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.Teasing is not the first word that comes to mind when thinking of Robert Schumann. But in Schumann’s Piano Concerto in Prom 55 at the Royal Albert Hall on Saturday night, soloist Víkingur Ólafsson delivered a lively, playful conversation with the Berliner Philharmoniker under Kirill Petrenko. Styles contrasted notably: the oboe opened with a lyrical motif and Ólafsson responded with almost jazzy phrasing. You were never quite sure when his fingers would land, rhythms off the precise beat, a fraction of a second saved here and spent there. But it was not hesitant: the control was full, even if Ólafsson occasionally seemed surprised by his own playing.It is no insult to the rest of the programme to say that Ólafsson’s encore was a highlight: a transcription of the adagio from Bach’s Fourth Organ Sonata, the serene simple motif soft before swelling with force. It felt in some way life-saving or proof of something beyond him and us.If Petrenko had been retiring in the Schumann, he was in theatrical flow for Smetana’s epic tone poem Má vlast (My Fatherland), brought out for the composer’s bicentenary. A desire for a Czech homeland, its six parts tell of national myths and beloved geographical features, such as the Vltava river, whose swirling, flowing melody is the cycle’s best-known part. Petrenko fluidly shepherded the orchestra from the opening bardic harps to the thundering trombones with their insurgent motif harvested from a Czech chorale.The Berliners’ performance was coherently conceived but — and this is the work’s fault, not Petrenko’s — failed to sustain interest at 75 minutes, perhaps among the players too. There must have been even Czech nationalists in the late 19th century who heard Má vlast and thought: bit much. ★★★★☆By contrast, the Berliners the next night gave a longer work still — the 85 minutes of Bruckner’s Fifth Symphony — which did not let your interest drop for a second. As a crystalline prelude, the BBC Singers under Owain Park performed three motets, mixing Wagner and Gregorian chanting, by Bruckner (who is also 200 this year).The symphony’s first movement opens with an unlikely sequence of three distinct musical ideas and, rather than melding them into one, stops and starts, reverses and folds in on itself, shuffling the motifs to the fore. This strategy continues throughout, whether with the abrupt shifts of Austrian folk-dance melodies in the scherzo or the intricate fugal work of the finale. Petrenko’s triumph was making the work’s logic and architecture clear while enhancing its mysteries, its direct access to a brain thinking unlike any of ours. The not-so-slow second movement, which can tend to the desolate, was here grave but full of life.So much in the Fifth is dependent on the brass, and the Berliners were immaculate: each voice came through distinctly, which can be hard when you’re thundering out a chorale and competing with hurrying strings. As the symphony progressed, Petrenko darted about his podium, swinging his arms wide, and he seemed to be enjoying himself. We certainly were. ★★★★★To September 14, bbc.co.uk/proms
