Scottish Chamber Orchestra: 50th Birthday Concert (Edinburgh)
Usher Hall - 18/01/24
Scottish Chamber Orchestra | Maxim Emelyanychev, conductor/piano | Dmitry Ablogin, piano
The SCO’s 50th Birthday Concert in the Queen’s Hall is a sell-out. Gavin Reid, their chief Executive, welcomes the audience in an excellent speech which celebrates the orchestra’s outstanding musical record as well as their contribution to the life of Scotland in their educational work and regular visits to smaller venues throughout the country. He reveals that the first concert took place not in Edinburgh but in Glasgow’s City Halls from where the concert on 19th January will be broadcast live on Radio 3. Apart from Haydn’s ‘Surprise Symphony,’ the last item on the programme, there will be, he warns us, other surprises: “Don’t rush off!”
Mozart’s double piano Concerto in the first half is preceded by a work whose title, ‘Figaro’s Divorce’ evokes the eighteenth century, but is entirely modern, with no quotes from its predecessors. Beaumarchais, who wrote the first two Figaro plays, wrote a third. ‘La Mere Coupable’ (The Guilty Mother) and in 2016 Russian born Elena Langer, now based in the UK, worked with librettist David Pountney on an opera based on this and a 1936 dark comedy by Austro-Hungarian playwright, Ődőn Van Horvath. After performances by Welsh National Opera, Elena Langer used some of its music to compose this suite in six movements which requires the largest orchestra of the evening. As well as a full wind and brass section, there are timpani, and numerous percussion instruments on one side of the stage, plus a piano and celeste (both played by Simon Smith) on the other side. And in the middle of the strings, it’s great to see Ryan Corbett on accordion.
The opera is set in 20th century Europe and features an older, even more fractious, two-generational Almaviva household on the run from a revolution, and the suite evokes the characters and locations of individual scenes. Piccolo, percussive effects and swooping piano evoke the cicadas and birds in ‘Almaviva’s Garden’, then ‘Angelica and Serafin: A Love Scene’ begins quietly with bells, flutes, viola and muted brass, (a muted tuba is something to see and hear!) and grows in volume with trumpets, trombones and tuba at full blast. The excitement continues with ‘The Escape’: strings replicate the sound of running, there are bursts of brass, timpani and lower strings, and a whistle suggests pursuit.
Ryan Corbett comes into his own in ‘The Major,’ an additional evil character in the opera. The accordion, solo trumpet and Stephanie Gonley on violin play a sleazy tango with bongos and maracas. ‘Susanna and Cherubino: Less of a Love Song’ uses a smaller orchestra, which contrasts the gentler strings and piano recollections of the past, with harsher, discordant passages. Finally ‘A Mad Day’ recaps at speed the characters and episodes we’ve met. The suite is a delightful tour de force for an augmented chamber orchestra. The score calls for 22 different percussion instruments, so well done to Kate Openshaw, Paul Stoneman and Pete Murch for getting round them all!
Maxim Emelyanychev, as might be expected from the conductor of the suite’s first performance in 2020, keeps all the orchestral excitement manageable, and there’s more fun to come when he returns to the stage with fellow Russian pianist, Dmitri Ablogin, to play in and direct Mozart’s 1779 ‘Concerto in E-flat for Two Pianos.’ Originally scored for strings with oboes, bassoons and horns, the concerto was expanded in 1782 to include timpani, clarinets and trumpets. The horns and trumpets are natural instruments, and the sharp-eyed among the audience will have spotted that tonight’s trumpeters, Peter Franks and Shaun Harrold, feature in a 1991 photograph in the programme (for that and other memorable photos from the last 50 years see here). Peter and Shaun’s talents remain ever young with jazzy bursts on muted and unmuted modern trumpets in the Langer and sterling performances in the baroque repertoire too.
The pianos, which are also period instruments, are in the middle of the stage, both facing right, with Maxim’s piano stool almost dead centre. After the initial unaccompanied duet, (possibly not in the original!) he swivels round to briefly conduct the orchestra, then smiles to applaud Dmitri. This cheerfulness pervades the whole performance. The interplay between the pianists is intriguing, with each given time to expand his own music as well as passages of swift interplay and echoing phrases. All the strings and brass play together during the orchestral passages in the allegro first movement, then the oboes, strings bassoons and horns take on the accompaniment in the andante second movement. Both pianists use the pedal, but often play the notes separated or staccato to add to the light effect of the older instruments. The slower pace leads to more reflective, decorated passages including a lovely lyrical dialogue with strings and oboes. The rondo allegro final movement is familiar from its regular radio plays and is taken at a fair lick with virtuosic playing from the pianists. The exuberant music is scored for full orchestra, and the pace slows only briefly towards the end for a perky cadenza from the soloists. After much applause, Andre Cebrian brings his flute to the side of the stage while Simon Smith slips in behind the celeste for the pianists’ rippling encore, ‘Aquarium’ from Saint Saēns’ ‘Carnival of the Animals.’
The carnival atmosphere continues after the interval. The ‘Surprise’ in Haydn’s ‘Symphony No 94 in G’ takes place with an appropriate bang after the repeat of the simple ‘Twinkle, Twinkle’ theme of the andante second movement. The orchestra’s polish and verve throughout, with the first and second violins standing, was no surprise nor was the freshness that Maxim’s conducting brought to the whole symphony. After the adagio at the beginning of the first movement, the other tempos, even the second movement andante, are brisk, with all Haydn’s twists, turns and jokes brought to the fore. Louise Lewis Goodwin’s emphatic beating of the four-note rhythm at the start of each phrase of the first movement’s hearty dance theme propels the work on its way, while the hefty thump on the drums at the beginning of each section of the andante, reminds us of its initial surprise. Among the movement’s quieter moments is the passage for flutes and oboes where they tease out the original theme accompanied by the leaders of the first and second violins, before the full force of the orchestra turns these twinkling stars into blazing light. The minuet’s speed would tax the bravest dancers, only slowing for the delightful halting rhythm of the strings-only trio, and then the allegro molto finale, containing the odd jokey misdirection, takes the symphony’s breathtaking journey home to much cheering and stamping.
What next? Resident composer Jay Capperauld in the balcony returns Maxim’s wave, and players not involved in the Haydn return to the stage. The orchestra plays the premiere of Jay’s new work, ‘Jubilee’, in which sections of the orchestra have their moments in the limelight as they play variations in different rhythms on the theme ‘Happy Birthday to You.’
You can hear this lively tribute on BBC Sounds at the end of Friday’s broadcast from City Halls Glasgow, available for a month. (Spot the different Saint Saens animal!) For more on the SCO’s past, I recommend Keith Bruce’s interview with viola player, Steve King, going strong after 40 years with the orchestra here.
