Between Trees and the Alps: the London Philharmonic at the Proms

PROMS 2025: From the Alps to the Auvergne Tjøgersen, Canteloube, R. Strauss Louise Alder (soprano); London Philharmonic Orchestra / Edward Gardner (conductor), Wilson Ng (offstage conductor). Royal Albert Hall, London, 27.07.2026

Kristine Tjøgersen Between Trees (2021)

Canteloube Songs of the Auvergne (1923-55, selection)

R. Strauss Ein Alpensinfonie, Op. 64 (1911-15)

From all accounts, this season is already shaping up to be something special. This is my first in-person exposure to the 2026 Proms, though. 

It is entirely possible that experience of the music of Norwegian composer Kristine Tjøgersen (born 1982, Oslo) might come from a full disc of her music on the Aurora label, which includes the current piece (Between Trees, in an excellent performance by the Norwegian Radio Orchestra and Otto Tausk) as well as other significant pieces such as Luminescence, Travelling Light, and Avian Chatters. Much is achieved via texture and colour (as opposed to thematic transformation, harmony, or melody). She can have the players create unusual sounds from their instruments (deliberate ‘water’ in the brass for example), broadening her sonic palette, something heard at the very beginning of Between Trees. Rhythm is quickly foregrounded, as sounds zip around space (although originating from a finite source, the orchestra, there is a distinct spatial element to this). The opening is apparently the sound of a squirrel eating (like Strauss’ Alpine adventure, one does not necessarily need to know the ‘story’ for the performance to succeed, though). There is a shift underground (heard in terms of pitch) where we meet the forest as live organism, vibrating, breathing. 

There are clear correspondences, ideologically, with Gavin Higgins’ Horn Concerto (also inspired by forests) and Tansy Davies’ Forest (a concerto for four horns and orchestra). Higgins, Davies, and Tjøgersen each have very individual voices, though, and Tjøgersen’s is Nordic in its sense of space, and maybe even in its grinding low brass. Some ‘swishing’ gestures seem to counterpoint that, perhaps adjacent  to electronic music. The piece also brings in a sense of magic, too, a sense of wonder, as do references to our cultural history (the ‘warm’ sound of a horn quartet, an oboe solo), pitting a very human Western orchestral tradition against a wilder Nature.

The LPO performance was superb: the high string keening gestures were perfectly together, the brass creamy, the woodwind sometimes all a-dance (not to mention a beautiful bassoon solo). Consonance brings light here, and Tjøgersen can bring it in gradually, as if offering her own depiction of daybreak. The rhythms of the opening return at the end, now against a ‘glow’ created by strings. One of her traits is only heard at the very end: humour, in the play with our expectations. 

Between Trees is a really strong piece that impels further listening: Bioluminescence (2017) revels in similar textures (live, players wave LED lights through a dark ball), while Traveling Light of 2014 seems an attempt to depict in sound, the ungraspable. Her other works include a 2019 piano concerto in which the pianist plays not one note, but instead forests the piano’s inside with small plastic trees (I assume eco-plastic!). Importantly, Tjøgersen’s message is not militant; instead, it is about inviting in appreciation of the planet that we call home.

Here's the Norwegian performance referenced above:

Louise Alder seemingly never fails to deliver, and this was no exception: five songs from Canteloube’s Songs of the Auvergne (many of us will remember their resurgence in the 1980’s thanks to recordings by Kiri te Kanawa and Frederica von Stade). Sung in Auvergnat (a dialect of Occitan), the transcribed folksongs take on an Impressionist life of their own. ‘La Pastoura als Camps’ (the Shepherdess in the Pasture), as with Tjøgersen, places us in Nature’s bosom, but this is an idealised Nature where shepherdess meets young man and the lightest of tales is told with the lightest of touches. Only the final stanza moves to deeper pastures (‘He thinks he’s caught his partridge, / but she’s already flown away’). Alder’s purity of sound went a long way here.

In contrast comes the mournful cor anglais of ‘La Délaïssádo’ and shimmering harmonies as a shepherdess (who knows, maybe the same one) awaits a lover who never shows. Here, Alder’s careful calibration of vibrato became a major part of her expressive palette. The choice of two Bourées worked well, the oboe solo at the start of the first (‘N’ail pas ïéu de mio’; I have no girl to love me) so fluent, even more so on its complex recurrence; clarinet solos were just as impressive as Alder narrated the tale with great character. A quail for the second Bourée: “Lo Calmé,’ the sweetest of imagined dialogues delivered with the most perfect of ensemble.

After a qual, a cuckoo: ‘Lou Coucut,’ a bonanza of bird impressions from the orchestra , the song full of wit, underlined by a superb sense of rhythm from Gardner and Alder. Finally, the surely universally-known ‘Baïllero’. Gardner recorded this early on in his career with Kate Royal and the Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields, but if anything this was finer, a crescendo of contained radiance, the piano offering glints of river-reflected sunshine in this pastoral idyll. 

As first halves go, this was exceptional, certainly performatively, but also via the contrasts and similarities of Tjøgersen and Canteloube.

And just as a reminder of those halcyon days of the 1980s, here's Kiri te Kanawa with the English Chamber Orchestra and Jeffrey Tate in 'Baïllero':

.. and here's Frederica von Stade with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under Antonio Almeida:

Richard Strauss’ Eine Alpensinfonie might just as well have been written for the Royal Albert Hall. The power (and sight) of the organ in the Albert Hall, a space that can take any amount of power and in which solos can fly, was highly impressive; not to mention the off-stage, here Gallery-horns, unforgettable in their strength and accuracy (led by Annemarie Federle).

Edward Gardner’s interpretation of this is already available on the LPO’s own label coupled with Metamorphosen, a performance taken down on February 21, 2015, It is a brilliant performance of Alpensinfonie, but the RAH one was a cut above that. The brass at heh Proms in particular excelled, perfectly blended, no note a stretch for the trumpets (it goes screamingly high, and loudly - there is nowhere to hide). A perfect tuba solo from Lee Tsarmaklis - one of two tubas in this piece, of course - was emblematic of solos throughout the performance and across the orchestral sections. The LPO string section is an almighty instrument in itself, but how impeccable, too, the solo string passages, chamber music in a gargantuan orchestral container. Mahlerian pastures were full of atmosphere (not to mention the odd cowbell); the waterfall (‘Am Wasserfall’) was absolutely painted in technicolour. 

The real triumph was how it held together, and that is due firmly to Gardner. The emergence of the big horn theme, so perfectly judged after the shrieking woodwind descents in ‘Auf der Alm’; more successful even than on the LPO Live account. Criticisms are tiny - perhaps the big horn arrival of the descending repeated dyad could have exuded a touch more heroism, but that is drowned in the wealth of illumination here. Never have I heard the bassoon contributions as so significant (or beautifully played); not have I ever heard a pair of bassoons in such perfect accord - interestingly, the bassoon’s timbre was foregrounded at the very end, so this may well have been a deliberate - and, it turns out, effective - strategy from Gardner.

Here's 'Auf der Alm' in the LPO Live performance:

Of course, Alpensinfonie at the Proms has been covered before: Oramo and the BBC Symphony two years ago and Bychkov with the BBC Symphony in 2016 spring immediately to mind. Both were excellent, both had clear strengths, but Gardner’s - pardon the pun - scaled new heights.

A superb concert, by any standards.

Here's a link to the Amazon listing of the Between Trees disc; here's the LPO Live Strauss disc.