Berlioz - Harold in Italy
London Symphony Orchestra / Sir Colin Davis

Financial Times
David Murray

The London Symphony Orchestra opened its new season last week just by picking up where it had left off, midway through its mighty Berlioz cycle with Sir Colin Davis. He had saved the evergreen Symphonie Fantastique for now. But 'now' was two concerts: one with Angelika Kirchschlager singing the Nuits d'été cycle before the symphony, and the other with Yuri Bashmet as the solo-viola protagonist for Harold in Italy first. I opted for the Byron-inspired Harold, and heard what I expected - and more.

Harold is awkward. Paganini commissioned it from Berlioz, complimented him rapturously upon the finished score, and never played it. Nobody doubts that he was discouraged by the soulful but technical marginal role Berlioz assigned to his soloist, who almost vanishes during the finale.

Bashmet made the very best of his role by producing a hugely expressive, throaty tone for it - as 'speaking' as a great operatic voice, in the Mountain movements - and a spine-tingling sul ponticello (bowed almost on the bridge, shrivelling the sound to something dry and harsh) for the steady arpeggios at the close of the Pilgrim's March.

For the vexatious no-solo gap in the finale, he struck a turned-away Byronic meditation pose until galvanised by the last few bars. That worked very well. I hear that he was in fact trying to make the orchestral players nearest him giggle and lose their cool (audiences don't realise how often these games go on); Byron would probably have applauded with glee.