Barbara Hannigan needs to stop conducting while singing

Last week, Barbara Hannigan conducted the London Symphony Orchestra in Haydn, Roussel, Ravel and Britten, though to be honest she had me at Haydn. It’s still relatively unusual to encounter him in a symphonic concert, and more than one promoter has told me that Haydn is ‘box office poison’, which is a shocking description of such life-enhancing music. Perhaps it’s down to sonic overkill. Bingeing on Shostakovich and Mahler has left our emotional reflexes distended and coarsened, and now we feel short-changed if every inch of the concert platform isn’t crammed with extra brass and percussion.

Still, it didn’t seem to have deterred the LSO’s audience – or for that matter the Hannigan groupies who leapt to their feet, honking and clapping like performing seals, after each piece. No complaints on that score: if a soprano who specialises in modern and niche repertoire can inspire super-diva fandom, there’s hope for humanity. And anyway, it’s hard to remain cynical in the presence of Haydn, in this case his Symphony No.104, nicknamed the ‘London’. It’s been said before but there’s such generosity in this music – such boundless warmth and invention – that it disarms criticism. How often do we encounter genius expressing itself so completely without side? Compared with Haydn, Beethoven, Bach and even Mozart can all seem self-conscious.

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On the surface, then, he’s an odd fit for Hannigan, whose technique as a singer is formidable, and who isn’t exactly self-effacing as a conductor either. Hannigan went at the symphony like a puppy in a paddling pool: swift tempos, bouncing rhythms and plenty of mischief (find the right level of deadpan for the bassoons, and you’re halfway there with a Haydn symphony).