London Philharmonic Orchestra (Photo: BBC/ Chris Christodoulou)
This imaginative Prom, conceived as an exploration of the natural world from three strikingly different musical perspectives, began with the UK premiere of Kristine Tjøgersen’s Between Trees. Rather than painting a picturesque landscape, the Norwegian composer creates an immersive sonic ecosystem, drawing listeners beneath the forest floor where trees communicate through intricate fungal networks. It made for a fascinating curtain-raiser, superbly realised by Edward Gardner and the London Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO).
Tjøgersen’s score demands an extraordinary array of extended techniques, with players coaxing an astonishing palette of sounds from their instruments – many so unfamiliar they seemed electronically generated, despite being entirely acoustic. The percussion section was particularly busy, producing an assortment of clicks, scrapes and rustlings that blended seamlessly into the orchestral fabric.
Yet the work never felt like an exercise in novelty. Gardner ensured its episodic surface retained a strong sense of direction, allowing its shifting textures to unfold naturally. Strange, imaginative and unexpectedly moving, Between Trees proved one of the evening’s highlights. Inspired by the idea of taking listeners inside the forest rather than observing it from afar, the work achieved exactly that.
Louise Alder & Edward Gardner (Photo: BBC/ Chris Christodoulou)
Nature assumed a more human face in Canteloube’s Songs of the Auvergne, where Louise Alder offered performances of unaffected warmth and effortless poise. Rather than presenting authentic folk songs, Canteloube clothed traditional melodies in rich, impressionistic orchestral colours, creating an idealised vision of rural France that is as much memory and fantasy as documentary. Alder’s lyric soprano has seldom sounded more radiant, floating above the orchestra with luminous ease while preserving the songs’ essential simplicity.
She captured the playful charm of La pastoura als camps before bringing touching restraint to the melancholy of La delaïssádo, where the LPO’s woodwind provided eloquent commentary. The lively Deux bourrées offered welcome contrast, before principal clarinet Benjamin Mellefont’s beautifully shaped solo provided an extended bridge into Baïlèro. His playing seemed to suspend time, allowing Alder to spin the selection’s most famous melody with unaffected grace, Gardner ensuring the orchestra remained beautifully transparent throughout.
Having conducted a superb performance of An Alpine Symphony with the LPO at the Royal Festival Hall last year, Gardner returned to the score with undiminished conviction. If anything, his command of its enormous musical architecture felt even more assured.
Edward Gardner (Photo: BBC/ Chris Christodoulou)
The LPO responded magnificently, with gleaming brass, characterful woodwind and tireless strings meeting Strauss’ formidable technical demands with apparent ease. Gardner judged the vast structure expertly, ensuring its 22 connected sections flowed naturally from one to the next while never losing sight of the work’s broader trajectory. Strauss’ monumental scoring also made full use of the Royal Albert Hall’s formidable organ. At key moments, Richard Gowers’ deep, sustained pedal notes seemed to shake the very foundations of the building, adding a thrilling physical dimension that few concert halls can match.
However, the Royal Albert Hall proved something of a mixed blessing. While Strauss’ largest climaxes gained thrilling physical impact, the cavernous acoustic often blurred the intricate inner detail. Passages that emerge with greater clarity in other venues sometimes disappeared into the building’s generous resonance. None of this reflected shortcomings in either conductor or orchestra – both were exceptional throughout – but it did occasionally soften Strauss’ richly detailed orchestral writing.
Nowhere did the hall play more convincingly to the music’s strengths than in the thunderstorm. Crashing percussion, blazing brass and surging strings filled the vast space with exhilarating force, while the organ added an almost seismic weight beneath the orchestra. Gardner unleashed the full power of Strauss’ writing without ever surrendering control, creating the evening’s most viscerally exciting moments.
This intelligently planned programme revealed how composers separated by more than a century have found fresh ways of depicting the natural world – from Tjøgersen’s intricate forest soundscape, through Canteloube’s idealised rural landscapes, to Strauss’ overwhelming Alpine panorama. Under Gardner’s assured direction, the LPO proved equally at home in all three musical worlds.
The 27 July Prom can be streamed from BBC Sounds.
Full details of all BBC Proms events can be found here: bbc.co.uk.