An artistic crime is committed at the Royal Festival Hall

In one of the more peculiar concerts that I have been to at the Royal Festival Hall, Vladimir Jurowski conducted excerpts from Das Rheingold in the first half of the programme, and Rachmaninov’s little-known opera The Miserly Knight in the second half. The idea, I gleaned from a pre-concert chat by the conductor and others, was that the first half would shed some light on the second, showing that although Rachmaninov, at one time an industrious operatic conductor, almost certainly never conducted Wagner, he was strongly influenced by him.

The point seems academic, unless you are interested in the minutiae of musical history. Anyway, the Rheingold excerpts failed miserably, on their own terms and as a portent. We began with the prelude, the famous depiction of the Rhine’s flowing. Jurowski conscientiously stuck to Wagner’s dynamic directions, as few conductors do, keeping the volume down to mezzo-forte. But in concert the result is oddly unstirring.