Víkingur ólafsson, Proms, review: Icelandic sensation heats up the Royal Albert Hall

The Proms has turned a corner. The first two weeks felt a bit forlorn, with the Royal Albert Hall half empty. Last night it was packed, and once more we could feel that special Proms electricity in the air and hear it in the music-making.

However, the pandemic still cast its baleful shadow over the proceedings. The back row of violinists and cellists were perched oddly in the stalls, to achieve proper social distancing. And the Philharmonia’s new principal conductor, Santtu-Matias Rouvali, couldn’t make what was supposed to be his Proms debut, owing to quarantining issues.

His stand-in, the hugely experienced chief conductor of Zürich’s Tonhalle Orchestra, Paavo J?rvi, was a more than worthy substitute. He can communicate rhythmic energy with a mere flick of the wrist, and we saw much of that flick in the opening piece, Prokofiev’s Classical Symphony. This ought to have been a perfectly formed piece of pert toy-box neo-classicism, and often it was. But if there’s one rule in concert planning it’s that you shouldn’t start with this piece. It sounds light and easy, but is actually really hard. Unless wrists and fingers are warmed up the piece will emerge as it did here, with edges occasionally smudged and the en pointe melody of the 2nd movement sidling in too gingerly to smile as it should.

From that point the concert was an unalloyed joy. After the Prokofiev there loped onto the stage the long-legged, boyishly bespectacled figure of pianist Víkingur ólafsson, to play Bach’s F minor keyboard concerto. Despite the boyish looks he’s actually 37, and before he hit the big time honed his art slowly during years of obscurity in his native Iceland. That was evident in his deeply pondered performance of Bach’s concerto which on the surface seemed almost penny-plain.

He took the first movement at an unusually deliberate pace which allowed him to give the tiny echoes of the orchestra’s phrase a massive weight. He didn’t load the melody of the slow movement with ornaments as some players do, instead playing it with daring, hushed simplicity. One felt the audience leaning forward to savour its fragile, limpid shapeliness, the orchestra tip-toeing alongside him in perfect harmony.

By this time one had the impression that ólafsson’s specialism is spinning a melody as perfectly distinct and glowing as a string of pearls. But in the final movement he summoned a completely different sound for his rapid-fire alternations with the orchestra, massive yet graceful like a dancing giant. The same amazing variety of touch and musical intelligence was evident in his performance of Mozart’s melancholy and severe 24th Piano Concerto. As with all really fine musicians, ólafsson’s numerous expressive touches were anchored in the music’s form.

While his right hand shaped a melody with exquisite sensitivity, his left hand would help us to grasp the harmonic movement, becoming more assertive when an important harmonic destination hove into view. He forswore the now habitual ornamenting of Mozart’s melodies to achieve a telling simplicity, but also invented some brilliantly insightful linking passages, and his cadenza (solo spot) in the first movement was striking in its angry taut concision - was it possibly his own?

I could devote a page to ólafsson’s numerous subtleties, but J?rvi deserves some space too for his brilliant handling of Shostakovich’s apparently humorous but ultimately enigmatic Ninth Symphony. And the orchestral players also deserve praise: clarinetists Mark van de Wiel and Jennifer McLaren for their beautifully nostalgic duet in the second movement, bassoonist Emily Hultmark for the desolate lament of the fourth, and the teamwork that made the uproarious finale such a joy.

On BBC Four tonight at 7.00pm. See and hear this Prom for 30 days via the BBC iPlayer. The Proms continue until September 11, all broadcast live on BBC Radio 3 and on the iPlayer. Tickets available at bbc.co.uk/proms or 020 7070 4441