Review: Philharmonia Orchestra *****

HE audience cheered, applauded and stamped their feet in response to the most remarkable symphony concert that Hull is ever likely to host.

It brought the city a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see a living legend in the great conductor, Lorin Maazel. Already an octogenarian, he wears his years with an undiminished energy and a gift of taking orchestras way beyond their norm.

Mahler wrote of his Fifth Symphony, “the individual parts are so difficult, they call for the most accomplished soloists”, but in the Philharmonia, which was making its Hull debut, the work had an orchestra that possesses boundless virtuosity.

It was an unhurried performance, the massive climatic moments of cataclysmic weight, each instrumental layer so perfectly balanced the unity, warmth and strength was entirely idiomatic in its response to Mahler’s texture and colour.

In Jose Vincente Castello the many horn solos were distinguished with playing of superb quality, while the many woodwind solos were an ideal mix of beauty and pungency.

Yet those moments of spine-tingling brilliance could only have been built on the massive volume of tone produced by strings that worked far beyond the call of duty.

It was an evening we will never forget, the French pianist, Lisa de la Salle, having displayed a maturity and musicality in Mozart’s Ninth concerto that belied her young years, her unfailingly accurate fingers moulding the score with such affection.