Prom 54: Ivan Fischer/Budapest Festival Orchestra/Collegium Vocale Gent, Royal Albert Hall, review

A severely underpowered all-Mozart Prom wastes the starry talents of its orchestra and singers

Soprano Lucy Crowe was not best served by Ivan Fischer's arrangement (BBC/Chris Christodoulou)

On paper there was little to suggest that this all-Mozart Prom had any surprises up its billowing 18th-century sleeves. But that was without reckoning for conductor Ivan Fischer. A consummate showman, relentlessly creative, his sonic imagination created something thoroughly unexpected from Mozart’s Requiem.

Unfortunately, on this occasion, the innovation was ill-judged – a waste of the starry combined forces of the Budapest Festival Orchestra and Collegium Vocale Gent.

Scattering his 24 singers among the orchestra, Fischer seemed to be aiming for an intimate, holistic performance, but instead delivered a severely underpowered one. The orchestra’s contemporary instruments drowned the small choir, many of whom were placed with their backs to the audience, and both text and tone were all but lost.

Soloists fared not much better – an ill-matched quartet including soprano Lucy Crowe and late-replacement bass Hanno Müller-Brachmann who offered little by way of vocal colour. The whole seemed designed acoustically for audiences watching on television or listening on radio – not the first time we’ve seen this at the Proms.

More satisfying was the Mozart Clarinet Concerto, performed by soloist Ákos Ács on an authentic basset clarinet. Smoothly patrician at the top of his range, with some exciting gravel at the bottom, Ács found both the humour of the final Rondo and the unworked beauty of the Adagio, stylishly supported by Fischer and his band.

Returning for a cheeky klezmer encore, Fischer and Ács reminded us that this is an ensemble whose off-duty, sleeves-rolled-up music is just a good as their concert-dress classics.