United Kingdom BBC Proms 2025 [21] – Mozart, Prokofiev, Bartók: Janine Jansen (violin), Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra / Klaus Mäkelä (conductor). Royal Albert Hall, London, 24.8.2025. (ES-S)
Mozart – Symphony No.31 in D major, ‘Paris’
Prokofiev – Violin Concerto No.1 in D major
Bartók – Concerto for Orchestra
At first glance, the three works the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra performed at Sunday’s Proms concert might seem to have little in common. Yet Mozart’s ‘Paris’ Symphony, Prokofiev’s First Violin Concerto and Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra were all forged in moments of upheaval when their composers faced illness, loss, political uncertainty or exile. Each turned instinctively to the orchestra, not merely as backdrop but as a protagonist: a voice capable of transforming adversity into radiance, of asserting vitality against the shadows that surrounded them.
Mozart’s symphony, composed in Paris in 1778 as his mother lay gravely ill and premiered just weeks before her death, casts the orchestra in blazing fanfares and audacious contrasts. Prokofiev’s concerto, drafted during the Russian Revolution as he wavered between staying or leaving, entwines the soloist in a mercurial fabric of sound that shifts from dreamlike lyricism to biting scherzo. Bartók’s score, written in American exile while he battled poverty and terminal illness, transforms the orchestra into a collective virtuoso, affirming life through sheer vitality.
Mozart’s all too rarely performed Symphony No.31 opened with weight and grandeur. A broad, resonant string sound filled the hall, five double basses anchoring the texture with imposing depth. Yet for all its impressive sonority, Klaus Mäkelä’s reading conveyed less of the playful, childlike spirit of constant discovery that pulses through Mozart’s discourse. In the outer movements, the Mannheim School–inspired gestures that Mozart wove into the score – from the opening ‘rockets’ to the expansive crescendos and sudden forte–piano contrasts – came across as too carefully prepared, the sense of surprise muted. The Andante flowed more naturally, woodwinds and pliant strings exchanging phrases with a grace that hinted at Mozart’s disarming simplicity.
Any sense of extraneous weight lifted as Janine Jansen took the stage for Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No.1, her opening sognando phrase hovering with luminous fragility, threading through tremolando strings like a voice from another world. This concerto reverses the usual fast–slow–fast design, and its structure depends less on confrontation than on the constant weaving of soloist and orchestra – a balance that Jansen instinctively grasped. At times her violin seemed to emerge from the orchestral texture, at others to comment on it, as though the instrument were both participant and narrator.
The Scherzo was razor-sharp, bow biting the strings with ferocity, but with a sardonic edge that recalled the grotesque theater of Stravinsky’s L’Histoire du soldat, another product of revolutionary years in which irony, resilience and defiance were distilled into lean, biting sonorities. The tambourine’s shimmer and the tuba’s growl lent the movement a surreal glint, midway between fairytale and parody. In the Moderato, her expansive line floated over textures at once tender and ironic: harp and piccolo glistened above while pizzicato double basses provided a dark cushion beneath. Most affecting was Jansen’s fleeting dialogue with principal flute Emily Beynon, the violin momentarily yielding the melodic line as if entranced by the woodwind’s voice, before reclaiming it in long, searching phrases. Mäkelä kept the orchestral fabric translucent, letting these details register without obscuring the soloist. The close – violin line dissolving into orchestral whispers – was spellbinding, the music seeming to evaporate into silence.
After the interval, Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra placed the spotlight squarely on the ensemble. Written at the end of his life, the score feels like a summing-up of his entire idiom: Hungarian folk inflections woven into classical form, the shadow of Debussy’s harmonies and Stravinsky’s bite, along with the eerie ‘night music’ textures that became a hallmark of his later style. Cast as a five-movement palindrome – large outer spans framing two scherzos, with the Elegia at the center – the work is both a virtuoso showcase for every section and a symphonic structure of great cohesion, a farewell statement as much as a display piece.
Mäkelä shaped the Introduzione as a gradual uncoiling, brooding darkness yielding to a blaze of full sonority, with Ivan Podyomov’s oboe casting its plaintive shadow early on. The Giuoco delle coppie showcased the woodwinds in characterful pairs – oboes sly, clarinets dusky, bassoons earthy – each timbre sharply profiled against the dry tap of the side drum, while brass fanfares added brilliance and weight.
The Elegia drew the listener into Bartók’s most intimate soundworld. The Concertgebouw strings spun his ‘night music’ in veiled tremolos and hushed harmonies, desolate yet luminous, while Carlos Ferreira’s clarinet lent a plaintive, human edge and Vincent Cortvrint’s piccolo emphasized a supernatural eeriness. Hints of impressionistic shimmer dissolved into sharper angular gestures, while folk-inflected turns resurfaced like half-remembered voices. Suspended between those scherzo-like movements on either side, it felt like a private grief briefly illuminated by sudden flashes of light. Like elsewhere in the entire afternoon, Mäkelä shaped the music with scrupulous balance, every technical detail firmly in place, yet the deeper undercurrent of resignation and human frailty that permeates this movement seemed somehow beyond his reach at his young age.
The Intermezzo interrotto brought relief, a viola melody of melting warmth abruptly interrupted by trombone slides and a gleefully vulgar tuba; the parody of Shostakovich’s ‘Leningrad’ Symphony landed with sardonic humor. The Finale surged with perpetual motion, its rhythms propelled by folk-inflected energy: strings raced ahead with rustic vigor, brass blazed in jubilant calls and percussion spurred the music ever forward. Each section of the orchestra had its chance to dazzle, and Mäkelä kept the whirlwind clear, the performance closing in a resilient affirmation of life.
Klaus Mäkelä will take up the chief conductorship of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in September 2027. The ensemble’s second Proms performance under his baton showed a partnership still in its early stages but, as expected, already revealing its considerable potential.
Edward Sava-Segal
Featured Image: Klaus Mäkelä conducting the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra © BBC/Chris Christodoulou