Prom 2: Barenboim/Staatskapelle Berlin ****
Nobilmente (It.). Nobly, in a noble style. As a musical term, it’s almost exclusively associated with the works of Sir Edward Elgar, who first employed it in his piano transcription of the Enigma Variations. The score to his Symphony no. 1 in A flat major is headed Nobilmente e semplice, Elgar’s musical equivalent of the English stiff upper lip, a restrained march initially played as but a distant memory. There was little stiff upper lip though about Daniel Barenboim’s heart-on-sleeve account with the Staatskapelle Berlin, the highlight of a splendid Prom concert.
Daniel Barenboim
© BBC | Chris Christodoulou
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