Review

It’s odd to imagine that the Rhapsodie Espagnole was new once. Premiered in 1908, thirteen years after the Proms started in 1895, given its first British performance at the Proms in 1909. The work’s immediacy belies its comparative youth. Ravel knew how to write for the audience.

There is an appealing modest kind of lavishness in Ravel’s setting of various Spanish habaneras. Sparkling flourishes intersperse moonlit scenes. Things move fast, every vibe lingers long after we’ve been swept along to the next.

The orchestra is gratifyingly nimble in their response to its music director’s speed changes, especially towards the end, carrying the rich orchestration lightly. Earlier in the piece it was satisfying to get a window on the intricate detail in the woodwind. A sparkling toe-tapping curtain raiser deftly executed.

Randall Goosby is an invigorating presence (when he’s interviewed), and on the platform. The tone is (note: I’m not a string player) what I can only describe as solid, assured, reliable and precise. It’s a broad sound too – not narrow and tinny, but broad and confident. The vibrato doesn’t hang about meaning he’s not wallowing or being self-indulgent. He is perhaps, the violin playing equivalent of tenor Santiago Sanchez (Cheltenham Music Festival 2025) in the associations that sound creates.

Much of this impression is supported by the sunny material in Bologne Concerto in G Major Goosby performs. There’s the tidy efficiency of Haydn in the writing without all the notes the universe can summon in something by Mozart. Entertaining as the first movement is there’s a need for something weightier to contrast (and demonstrate the breadth of Goosby’s expressionistic range – check out his recording of the Bruch Violin Concerto from 2023 with the Philadelphia which is an early Christmas presenting you’re all about hearing the details usually buried in the mix).

The work is polite, pleasing and entertaining. Twee, maybe? It doesn’t move me especially. What I’m drawn to more is the way Goosby, even when playing a long note, creates so much interest, so many different colours. Would I want to hear it again? Only if it’s an opportunity to hear him it.

The violinist returns to the stage for the second half for Chausson’s Poème, immediately a more substantial musical statement compared to the Danse mystique by Sohy preceding it, and a reward for the lighter Bologne in the first half. There’s more space here for Goosby’s musicianship to breathe in an expansive opening solo statement that is both vulnerable and defiant. The violinist’s sound is taut but full in the upper registers, rich and resonant when it descends into the mid and lower range. This makes following the line of the material both compelling and rewarding. Those moments when the phrases resolve on a full stop, topped off with delicately place chords in the woodwind are delicious.

There is finesse in Orchestre National de France’s under conductor Cristian Mǎcelaru, playing that I’ve not heard yet at this year’s Proms until tonight, which makes their contribution to a summer of classical music noteworthy and appreciated. Might this unexpectedly make this pot-pourri programme one of the end of season Top Ten. I’m not sure just yet. But, Goosby is the star here though, a musician who lives up to the hype and then some.

Bonus tip: listen out for the burbling clarinets in the concluding work, Ravel’s shimmering technicolour La valse. Delightful stuff.

Reviews of other works in this concert will be updated in due course.

Gallery

📷 Chris Christodoulu

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