Review – BBC Proms 2026: Rachmaninov’s Paganini Variations

Programme

Knussen Flourish with Fireworks
Rachmaninov Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini
Shostakovich Symphony No. 11 in G minor, ‘The Year 1905’

Kirill Gerstein (piano)
Royal Scottish National Orchestra
Conductor: Thomas Søndergård

Monday 3 August · 7.00pm – Royal Albert Hall

BBC Sounds

Preview

The inclusion of Oliver Knussen’s concert opener Flourish with Fireworks was timely. Knussen wrote the four-minute concert opener in 1988 in tribute to the conductor Michael Tilson Thomas who the composer met at a London Symphony Orchestra concert in 1970. The work sounds exactly as the title suggests. The work is based on notes that reference LSO and MTT. But it’s a poignant concert opener in this concert. The day after the Proms 2026 was announced back in April, news of Michael Tilson Thomas’ death from a brain tumour was announced, only a couple of months after his partner of 50 years had also died. 

Rachmaninov’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini continues the showy nature of the first half. A guaranteed hoot, brimming with virtuosity and daredevil twists and turns from orchestra and soloist alike. The work rewards a brisk, unsentimental approach — fast allegros keep the attention, and the reflective contrasts land better when they’re not overdone. Linger too long on the lyrical passages and the whole thing risks feeling like its grinding to a halt. A personal bias, admittedly. Bite me. Ashkenazy’s performance with the LSO and Andre Previn is a benchmark recording.Dani Howard’s Concerto for Brass, SIGNAL, is a must-listen. Howard’s writing engages and delivers every time. Her trombone concerto for Peter Moore, premiered by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra as concert-going reopened during the pandemic, was a warm bath of sound after so many months of comparative silence in terms of live performance. Howard is consistent, original, and a great orchestrator.

Review

When Oliver Knussen died, there was a noticeable tic amongst commentators, fans, and the in-crowd to comment on the recently departed composer simply as Ollie. It was meant to be touching. It had the unintended effect of distancing some of those unfamiliar with his music from the legend so many were keen to tap into. Performative acts do a great deal to negatively impact classical music’s PR. Oliver Knussen’s death only accelerated it.

At least for a short while. A few years on, nearly every time I hear his music I feel energised. Flourish with Fireworks is inevitably a high-octane, high-velocity, and high-pitched affair that sends a charge here, there and everywhere. There’s a sharp intake of breath. A woo and an ah. This concert opener, with its brilliance, precision, and all-round particularity, achieves far more than the many who mangled words in their desperate bid to pay tribute. It’s likely what he would have wanted. Someone needs to write a biography. Someone get in contact with Oliver Soden.

Rachmaninov’s Variations on a Theme of Paganini, with Kirill Gerstein at the piano, Thomas Søndergård conducting the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. A thorny work for some audience members. So many expectations. Exacting standards.

The opening bars get off to a rocky start. As we cycle through the early variations, there’s a belligerent presence at the keyboard, someone irritated that people aren’t following. A battle: who turned up late to the rehearsal? That interval backstage is looking like it will be quite the hostile space – let’s hope the agent has booked an early Uber.

The end of the variation around 12 minutes in rounds off the argument with an air of compromise, but the intonation in what follows twangs. Proceedings around 14 minutes take us in a different direction – a kind of rage and fury that meets the mood of the day head-on. Jittery strings at 16 minutes set the scene for impassioned statements from the keyboard and rusty responses from the woodwind. For my money, the strategy has settled in by 17 minutes and might possibly have paid off – all very extreme contrasts of speed, tone, and mood. For those of us prone to extreme outbursts, this – especially the syncopations around 17 minutes – is fast becoming our go-to theme music.

Things feel a little unkempt at the keyboard around 19 minutes but I’m still bought in, and I’m liking elements of the theme being bashed out in the mid-range of the piano. Things get a little murky around 23 minutes, though the strings shudder well. The textures are sound, but the tuning is odd in places in the run-up to that variation. In terms of expression, that melody is packaged up for the AI generation, impatient for the point, resistant to the idea of any kind of delay to gratification.

The madness at 28 minutes works, so too everything that follows – relentless asides from strings and the keyboard doubling down on the originating position. Any slip of the hand is compensated by a miraculous ultra-smooth throw-away line. Fury or mania wins over in the final bars, and it’s utterly glorious.

This review will be updated in due course.

Gallery

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