Cantabile Mendelssohn and Schubert

Rustioni makes his LSO debut, accompanying a dazzling Francesca Dego in Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto

Daniele Rustioni conducts Liszt’s Les Préludes with the LSO Picture © Mark Allan

London-resident Italian maestro, Daniele Rustioni may have missed out on succeeding Antonio Pappano as music director of the Royal Opera, but he is widely acknowledged as one of conducting’s meteorically rising stars. He now works regularly in the leading opera houses of Munich, Milan and New York, where he first made an impact in 2017: I attended his thrilling Aïda there, six years after he had conducted Verdi’s Egyptian opera at Covent Garden while still on the Jette Parker programme, deputising for Fabio Luisi.

The Metropolitan Opera has just announced his appointment as principal guest conductor, starting next season. Having withdrawn from a recent Don Carlo revival at Covent Garden - possibly in disappointment at not getting the Royal Opera job - Rustioni seems unlikely to return any time soon to London’s premier opera address, so his debut this month with the London Symphony Orchestra was all the more welcome.

An encouragingly full Barbican Hall attended to hear a programme designed to showcase Rustioni’s accomplishments in 19th century orchestral music from North of the Alps: Liszt’s symphonic poem Les Préludes, Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto with Rustioni’s wife Francesca Dego as soloist, and Schubert’s ‘Great’ C major symphony. It came as a surprise to discover that Schubert’s masterpiece had not been programmed by the LSO for more than a decade.