Dalia Stasevska Prom : Weinberg Cello Concerto

Dalia Stasevka (photo Jarmo Katila, Harrison Parrott)

Prom 25 for Dalia Stasevska and for Mieczysław Weinberg's Concerto for cello and orchestra op 43 (1948, revised 1956), with soloist Sol Gabetta.  Weinberg's Cello Concerto is fairly well known, performed very early on by Gennadi Rozhdestvensky and  Mstislav Rostropovich.  That it's new to the Proms is in itself no big deal. Weinberg's music is almost culty these days, but has often recieved performances that are more worthy than worthwhile, but this performance was good. More below and pleasee read my piece on the outstanding Weinberg Symphony no 21 "Kaddish" with Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, and Gidon Kremer and the Kremerata Baltica HERE.  

Dalia Stasevska was recently appointed the next Principal Guest Conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, her first appearances with them at the Barbican Hall in October this year and in April 2020.  That's a very high profile appointment indeed, and a leap upwards from what she's done to date, so a lot was hanging on this Proms debut.  Given that Jean Sibelius Karelia Suite op 11 (1893) is so stirring that it should be a surefire success, I was probably expecting too much. This was a little too  routine, the Alla Marcia a little tentative. Perhaps the best of Stasevska is yet to come. 

On to Weinberg's Cello Concerto . I'm not sure why Stasevska (at least in the broadcast interview) needs to justify this by saying "it's not at all avant gardist". It wasn't meant to be, and what's wrong with liking the piece on its own terms ?  The long first movement is ruminative, its pace funereal, with a steady tread.  Above this background, Gabetta's cello weaves a plaintive line that seems to stretch into space before descending into darker undercurrents. The orchestra picks up the "searching" expansive theme, but the cello continues, as if determined to do its own thing. In the moderato, the tension between cello and orchestra was more marked, though again the cello distances itself from the mass : Gabetta's instrument has character ! The first allegro is marked by angularities in the orchestral part which grow increasingly dominant, but from which the cello  remains defiant - rapid fire lines that spring ahead, until, towards the end, it takes precedence again, with an almost lyrical melody, possibly tinged with melancholy : Gabetta's bowing in the final moment is richly resonant, increasiungly refined and ultimately transcedant.  As in so much Weinberg, lyricism is more than lyricism: context is never far away.

Tchaikovsky's Symphony No 6 in B minor, 'Pathétique' is, like Sibelius Karelia Suite, another certain crowd pleaser.  If anything, we've heard it so often that  it would be more than unusual if this performance had been a revelation, but this was pleasant enough for a Proms outing.