Preview: RSNO Concert Season 2025/26
RSNO Concert Season 2025/26 – USHER HALL
I was invited to the launch of the 2025/26 RSNO Season on Tuesday 1st April, in the Royal Concert Hall in Glasgow, and was delighted to find no obvious April Fool tricks in the glossy brochure handed out. In fact, next season looks like being a cracker, with a year long programme of fantastic music from Scotland’s premier symphony orchestra. My reviews this season have been uniformly excellent, and I think the orchestra is playing to a standard unmatched in my experience over 50 years of concertgoing. Obviously, my own career over the past 40 years has taken me all over the world, singing in some of the great theatres of the world with some of the best orchestras, and I am fully aware that I was often away from Edinburgh, and unable to attend many concerts by the RSNO and, previously, the SNO.
When I started going to concerts in the 1970s, often with my good friend and schoolmate, Donald Runnicles, we were in the extraordinary era of Sir Alexander Gibson as Principal Conductor, and that immensely charismatic figure dominated the musical scene in Scotland. As co-founder and music director of Scottish Opera as well, Sir Alec was everywhere, a truly international level conductor, renowned for his interpretations of Berlioz, Sibelius, Wagner and Puccini. The Scottish National Orchestra was a fine orchestra, and under Sir Alec’s baton, often capable of playing magnificent performances of the great masterpieces of classical music. However, it was clear, when world-ranking orchestras like the LSO, the Concertgebouw or the Vienna Philharmonic came to the Edinburgh International Festival during the 1970s, that the SNO was not in that league. The string sound was less sumptuous, the brass less dramatic, and sometimes notes were split or missed in the ensemble. This was not surprising, as the players were nearly all Scottish trained, and the training was nothing like it is nowadays.
Over the years, a succession of principal conductors took over from the much missed Sir Alexander (he died in 1995 aged 68), and after 1991, the orchestra (having obtained royal patronage in 1977) became known as the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. Standards continued to improve impressively, and the tenure of the French conductor, Stéphane Denève, was the one when I felt that the orchestra was now approaching the major league.
With the appointment of Thomas Søndergård as Principal Conductor in 2018, and that of Alistair Mackie as Chief Executive in 2019, it seems to me that the RSNO is now very much a top rank orchestra in world terms. The fact that this timescale coincided almost exactly with my own retirement from the international opera scene meant that I was on hand in Scotland to attend concerts and later to review performances as a critic for the Edinburgh Music Review, a very happy coincidence on my part, allowing me to see from one week to the next how splendid our national orchestra has become.
Next season’s programme is a veritable feast of masterpieces, and also offers a considerable increase in the number of concerts available to our audiences here in Scotland. A mixture of major tours and film and education work has curtailed this season somewhat, and there have been many winter’s evenings when the Usher hall has lain empty. It is entirely correct that the RSNO has prioritised good economic health for the whole enterprise, but the core purpose of a national symphony orchestra must be to provide live music for the public. The management has been tireless in its pursuit of a younger audience, and I am delighted to note that a) Edinburgh audiences this season have been excellent and b) they are noticeably younger than in previous years. There is still a preponderance of over 60s, but there has been a marked increase in the 20-30 age group, and this is a GOOD THING! The large number of students studying in the capital has always seemed an important potential audience, and we are now seeing the result of what appears to be successful marketing.
There are some absolutely unmissable concerts next season, with great masterpieces, important premieres and interesting soloists combining for our delectation. No longer do we see programmes with a major work, plus an overture and a random concerto. Many of these forthcoming concerts are difficult to define – is a concerto the highlight, or is it a new work, or a much loved symphony?
The most spectacular, in my opinion, is the concert on 20th February 2026. Billed as ‘Felix Klieser plays Strauss’, we discover Mozart’s fabulous overture to his opera, ‘The Marriage of Figaro’, followed by Richard Strauss’s First Horn Concerto, played by the virtuoso horn player, Felix Klieser, and conducted by Thomas Søndergård. Mr Klieser was born with no arms but plays the horn by working the valves with the toes of his left foot, with apparently spectacular results. Strauss’s father was a professional horn player, and the young composer was a brilliant advocate for the instrument in his writing.
But wait, what’s this after the interval? Nothing less than Anton Bruckner’s greatest symphony, the Eighth, well over an hour long, and one of the finest symphonies ever written. I have been asking for some Bruckner from the RSNO for some time now, and can’t wait for this performance, and the addition of the Mozart and the Strauss makes it one of my unmissable events of the new season.
There are several concerts to which I would append this moniker, and here are a few:
The Season opener on 3rd October – Mahler’s 7th Symphony, another monumental masterpiece, in the capable hands of Mr Søndergård.
My own favourite Beethoven symphony, the 7th, on 7th November, again with Thomas in charge, along with Vaughan Williams’ Songs of Travel in the orchestrated version (learn to love the songs by listening to my CD, Hills of Home, on Birnam CD).
Tchaikovsky’s brilliant Symphony No 4, my personal favourite, conducted by Kristiina Poska, alongside Arvo Part’s beautiful Cantus in memoriam Benjamin Britten, and the world premiere of Elena Langer’s New Work for Soprano and Orchestra, with Anna Dennis (soprano).
The season’s finale, Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, conducted by the wonderful Patrick Hahn, Principal Guest Conductor, will bring down the curtain on an amazing season.
Buy your tickets now. There are some great deals if you buy in bulk!
In addition, to celebrate the orchestra’s status as one of the great film music bands on the scene at the moment, there are three showings of major films, Ghostbusters, Gladiator and How to Train your Dragon, with the RSNO playing the live soundtrack. Don’t miss them either!
Finally, don’t miss the RSNO Chorus concert on 6th March in Greyfriars Kirk, when they will be singing Rachmaninov’s Vespers, one of the finest choral works of the 20th century. Don’t be put off by the title of All Night Vigil – it’s only an hour or so!
Image credit: Sally Jubb
