Concert review: Amihai Grosz (viola) Berlin Philharmonic/Tugan Sokhiev

Another month, another viola concerto world premiere! Four weeks after Mark Simpson’s (reviewed in March), the Philharmonie hosted the first performances of Donghoon Shin’s Threadsuns (also The Strad ’s Premiere of the Month in January). It takes its enigmatic title from a poem by Paul Celan which, including as it does words such as ‘song’, ‘singing’ and an intriguing ‘light’s sound’, seems to beg to be set to music. Shin has found for it a sound world he defines as ‘sad but not plaintive, lamenting but not wailing, despairing but not without hope’. His stated aim was to explore the piece’s dedicatee Amihai Grosz’s different personae as soloist, chamber musician and orchestral principal.

Accordingly, Threadsuns includes strikingly numerous passages in which the soloist duets with individual instruments or small groups, while the piece’s climax sees the viola as leader in a sweeping unison moment for the whole orchestra. A most sympathetic stage presence, Grosz stepped seamlessly in and out of his varying roles, interacting intimately with his Berlin Phil colleagues from every section, astutely adapting his timbre to each partner. He drew from his Gasparo da Salò viola a rounded, beautifully equalised sound from low C to the utmost heights, audibly relishing an idiomatically written, unashamedly melodious piece.

Under Tugan Sokhiev’s leadership, the Philharmonic framed the Shin premiere with excitingly three-dimensional readings of Lili Boulanger’s D’un matin de printemps and Mahler’s First Symphony, showing themselves in their strongest suit.

CARLOS MARÍA SOLARE