Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Antonio Pappano first conducted the London Symphony Orchestra in a recording of Puccini’s La rondine as long ago as 1996, but it is over recent years that their relationship has grown closer, leading to his appointment as the ensemble’s chief conductor. The LSO’s opening concert of its new season, at the Barbican Centre, marked the official start of the new relationship.With celebration in the air, there was a new piece from James MacMillan — best known for his substantial catalogue of choral music, but with five symphonies to his credit. It is a sign of the Scottish composer’s international prestige that his Concerto for Orchestra, Ghosts, had been co-commissioned by ensembles in several other countries, though Pappano’s LSO received the honour of the world premiere.Following Hindemith’s creation of the genre back in 1925, those responding with their own concerti for orchestra have unsurprisingly tended to put virtuosity first. MacMillan’s work certainly offers plenty of challenges over its 25-minute span, all amply fulfilled here.Cast in a single movement, its four sections cover — according to the composer’s programme note — allusions to folk dance, an eastern European hymn and Scottish traditional music, together with specific quotations from Beethoven’s “Ghost Trio” (hence MacMillan’s subtitle) and to Debussy’s late trio for flute, viola and harp. Such eclecticism brings with it a huge variety of mood and texture — the opening is dementedly uproarious — but equally tends to make the piece’s through-line hard to follow.Despite the substantial forces involved (including lashings of percussion), MacMillan’s focus was often on intimate combinations — duos of trombones, clarinets and violas, or a trio of bassoons, or wind, brass and string quartets, each supplying their own character. On first acquaintance, the result lacked overall coherence, however striking individual episodes may be, but Pappano and his musicians nevertheless brought to it an unstinting commitment that was equally evident in the two Nordic classics that fleshed out the programme.The opener was Nielsen’s Helios overture, its inspiration deriving not from the composer’s native Denmark but rather from his experience of sunrise over the Aegean Sea, his score going on to chart the sun’s course until it sinks beneath the horizon — all encompassed within 12 minutes. The light beauty of the work’s opening pages was wondrously realised, as was the enriched complexity of the central fugal section.The second half brought an exceptional account of Sibelius’s First Symphony, offering a comprehensive survey of the work’s often troubled trajectory, from its outstandingly shaped lonely clarinet opening solo through to the curiously dismissive pizzicato gesture that brings it to an uneasy close.In between, the strings’ lavish combination of depth and shine brought grandeur to the flowing themes of the outer movements while the barely restrained nostalgia of the slow movement was followed by an incisive communal attack on the stomping dance rhythms of the scherzo. The free-form finale — marked “quasi una fantasia” — held together impressively. Altogether, an auspicious beginning.★★★★☆lso.co.ukFind out about our latest stories first — follow FTWeekend on Instagram and X, and subscribe to our podcast Life and Art wherever you listen
