Yamada Conducts Saint-Saëns’ Organ Symphony by Ravel, Berg, Saint-Saëns, Fra (2023/2023), Dirigent Kazuki Yamada, South Bank Centre, London, United Kingdom

When the Royal Festival Hall organ plays with the full Philharmonia Orchestra, it’s something you experience not just with your ears but with your whole body. Let the sound fill you from top to toe as the Philharmonia performs Saint-Saëns’ Organ Symphony. Saint-Saëns poured his soul into what he considered his finest work, saying, ‘I gave everything to it I was able to give.’ The majestic organ writing, fragments of plainsong and fugal passages recall the 20 years he spent as a church organist – the best in the world, according to Franz Liszt. And the addition of two pianists to the orchestra is perhaps a nod to his later career as a concert pianist. But more than a musical autobiography, or simply a showcase for the organ, this is a spine-tingling orchestral masterpiece. Charismatic conductor Kazuki Yamada opens the evening with Ravel’s haunting Pavane, conceived as a stately dance for an imaginary little princess of the Spanish Golden Age. Then violinist Baiba Skride joins the Orchestra in Berg’s Violin Concerto. Berg dedicated it ‘To the memory of an angel’, the 18-year-old Manon Gropius. Its anguished central sections are framed by a gentle Prelude and a hymn-like Adagio.