Elegy with an electric twist

PROMS 2016

BBC NATIONAL ORCHESTRA OF WALES⁄VAN STEEN Royal Albert Hall, SW7

MICHAEL BERKELEY’S Violin Concerto is a memorial to his wife, the literary agent Deborah Rogers, who died suddenly in 2014. As such it not surprisingly contains some personal elements. Less predictable is the nature of those elements, which include Hendrix-style breaks on an electric violin, inspired by a Nigel Kennedy gig at Ronnie Scott’s, and riffs on a tabla, as relished on an Indian trip the couple undertook.

The still centre of the concerto is a movingly elegiac waltz, beautifully scored, sweeter in harmony than Berkeley’s usual style. But then the soloist, here the accomplished Chloë Hanslip, picks up an electric violin and unleashes the Kennedy–Hendrix onslaught. One assumes this to be an eruption of visceral anger obtruding on a more civilised expression of grief. It’s uningratiating, even alienating, but I guess that’s the point. Diego Espinosa Cruz González provided the tabla contributions and vocals.

The BBC National Orchestra of Wales, alert and polished under Jac van Steen, produced sensual textures in Dukas’s Poème Dansé La Péri and an invigorating Prokofiev Romeo and Juliet suite that, unlike Tybalt, never quite landed a knockout blow.

The BBC Proms (bbc.co.uk/proms) continue until September 10