Staatskapelle Berlin, Royal Festival Hall, London - review

Nobody let on about the highlight of this concert in advance. At the end of the first half a couple of flunkies marched on with a second piano stool and two scores. Then Martha Argerich and Daniel Barenboim reappeared to play a 10-minute piano duet of ravishing colours and heartfelt beauty. Schubert's Rondo in A Major, D951, their encore, has never sounded so heavenly.

The Staatskapelle Berlin's visits to London are intended to give a flavour of Berlin's rich musical life and this one did more than it promised. Last year, after a friendship that goes back to their childhoods in Argentina, Argerich and Barenboim played piano duets for the first time in a Berlin recital (preserved live on CD). Their London encore provided a glimpse of that Olympian encounter.

The evening had opened with Argerich in Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 1, one of the select number of concertos she still plays. Nothing about her appearances has dulled or become routine over the years. The solo part flared with ever unpredictable sparks against the warm, blended backdrop provided by Barenboim and his orchestra. Argerich is truly a sorceress among pianists. In her hands the musical basics of notes, rests and barlines seem to take on supernatural properties where anything seems possible, and this magical performance had a life force of its own from first note to last.

The old-world culture that is so deeply ingrained in the Staatskapelle Berlin was equally present in Strauss's Ein Heldenleben. Barenboim is really a Wagner man and his Strauss can feel worryingly muted. The hero of Strauss's title strode majestically rather than swaggered. His music critics were a thoughtful lot rather than spiky and spiteful (thank you!). The love scene rode a slow wave of emotion. Among present-day conductors, Jansons has the clarity, Thielemann the opulence, Rattle tells the narrative more vividly - but Barenboim and the Staatskapelle Berlin still score for deep-seated musical instinct.

In the final pages Strauss's dying hero seemed like a Wagnerian warrior going off to immortality in Valhalla, as Barenboim gave the closing peroration space and grandeur. A one-off, memorable in its own way.

southbankcentre.co.uk

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