LPO/Stutzmann review – confrontations with mortality honour London's terror victims

This haunting London Philharmonic concert, part of the Southbank’s Belief and Beyond Belief series, took place “by an irony of fate”, as conductor Nathalie Stutzmann put it, addressing the audience days after the London terror attack, and was dedicated to its victims and their loved ones. Strauss’s Tod und Verklärung and Mozart’s Requiem, both confrontations with mortality, formed the programme, planned long in advance: it would be hard, however, to imagine a finer memorial. “May their souls find solace and appeasement in this offering,” Stutzmann added, visibly upset.

As both a singer and a conductor, she is primarily associated with the 18th-century repertoire, but any concerns that Strauss’s depiction of an artist’s death might be out of her comfort zone were dispelled in a performance of great clarity and insight. Speeds were extreme and rhythms precise, which made the opening heartbeat syncopations almost clinically unnerving. The central crisis erupted with frightening power. The closing transfiguration, which can easily turn bombastic, was, for once, admirable in its restraint.

The Mozart, grand in scale and ritualistic rather than devotional, was more an act of communal mourning than an expression of private grief. Once again, terror and compassion combined with precision, whether in the finely honed instrumental solos or the criss-crossing choral counterpoint. The London Philharmonic Choir sang with great dignity and immaculate dynamic control. Robin Tritschler and the wonderful Sara Mingardo were among the scrupulous solo quartet, their voices exquisitely blended, in the Recordare above all.