CBSO/Yamada review – Poulenc and Adams pairing is stylish, witty and thrilling

Royal Albert Hall, London
Lucas and Arthur Jussen brought fun and energy to Poulenc’s Concerto for Two Pianos, and John Adams’ Harmonium was monumental and moving in the City of Birmingham Orchestra and Chorus’ Prom under their chief conductor Kazuki Yamada

American minimalism can punch and thrill, hypnotise and slow your pulse, but how often does it make you laugh? What a brilliant idea, then, from Kazuki Yamada and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra to pair John Adams’ formative 1980 epic Harmonium – a sonic wrestle with love and death and desire – with music by the wittiest, slipperiest, most self-puncturing composer in the business, an artist who will break your heart with the cheekiest of grins: Francis Poulenc.

It’s entirely typical that Poulenc can’t even bring himself to call a symphony a symphony. Any delusions of grandeur are seen off at the pass by diminutising his 1948 “Sinfonietta”, which duly unfolds in a series of impeccably shaded and textured dances, marches and melodies that thumb their nose at anything so dutiful as development.
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