Nature and music are so interconnected – from Bach, Beethoven, and Tchaikovsky to name just three composers – that this Prom, From the Alps to the Auvergne, took three markedly different composers, of differing temperaments, to bring nature into striking focus and pulsating life. With Kristine Tjøgersen’s Between Trees we were taken into a literal underworld of feverish activity, before embarking on a journey of evocative passion in French songs by Joseph Canteloube and climaxing in the thrilling and terrifying Alpine scenery of Richard Strauss.
Tjøgersen’s Between Trees takes the listener close up to a forest in microscopic form, almost giving you the feeling of being inside it itself. Rather than viewing it from a distance, sounds from the orchestra are scaled back, or sclerotic: threads of sound grow in bursts as if connected to everything else around it, like tree roots. If the opening of the work feels airy, like wind blowing through leaves, it also feels like the trees are communicating. The orchestration is novel: water in brass instruments, ‘prepared’ harp, multi-layered woodwind sounds, string pizzicato, an array of percussion such as a whip and a metal sheet. If at times the scurrying orchestral textures suggested an underworld of insects to my ear rather than a network of fungal threads Between Trees proved a fascinating orchestral experience and it was played superbly and with consummate virtuosity by the LPO.
Joseph Canteloube’s Songs of the Auvergne – of which the soprano Louise Alder sang six of them – are among the most luscious in the repertoire, influenced by both Vincent D’Indy and Wagner. I think French songs (although these are in Auvergnat, a dialect of Occitan) are amongst the most demanding to sing for a non-native singer and Louise Alder was undeniably challenged at times by them. Having said that, the exuberance and passion which she brought to them did remind me of Frederica von Stade but there was little of the longueurs or lingering which one hears with Kiri Te Kanawa in her recording of the songs.
Alder was perhaps best in the more sombre ‘La delaïssádo’ where her creamy voice was perfectly aligned to a beautiful and mournful cor anglais and oboe in the orchestra. Tempi were ideal and notes were floated with considerable agility. ‘La pastoura als camps’, which narrates a typical pastoral scene between a shepherdess and a young man, had wonderful rhythm to it, and she captured the work’s change of metre well. The two songs of ‘Deux bourrées’ offered a change of dynamic. Alder’s voice was here lighter, more flexible, but also more prone to inaccuracy, especially with the scurrying semiquavers towards the end of ‘N’aii pas iéu de mio’. In the first of two bird songs, ‘Lo calhé’ caught Alder on the whimsical side, full of animated touches in the voice. ‘Lou coucut’, with its repetitions, and bouncy orchestral accompaniment which replicates the cuckoo’s call, felt too fast to me – and this didn’t mask some serious diction problems. She returned to form – and near her best – in the final song, ‘Baïlèro’, where Alder’s magnificent ability to sing with serenity and lushness melded with the orchestral pianissimos.
There are, I think, a couple of ways to perform Richard Strauss’s Eine Alpensinfonie. There is the Mravinsky way, with one of the most dangerous ascents to the mountain imaginable, one fraught with terror: craggy ice, rock falls, an electric storm and a descent that is not without peril. It’s as raw as the sound. And there is the Asahina way, an absolute monster of a performance, of incendiary power and blistering virtuosity. It would be true to say that Edward Gardner and the London Philharmonic Orchestra eschewed both these approaches for something more middle of the road, although it would not be true to say this was at times either a subtle or a particularly majestic performance either.
There were many fine things in this Alpensinfonie – beginning with splendid trombones and tuba outlining the mountain in ‘Night’. The cataclysmic entry to ‘Entering the Forest’ was exceptionally fine too – and off-stage brass (from high up in the Albert Hall) were magnificently atmospheric. If I don’t think Gardner’s ear for orchestral detail in this work rivals some conductors – like the late Giuseppe Sinopoli, for example – there was some interesting harp and celesta playing during ‘At the Waterfall’ which shone through. Likewise, cowbells were prominent. A shrill trumpet (out of tune) lost some detail at the point we reached the glacier. ‘At the Summit’ was taken at a broad pace (though harps were lost in the orchestral mix) and ‘Vision’ had an awestruck grandeur to it that was impressively realised: indeed, the organ and brass gave a compelling viewpoint of the mountaintop that was outsized. The ‘Thunderstorm’ was not the most exciting I have heard – and the wind machine had a tendency to fade in and out a bit – but nevertheless it brought enough thrills to ratchet up the tension as we began our descent down the mountain. The ‘Epilogue’ was beautifully crafted in its transcendent ecstasy, and ‘Night’ was as gloriously done by the brass as at the opening of the work.
This was largely a superbly played Alpensinfonie by the LPO, and one conducted with fluent pictorialism by Edward Gardner.
Marc Bridle
From the Alps to the Auvergne
Kristine Tjøgersen – Between Trees.Joseph Canteloube – Songs of the Auvergne: La pastoura als camps; La delaïssádo; Deux bourrés; Lou cocut; Baïlèro. Richard Strauss – Eine Alpensinfonie.
Louise Alder (soprano); London Philharmonic Orchestra; Edward Gardner
Royal Albert Hall, 27 July 2026
All photos © BBC/Chris Christodoulou