Zakir Hussain’s Triple Concerto

City Halls, Glasgow; 13/3/25

BBCSSO, Alpesh Chauhan (conductor), Fazal Qureshi (tabla), Niladri Kumar (sitar), Rakesh Chaurasia (bansuri)

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We have been dealing with some ‘editorial indisposition’ at the EMR in the last 2-3 weeks, all happily now resolved. Unfortunately a group of reviews fell through our ‘safety net’ and have been posted late. Our apologies to the companies and performers affected.

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“Imagine … an enchanting fusion of Eastern and Western traditions” was the tagline for the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra’s concert of 13th March in the Thursday night series at Glasgow’s City Halls, plus a second outing the following night in Aberdeen.  The work referred to was Indian tabla player and composer Zakir Hussain’s 2023 ‘Triple Concerto for Tabla, Sitar and Bansuri’, with virtuosi  Fazal Qureshi, Niladri Kumar and  Rakesh Chaurasia as soloists on the respective instruments.  The 2024/25 season brochure had indicated the composer himself as tabla soloist, but sadly Zakir Hussain passed away in September.  After the interval, two early 20th century orchestral favourites were performed: Rachmaninov’s 1909 ‘Isle of the Dead’ and Stravinsky’s ‘Firebird’ Suite in the popular 1919 revision.  No stranger to the City Halls stage and renowned as a painter of musical pictures and a teller of musical tales, as well as excelling in Late Romantic repertoire, Alpesh Chauhan conducted.  City Halls audiences continue to be treated to a series of high-profile guest leaders, the latest being leader of the Hallé, Emily Davis.  As usual, the concert was introduced by Kate Molleson, broadcast live on Radio 3 and recorded for both future radio broadcast and on-demand listening on BBC Sounds for the next four weeks.  Attendance was not packed but entirely satisfactory. 

Slightly forward and on either side of the conductor’s podium were two carpeted plinths on which the soloists sat, tabla and sitar stage right, bansuri stage left.  I am fairly sure that this was my first live hearing of a bansuri, which is a bamboo flute – Rakesh had two instruments of different pitches.  However, I have been familiar with Indian instruments and the structure of raga scales, tal rhythms and raga pieces since I was very young, as in the 60s and 70s my father collected LPs of raga music from the recordings of Ravi Shankar, the many virtuosi of the Khan family and their respective collaborators.  I unforgettably saw and heard sitarist/surbaharist Imrat Khan live in Dublin in the mid-1970s.  One of my favourite LPs from my own collection is the 1974 recording of Ravi Shankar’s First Sitar Concerto with Previn and the LSO.  I love this music.  In a few days, I am travelling to Ireland to retrieve my late father’s collections of LPs and scores, so I will be reunited with these cherished recordings.

Like the Shankar, Hussain’s concerto is in (subjectively) 4 movements.  Reading the programme notes now, I see that there is a programmatic narrative behind the music, but as I listened to it and enjoyed it as pure music, I will not take the programmatic aspect further. The first movement’s mood is largely idyllic, establishing the scale then proceeding through a series of episodes of increasing tempo and contrasting rhythms to develop the mood. The conversations between the sitar and bansuri are exquisite, but so also are those with the instruments and sections of the orchestra.  I found Hussain’s harmonic language to be richer and more embracing of Western influences than Shankar’s.  The gleeful conclusion of the movement was enthralling. The orchestral introduction to the second movement had me expecting a scherzo, but it settled into a dreamy and contemplative lyrical serenade. The harmonic language had more than a hint of Copland, while in the orchestral climax there were hints of Vaughan Williams and even Bernstein. The bansuri duetting with Matthew Higham’s piccolo and, at the end of the movement, Rudi De Groote’s solo cello were breathtakingly beautiful.  The third movement played attacca is dominated by a bansuri quasi-cadenza, increasingly anxious and wildly virtuosic with an improvisatory feel, the tabla restrained and consolatory.  This troubled movement concludes with a consolatory sitar passage.  It is in the joyous finale that the fusion of Western and Indian melody is most complete.  The mood is optimistic and playful, the melodic inventiveness irrepressible.  Polyrhythmic timpani and brass, with solo comments from all sections, join in the mood of rejoicing, before a sudden stop, when it is the sitar’s turn for a virtuosic cadenza.  The closing pages were wildly joyous and triumphant.  Throughout, Alpesh Chauhan, who has conducted the piece before with the composer playing tabla solo, was “in the zone” and took the large orchestra for which the piece is scored with him.  What a super piece!  The applause was tumultuous.

During the interval, the plinths were dismantled and removed, so we were back to the usual setup for pieces with large orchestra.  Rachmaninov’s ‘Isle of the Dead’ was inspired by seeing a monochrome reproduction of a macabre painting of a shrouded figure propelling a boat bearing a coffin to a rocky island necropolis.  Needless to say, the strains of the plainchant Dies Irae feature in the dark, sombre, melancholy texture.  There are a number of climaxes before the music subsides to silence, almost all in an eerie 5/8 metre.  It is music that paints a picture that holds a grim fascination.  I last heard it in the 2022 Edinburgh Festival with the Philadelphia Orchestra under Yannick Nézet-Séguin.  To my personal taste, wonderful though Nézet-Séguin’ s exploration of orchestral tonal colour was, Alpesh Chauhan’s was more cogent in terms of the overview of the structure of the piece, holding rapt attention without a hint of longueur.  Fabulous. 

Contemporaneous with the Rachmaninov, Stravinsky’s original ballet score draws on the orchestrational ingenuity of his teacher Rimsky-Korsakov but spiced with innovations of colour and timbre entirely his own.  The suite remains a firm favourite with audiences, conductors and orchestras alike.  Everything one might wish for from a performance was delivered, with conductor and orchestra clearly in their element.  The chilling spooky introduction to the realm of the evil Kashchey, the elusive flighty dance of the Firebird and her capture by the hero Prince Ivan, and the Round Dance of the captive princesses, all painted vivid sonic pictures.  The raw savage menace of  Kashchey’s ‘Infernal Dance’, always a guilty pleasure, was top-notch, reminding me of why I cannot believe that it did not influence Ravel in fashioning the Bacchanale at the end of his ‘Daphnis et Chloé’.  Both, incidentally, make excellent backing tracks to the aerial displays of the world’s various air force aerobatic display teams.  Guest Principal Jules Postel’s bassoon was delicious in the rather orientalist Berceuse, while the very Russian Finale built to the blistering brass chords that affirm the happy ending.  Perfect.