It’s been decades since a Proms visit by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic has
been so eagerly awaited. But with all due respect to Liverpool’s current
status as European Capital of Culture, the buzz is more about a man than a
city or its orchestra.
The man is Vasily Petrenko. Two years ago, when he was appointed principal
conductor of “the Phil” (as the band is invariably called on Merseyside), he
was 29 and virtually unknown here. Today, even the ranks of crusty critics
can scarce forbear to cheer at the transformation wrought by this tall,
blond Russian on an orchestra that languished in the doldrums for longer
than most people can remember.
Petrenko has taken Liverpool to his heart. He compares it to another great
west-facing port: his native St Petersburg – “the same feeling that you can
chat to strangers on the street, unlike in Moscow or London”. And he loves
football, which helps. He’s been to Anfield several times, and Rafael
BenÍtez has returned the compliment by attending a concert at the Phil
(“unfortunately for him,” Petrenko wryly observes, “his wife is a
music-lover”).
The conductor has also bought a house on the Wirral – “in need of much
redecorating, which I don’t have time to do”. And he talks enthusiastically
about the moment when his wife (also a trained conductor; they met at the St
Petersburg Conservatoire) and four-year old son Sasha can get British visas
(“surprisingly complicated now, and expensive”) and join him permanently. “I
need to get the boy into a Birkenhead school so he can start learning some
Scouse,” Petrenko quips.
Even more to the point, Liverpool has taken Petrenko to its heart – in a way
that hasn’t happened to a conductor in a British city since Rattle was in
Birmingham. Petrenko has even been named Personality of the Year at
Merseyside’s “Oscars”: the Scousology Awards. “The year before me it was
Stevie Gerrard, and before that Ken Dodd and Paul McCartney,” Petrenko says
proudly. “I’m in good company, I think.”
In one sense, he’s been lucky. The whirligig pace of European Capital of
Culture – he has conducted 46 concerts with the Phil in ten months – has
given him a wonderful platform. Literally, at times. When he and the Phil
took part in the opening-weekend spectacular called Liverpool: The Musical,
he found himself conducting in a crow’s nest suspended 40ft (12m) above the
stage, with the orchestra stacked vertically in front of him.
Far from being fazed; he relished the challenge. “Don’t forget I cut my teeth
conducting opera with Russian singers,” he says. “That gives you the ability
to be ready for anything at any time. Unrehearsed pauses, whole phrases
missed out, miscounted rests – fine! After an education like that, every
performance seems like clockwork.”
But he and the Phil are also premiering no fewer than 30 new pieces this year
– one sign of Petrenko’s serious aspirations. Another is his determination
to instil world-class playing standards. “People write that I am bringing a
Russian revolution to Liverpool. But it’s more a Russian evolution. I
haven’t done anything too radical. I’ve just tried to bring motivation,
focus and accuracy.”
Well, that’s half the story. The other half is Petrenko’s electrifying
interpretations. The Proms audience tonight will experience one of his
calling cards: Rachmaninov’s Symphonic Dances. I was blown away
when I heard him conduct this in Liverpool last autumn. I was expecting his
young man’s emphasis on thumping momentum and rhythmic precision, but not
the magisterial way in which he caught the darker moods of this autumnal
masterpiece.
Further confirmation that he’s a maestro for all seasons came in March when he
premiered John Tavener’s Requiem in a packed Liverpool
Metropolitan Cathedral. It’s a massive meditation on dying that Petrenko
shaped beautifully. “When you do John’s music, you need to drop your pace of
life,” he says simply – and it’s this ability to grasp the essence of
different styles that makes him such a great all-round prospect.
The question is how long Liverpool can hold him. As a child a fine treble
voice got him into the celebrated Glinka Boys Choir, where the touring
schedule was ferocious (“we spent hardly any time in our classroom”) and the
pressure to deliver spotless performances unrelenting. That perfectionist
drive, you sense, has played a large part in forming the adult Petrenko.
Beneath the charm is a born winner. He wants to go to the top, and the list
of premier-league ensembles queueing up to engage him – Glyndebourne, the
New York Met, the Paris Bastille and most of Europe’s top orchestras among
them – suggests that he won’t have long to wait.
And he has also accepted the position of principal guest conductor with our
own National Youth Orchestra – where he is revered by the students for
musical and nonmusical reasons. “Mad kids!” he grins. “We rehearse for nine
hours a day, then they want me to play football for another two hours each
evening.”
So where does that leave Liverpool? “My contract runs to 2012,” he points out.
And after that? “For me, the important thing is to see how the city treats
the orchestra after the culture year ends.”
In particular Petrenko is pressing for his orchestra’a Art Deco home,
Philharmonic Hall, to be enlarged. “The auditorium is fine, acoustically
excellent. But the foyers were built for 400 people. With our subscriptions
doubled, we now play regularly to 1,600. It’s so crowded you can’t move. The
question is whether we can get the money to extend the space. Not paying for
music is a big tradition in this country, isn’t it? And another tiny problem
is that all the funding is going to London for the Olympics.”
Maybe. But if the city and the national funding bodies have any sense, they
will give Petrenko what he wants – just as Rattle was given Symphony Hall in
Birmingham. Conductors of this quality pass through places like Liverpool
but once in a lifetime.
Petrenko and the RLPO play at the Proms at the Albert Hall (0845 4015040) 1
Aug 2008
