United Kingdom L. Boulanger, Stravinsky: Véronique Gens (soprano), Andrew Staples (tenor), Jean-Sébastien Bou (baritone), London Philharmonic Orchestra / Karina Canellakis (conductor). Royal Festival Hall, London, 22.10.2025. (KMcD)
Lili Boulanger – D’un matin de printemps; Faust et Hélène
Stravinsky – The Rite of Spring
Here was a thoughtfully conceived programme which moved naturally from promise to fulfilment. Conductor Karina Canellakis devoted the first half of the evening to Lili Boulanger, a composer whose slender catalogue still feels like the prologue to a major career cruelly curtailed. What might have been. D’un matin de printemps set the tone: translucent, spring-bright textures carried on an elastic pulse. Canellakis shaped the line with unforced clarity and drew scrupulous playing from the London Philharmonic Orchestra; woodwinds murmured lightly, harp and upper strings flickered, and balances were judged so that brightness never hardened and delicacy never turned vague. It was music-making that trusted Boulanger’s craft and allowed the phrases to breathe.
The real rarity was Faust et Hélène, the Prix de Rome ‘lyric episode’ that compresses seduction and doom into half an hour of tightly argued drama. The principals took a few pages to meet at the same temperature. Andrew Staples’s Faust began with clean diction and poised line, which gained breadth and focus as the orchestral ardour rose beneath him. Véronique Gens, remarkably making her LPO debut, settled quickly into Hélène’s shifting colours; text sat forward, the upper register glowed, and she resisted the temptation to overheat the style. The most complete assumption came from Jean-Sébastien Bou, a Méphistophélès of sardonic bite and theatrical presence who acted through the tone and rode tuttis with unforced authority. Orchestrally the work received advocacy of the first order. Strings phrased in generous paragraphs without smothering wind detail, brass spoke cleanly rather than bluntly, and Canellakis paced the climaxes from within so that the piece felt urgent but never overblown. A seam or two showed at transitions, yet the overall impression was of a rarity presented with conviction and style.
After the interval The Rite of Spring took hold and did not let go. Jonathan Davies’s opening bassoon solo hovered in the air with a pale, unsettled beauty, and the answering woodwind curled around it like birdsong caught on a chill breeze. From there Canellakis pressed forward with a reading that combined firm rhythmic grip with unusual clarity of texture. The ‘Augurs of Spring’ landed with weight, yet inner lines – violas, second clarinet, off-beat horns – continued to speak, so impact came from articulation rather than sheer noise. ‘Spring Rounds’ moved with a supple rubato that gave the harmony space to glow, and the ‘Ritual of Abduction’ flashed by with a dangerous, blade-edge brilliance. A couple of corners were untidy – string unanimity briefly frayed in Part I, and a brass cue in Part II arrived a touch early – but they hardly dented the blaze of the whole. ‘Glorification of the Chosen One’ crackled with static, the ‘Rituals of the Ancestors’ ground forward with grim inevitability, and the ‘Sacrificial Dance’ was struck out with exact, stabbing energy from timpani through to piccolo. Throughout, the LPO’s playing was astonishingly assured: fearless trumpets, disciplined trombones, articulate percussion, and strings that could turn in an instant from grainy bite to shimmering veil.
Canellakis has a gift for making complex scores feel lucid without sanding off their danger, and that gift served both Boulanger and Stravinsky well. The evening began by revealing how much radiance Boulanger could compress into a few pages and a single dramatic arc; it ended by reminding us how ritual, rhythm and colour can still shock when delivered at this level of intensity. Despite the occasional smudge, the cumulative impact was undeniable: an orchestra firing on all cylinders, a principal guest conductor in clear command of the scores, and a first half that whetted the appetite for more Boulanger on the concert stage. A compelling night of music-making.
Keith McDonnell