chillingly reciting the writing on the wall. : “You are weighed in the balance and found insufficient. Amplification aside, the vital energy of reading Petrenko was hardly lacking. It is a promising start.

An intriguing new partnership was formed at Wigmore Hall last week between the American violinist Esther yoo and South Korean pianist Yekwon Sunwoo . This is only the beginning, but this first recital, which spans all levels of the repertoire, has shown that they will be hard to ignore. They rejected Beethoven’s Sonata No. 7 in C minor, Op 30 with an almost autocratic sense of belonging, Sunwoo’s incisive character playing dragging the tempos into the opening allegro.

While Yoo has the smoothest upper register, his tone tended towards a dark dryness in the second movement, which was oddly at odds with his cantabile writing but suited the scherzo that followed it. This rawness also found a place in their passionate and uncompromising reading of Debussy’s Sonata in G minor, and although they never quite grasped the whim of the second movement, its sensual, descending motif was beautifully realized.

There are warmer-toned violinists on the circuit, but few can compete with Yoo for pure technique, dazzlingly displayed in Kreisler Recitativo und Scherzo-Caprice’s showcase. Sunwoo responded with indulgent transcriptions of Richard Strauss’s Morgen !, Op 27 and Ständchen , Op 17 which served as a foretaste of a triumphal interpretation of Strauss’s powerful Violin Sonata in E flat. Definitely a duo to follow.

Ratings (out of five)
ORRR / Petrenko ??
Esther Yoo, Yekwon Sunwoo ??