Textbooks tell you that concertos are a battle between soloist and orchestra; and it’s a mostly unfair match, won by the orchestra through force of numbers. But not in the case of Poulenc’s Organ Concerto, which pitches the mightiest of instruments against a modest string ensemble. In a big space like the Albert Hall, the strings are wiped out every time the organ enters.
But the drier, boxier acoustic of the Festival Hall, where it played last week, allows some possibility of balance. And that seemed like the objective of the young Spanish conductor Andrés Orozco-Estrada as he managed the London Philharmonic Orchestra’s head-to-head with soloist James O’Donnell.
