RSNO: All-Star Gala
Usher Hall - 26/05/23
In order to reach the Usher Hall tonight for the concert given by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, conducted by Thomas Søndergård, it was necessary to drive through throngs of teenage girls, dressed in pink feather boas and Stetson hats, and not much else! This surreal spectacle arose because Harry Styles was playing a gig at BP Murrayfield Stadium at the same time, and his adoring fans, known as ‘Harries’ (I have this on good authority), like to dress in this colourful and cheerful fashion. Much of west Edinburgh is now covered in pink feathers, left behind by thousands of Harries, all dedicated to their pop god, who worship the star with an all-encompassing love and passion.
In a remarkably similar way, but without the pink feathers, the Usher Hall was completely sold out for tonight’s concert, billed as an All-Star Gala, featuring classical music’s young gods: Nicola Benedetti (NB), Sheku Kanneh-Mason (SKM) and Benjamin Grosvenor (BG), all recipients of BBC Young Musician of the Year Awards. NB and SKM were winners of the full award in 2004 and 2016 respectively, and BG won the Keyboard Prize in 2004. The wow factor attached to these superb musicians was responsible for the full house, including the Organ Gallery, and it is a most satisfying thing to be able to report that the audience was a splendid mixture of young and old, and was in raptures throughout the concert, not just when the stars were playing. Indeed, the roar of acclaim which greeted the end of Brahms’ First Symphony, at the end of a long evening, was worthy of Harry’s Harries!
Fame in the classical music world does not, however, come easily. Behind the apparent virtuosity and laid-back coolness of the stars, lie months and years of pain-staking practice and hard work, hidden away in conservatoires and rehearsal rooms, far from the acclaim of the public. Yes, one needs fabulous technique, and the performing X-Factor, but these superb young musicians have slaved away on their own for years to bring them to the level where they can now seem so comfortable and relaxed on stage.
This was brought home very clearly by the first three items on tonight’s programme, short choral pieces featuring the splendid RSNO Youth Chorus, conducted by their director, Patrick Barrett, each highlighting one of our three young stars on their chosen instruments.
First, we heard ‘Inherit the World’, by Errollyn Wallen, written for the Youth Chorus to sing at COP 26 in Glasgow in 2021, a plea for the world to listen to children of the next generation warning us against climate change. The passion and commitment of the young singers was genuinely startling, and you could see what the words meant to these dedicated performers, aged 7-18. Benjamin Grosvenor attacked the piano part with no less devotion, and the whole piece came over very convincingly in a modern but approachable style.
Russell Hepplewhite was commissioned to write a piece for Trinity Boys’ Choir in 2013 and chose a Victorian poem by Eugene Field about the death of Robin Hood as his text. I sang the role of Snug the Joiner in Britten’s ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream,’ with Trinity Boys’ Choir as the fairies, in Aix-en-Provence and Beijing in 2015/16, and can attest to the excellence of that fine youth choir in the production. The RSNO Youth Choir was similarly splendid in this rendition in the Usher Hall, with the fine cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason as soloist, commenting on and adding to the text, and conjuring up the sounds of Sherwood Forest.
The final work in this section of the programme was Caroline Shaw’s ‘Its Motion Keeps’, a work for youth choir and violin, here played by the incomparable Nicola Benedetti. What more is there to say about this wonderful Scottish artist, still relatively young, and full of seemingly boundless energy? International violin superstar, musical educationist with her Benedetti Foundation and now Director of the Edinburgh International Festival, she goes from strength to strength, and you could see the devotion in the eyes of the young singers as they sang alongside her. Caroline Shaw’s piece, first heard in New York’s Carnegie Hall in 2013 with the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, is based around a text taken from an early 19th century hymn book from the southern states of the new republic of America, and contains many echoes of the music of Britten, Purcell and Tudor polyphony. Mostly pizzicato chords and melodies on the violin are woven around choral phrases from the young singers, to create a fascinating piece which held the audience spellbound. Patrick Barrett’s conducting was clear and precise, and his young choristers displayed both commitment and vocal skills beyond their years.
The first half of the programme ended with a superb performance of Beethoven’s famous Triple Concerto, played by our star soloists and conducted by the RSNO Musical Director, Thomas Søndergård. Dedicated to Archduke Rudolf, son of the late Emperor Leopold II, and for whom the piano part was written, the 34 year old Beethoven created a somewhat unique piece in his output, a piano trio accompanied by a full orchestra. I hadn’t heard it for a long time, and it struck me again just how joyous many of Beethoven’s compositions were. The image of the deaf composer railing against the world and Fate has become so much a part of his legend, that one forgets that the majority of his greatest works are a triumphant declaration of the genius of man, in spite of adversity. It was apparent that the three soloists were really enjoying playing together, Nicola Benedetti, in particular, smiling and encouraging those around her. Perfect balance between the two string instruments and a full modern concert grand piano was never satisfactorily achieved, as the cello inevitably suffers against the bright overtones of the other two, but SKM played with a verve and bravura which balanced up the trio to some extent. The gorgeous Largo movement highlighted the sweetness of tone of both string players, and the sympathetic accompanying of BG.
Thomas Søndergård and the orchestra steered the ensemble towards the final triumphant closing bars, and the first half ended to rapturous applause from the packed hall.
Very few of the Benedetti Fan Club left at the interval, and so a large crowd awaited, with bated breath, the final symphony of the RSNO’s journey through the four symphonies of Johannes Brahms, the First, premiered in Karlsruhe on 4th November 1876. What a year that was! August had seen the opening of the Festspielhaus in Bayreuth and the first complete performance of Wagner’s ‘Der Ring des Nibelungen’. Brahms, no fan of Wagner, had been working on his symphony for over twenty years, cowering under the heavy cloud of Beethoven’s genius, but was persuaded to reveal his new work to the world towards the end of the same year. Beginning with a persistent timpani beat, one can almost feel the dark clouds swirling round the young composer, but over the course of some 40 minutes and four contrasting movements, Brahms leads us to the glorious heights of his finale, matching Wagner’s vision of Valhalla, but with quite different music.
Influenced by Beethoven and Bach, but very much finding his own style, Brahms took the world by storm with this wonderful symphony, and Søndergård and the RSNO did it proud. Various moments stood out, the beautiful oboe solo in the second movement (deliciously played by Adrian Wilson – gosh, he’s good!), the very beautiful violin solo played by Maya Iwabuchi later in the second movement, and the horn solo, supposedly based on an Alphorn melody, in the final adagio (superbly played by guest principal Olivia Gandee), before the final drive to the end, interrupted only by a magical brass chorale melody, which left us cheering and breathless.
Following on from their recent tour of Europe, which saw the RSNO playing in the wonderful Musikverein in Vienna, it is clear that our national orchestra is now at its peak, and the news that Thomas Søndergård has extended his contract as Principal Conductor to Season 2024/25 is a wonderful bonus.
