Every musical era has its characteristic audience faux pas. Once upon a time it was failing to remove extravagant headwear, which obscured the view of those sitting behind. These days – and despite rules, signage and announcements galore – it’s mobile phones that regularly intrude. Four were dropped in the first half of this prom alone. Parts of the second half were filmed (arms aloft) by a prommer. And conductor Gemma New began her much-anticipated Proms debut in duet with a ringtone, a sound particularly out of place in the opening of Samy Moussa’s Symphony No 2 (its European premiere, with the composer present), which emerges from a single note before refracting gradually into slow-moving suspensions and circling repetitions of a single scale-like motif. New’s emphatic, muscular sweeps drew hard-earned tone quality from the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. But the piece’s soundworld is strangely bland, like a blockbuster film score without the big tunes.
No one can accuse pianist Pavel Kolesnikov of blandness. Yet this performance of Shostakovich’s Second Piano Concerto was distinctly measured. In the first movement – launched here by ultra-perky woodwind – Kolesnikov nonchalantly produced by turn silken legato and crisp articulation, while the finale was quietly rather than extravagantly impish from orchestra and soloist alike. The second movement, though, was pure magic: Kolesnikov unspooled the piano’s melody as if one of Rachmaninov’s inspirations, against a heartstoppingly calm orchestral backdrop.
