East Neuk Festival: Opening Concert
Bowhouse, St Monans, 25/6/2025
Donal Hurley
Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Andrew Manze (conductor), Sean Shibe (guitar), Donald Grant (fiddle)
In the first of many reports from this year’s East Neuk Festival, I cover the Opening Concert, given by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra under their Principal Guest Conductor Andrew Manze in the Bowhouse just outside St Monans. As I have remarked before, the venue is something of a barn, yet boasts an amazingly satisfactory acoustic. This year, the backdrop to the stage, instead of austere branded bare timbers, was a huge colourful mural by Esme McIntyre, one of many associated with the Big Project: Zulu Voyage - community arts and music event scheduled for the 28th at the venue (not, however, among my reviews), a celebration of the historic two-masted Zulu sailing vessel once ubiquitous along the Fife and east coasts. The principle work of the first half was Rodrigo’s ever-popular ‘Concierto de Aranjuez’ with guitarist Sean Shibe as soloist. After the interval, Schubert’s sunny evergreen 6th Symphony sustained the holiday atmosphere. The programme opened with Swedish composer Lars-Erik Larsson’s 3-movement Pastoral Suite. Just before, there was a ‘surprise’ prologue which explained why versatile Scottish traditional fiddler (and one of the violinists of the Elias Quartet, among a raft of other creative roles) was credited on the programme. He entered from the back of the venue and ambled with his violin slowly towards the front, playing improvised traditional fragments which coalesced into an air and then a reel. Fabulous.
The ‘Overture’ of the Larsson, after a brief slow introduction, launched a brisk, bustling (urban?) scene with, to my ear at any rate, a hint of Sibelian harmonies. Warmly melodic and very satisfying, but the only ‘pastoral’ element I could detect was possibly folk melodies. The second movement, a Romance for strings alone, was more indisputably pastoral in mood, tender throughout and quite impassioned in the central section. I was reminded of the string writing of Dag Wirén, but with greater depth than the younger composer. The Scherzo finale was a gleeful folkdance romp, with a less frenetic Trio section, which had me thinking of Alfvén’s Swedish Rhapsodies, a thought that turned out to be oddly prophetic. At this juncture, it set a festive celebratory mood, a great way to open a festival.
Something of the holiday mood of a train excursion through the greener parts of the Spanish countryside permeates the first movement of the Rodrigo. Sean set the perfect tempo and Andrew and the orchestra conspired joyfully in the illusion, with playing that kept it light and lyrical. The Adagio, the Moorish heart and soul of the concerto, has reached way beyond its initial genre, always grabbing hearts and minds with its elegiac dignity, whether as ‘Orange-Juez’ in the cult film ‘Brassed Off’ or the melody of Lebanese singer Fairouz’ lament for her brutalised city, ‘Li Beirut’. It was heartrendingly beautiful. The finale, to my ears more French response song than Spanish fiesta, leaves behind the trauma with light-hearted conviviality. Nicely judged by soloist, conductor and orchestra, (though I never feel that the finale does full justice to the Adagio). Still, conviviality is good, and it radiated in abundance.
Why would a lad always taste imaginary Maltesers when he hears Schubert’s Sixth? Well, from the age of 8, I used to attend RTESO studio concerts in the St Francis Xavier Hall in Dublin with my father. Once, when I was off sick from school with some bug that had me confined to bed and feeling dizzy and disoriented, he lent me his transistor radio. He also bought me a pack of Maltesers, which I had never tasted before, That evening, I caught a broadcast on Radio Éireann of a recorded concert, one at which I had been present, which included Schubert’s Sixth. The surreal experience of being disoriented, simultaneously at a concert and in bed, enjoying sublime music and eating delicious sweets left an impression. True story.
Schubert’s ‘Little’ C-major Symphony, relegated to that title by the beefier ‘Great’ Ninth, is a work of sunshine and smiles, like Beethoven’s C-major First favouring the winds with the sweetest melodic and harmonic exposition, but not neglecting the strings for establishing the jaunty rhythms of bonhomie. As an aside, the folklore of string players has some alternative titles for Schubert’s Ninth, none of them printable, due to pages of repetitive accompanying figures while horns and winds sort out thematic development. The same players who, as the SCO Wind Soloists, performed earlier this month as purveyors of joy, evidently relished the opportunity to do the same with Schubert’s smiling music (not literally, of course: embouchures would fail). Andrew Manze kept it crisp, light and genial. Perfect.
Crossword fans will recognise the phenomenon of thinking of a random word only for it to show up as a clue in a crossword. The Larsson had made me think of Hugo Alfvén. His whimsical ‘Valflickans Dans’ (Shepherd Girl’s Dance) was a rib-tickling encore, rewarding the violins especially for their patience with a concluding romp.
An excellent Opening Concert.