Stream: Scottish Chamber Orchestra
Bernstein, Barber and Coleridge-Taylor
When I wrote about Samuel Coleridge Taylor for the EMR in July, I said that many classical music fans had probably never heard any of his work. Over a few months that has changed. Coleridge-Taylor’s reputation was given a boost by Lenny Henry and Suzy Klein’s BBC4 documentary on black composers, but even before that his work had started to feature in Radio 3 programmes. Wigmore Hall’s autumn series included songs by Coleridge-Taylor in Elizabeth Llewellyn’ recital on 23rd September, and on 1st August the Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective played his Nonet.
This piece formed the major part of the SCO online concert on Thursday night. It’s his Opus 2, written when he was 18 and a student at the Royal College of Music. It was programmed with early compositions by Bernstein and Barber. Bernstein’s two movement Opus 1 sonata for clarinet and piano (played by Maximiliano Martin and Simon Smith) was written when he was 23, and balances quieter, more thoughtful sections with some rhythmical jazzy moments. There’s a hint of ‘Somewhere’ at the start of the second movement, and a nod to ‘I Want to be in America’ in the spirited finale.
The concert was titled Barber’s Adagio for Strings, and it’s surprising to know that his best- known work made its first appearance in this string quartet when he was just 26. The Adagio is the second movement and is flanked by two movements distinctly different from it in tempo and mood. The first movement is lyrical at times and there’s a playful theme on the viola with pizzicato on the cello. The main theme, repeated in the brief third movement, as David Kettle says in his programme notes, is spikey and angular. It’s played with conviction by the SCO’s quartet, Stephanie Gonley and Gordon Bragg, violins, Felix Tanner, viola, and Eric de Wit, cello. They make a splendid case for this version of the Adagio too, the long lines of its melody rising starkly from the four instruments. It’s emotional without being overwrought.
I’ve only heard part of the Nonet before. At almost 30 minutes and four movements, it’s a more substantial piece than I had imagined. It strikes me that – like the salon-sized Rossini Petite Messe at Wexford last week – it requires ideal musical forces for current requirements – enough musicians to fill the stage bur remaining socially distanced! It’s certainly a welcome find. Coleridge-Taylor had a great facility for tuneful music, attractive at first hearing, and capable of development for larger musical forces. Here five of the players we’ve heard so far: Gonley, Tanner, De Witt, Martin, clarinet, and Smith, piano are joined by Adrian Bornet, double bass, Robin Williams, oboe, Julian Roberts, bassoon and Jamie Shield, horn. The string players form the front row, with the wind instruments behind and the piano at the back of the Queen’s Hall stage.
The jaunty first theme is laid out by the strings and piano, but soon the winds join in. There’s some nice rubato when the higher winds linger over a phrase, and the horn also has its moments. Stephanie Gonley unobtrusively keeps her forces together. Stephen Smith on piano plays virtually all the time, sometimes taking over the melody, sometimes almost percussively. It’s interesting to hear a piano play a key part in a multi-instrument ensemble, similar to its role in the Wexford Rossini mass,
The second movement, Andante con moto, starts less certainly than the first, but soon the clarinet starts a slow theme , picked up by the piano and violin. A second subject in the strings gathers pace, before being passed to the winds. Smith shows a light touch in the attractive piano part here,
“The Scherzo is the most striking movement and one would not guess it to be the work of a student”, said the Musical Times review of its first performance in 1894. Marked Allegro, there’s a playful five note phrase that’s passed between the instruments in the main theme, and this is balanced with a slower, short central section.
The finale sees the bassoon take up the first theme with piano accompaniment. Later the cello has its moment. One of the interesting things about this piece is that all the musicians have their distinctive parts to play. It doesn’t feel as if any of them is accompanying the others. Maybe it feels at times as if too much is happening, but mostly we can enjoy the inventive music-making. After a quieter section, the music builds a final burst of rhythmic energy, and reaches a punchy four-note conclusion.
This concert is one of a series of online chamber concerts from Perth, St Andrew’s and the Queen’s Hall available on the SCO’s website:
https://www.sco.org.uk/whats-on.
The concerts are free and accompanied by on-line programmes. David Kettle’s one for this concert provided an excellent introduction.
I noted at the beginning that the Kaleidoscope Collective played Nonet in August. Their performance, with the nine musicians in the round on the stage and front stall can be found on the Wigmore Hall website. And by coincidence the BBC National Orchestra of Wales played it on-line on the same night as the SCO. A cornucopia of Coleridge-Taylor!
