SCO: Mendelssohn Violin Concerto

Donal Hurley

Stirling Castle Great Hall, 25/7/24

Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Viviane Hagner (violin/director)

Scottish Chamber Orchestra’s second tour of the summer for the full band presented another basket of classical goodies in a programme which featured Mendelssohn’s evergreen Violin Concerto, with German violinist Viviane Hagner as both soloist in the concerto and director from the leader’s chair on a slightly raised podium in the other full-orchestra numbers. The three-performance tour opened in Stirling Castle’s Great Hall on the night of 25th July. The programme opened and closed with Schubert, in the form of his ‘Overture in the Italian Style’ and his Symphony No.5.  Another Mendelssohn work, his String Symphony No.10 in B minor, preceded the Schubert symphony after the interval. The performance was sold out with a capacity audience of about 400.  Some less familiar faces were evident among the players, drafted in I surmise as some of the core membership were involved in other summer events or on holiday.

Scholars of the so-called Austro-German tradition often cite the Austrian element as representing a liberal fusion of Germanic logic and structure with Italianate colour and charm.  I cannot disagree, especially with the store of goodies left for us by Mozart and Schubert.  But, in 1817, Vienna was captivated by the operas of Rossini and the 20-year old Schubert decided he would like a slice of that action.  The first of two concert overtures ‘in the Italian style’, D591 in C, is the most overtly imitative of Rossini, with some Neapolitan melodic elements and orchestral crescendi, but there is no shortage of pure Schubert too, very like some of the melodies in the Sixth Symphony in the same key.  It received a spirited outing, with lovely clarinet-oboe dialogue in the slow introduction and pacy cheerful good humour in the Allegro giusto.  Stirling loved it.  In 1817, in keeping with Schubert’s unrelenting bad luck, the Viennese just wanted more ‘echt Rossini’.  No operatic commissions were forthcoming.  Schubert never scored an operatic hit.

Principal Viola Max Mandel stepped forward to introduce the rest of the programme.  He spoke of the contrast between the economic backgrounds of the two composers, Schubert and Mendelssohn, the former working class, oppressed by the drudgery of life as a schoolmaster and dependent on the support of friends to enable his irrepressible creativity; the latter the son of a wealthy banking family whose parents hired professionals to perform his compositions, financially secure and well-travelled his whole life.  On the topic of support, he told us how the appreciative public could support the SCO.  Nice segue.

Expressive lyricism was very much the focus of Viviane Hagner’s interpretation of the concerto.  The Sasserno Strad is a beautiful instrument and it delivered gorgeous tone that was now rich and warm, now sweet and brilliant, as required.  Her phrasing, supported responsively by the orchestra, drew the listener into the romantic narrative.  The E-minor opening can sometimes seem glowering (I’m thinking in particular of an old Menuhin recording), but this glowed as much as the second subject in the major key.  All rallentandi were teasing and tasteful.  The cadenza was virtuosic and brisk but satisfyingly prioritised expressivity over showiness.  The partnership of soloist and orchestra came to the fore in the slow movement, with expressive cantabile phrasing and rich vibrato-assisted tone supported by responsive dialogue, especially with the strings.  A mood of mutual consolation seemed to permeate the two anxious minor-key episodes, calm and contentment restored in the soaring sweet final cadence.  After the teasing bridge passage, the playful light-hearted finale was delightful from start to finish, with some lovely bubbly flute and clarinet comments.  When the main effervescent rondo theme returns for the last time, the cellos supported by horn get to play what I consider to be a serious contender for the ‘Best Counter-Melody Ever’, and the SCO cellists rose to the occasion.  Mendelssohn must have hugged himself when he thought that one up.  The gleeful coda was no less deliciously thrilling.  The concerto was justifiably the headline work and it was absolutely superb with, for this reviewer at any rate, the slow movement as the highlight of the concert.

Trumpets, clarinets and second flute got an early night, while the lovely baby timpani were packed away into their packing cases during the interval.  The 10th of Mendelssohn’s 12 String Symphonies (or 13 if you include one unearthed by scholarly detective work), written when he was just 14, is unusual in that it is the only one consisting of a single movement, fuelling speculation that we are possibly missing the ‘rest of it’.  Principal Violin Afonso Fesch led the SCO strings in the 10-minute piece.  An Adagio introduction of chromatically shifting classical quasi-Mozartian chording gave way to an unmistakably Mendelssohnian brisk B-minor Allegro.  Scored for two violin lines, two viola lines and a single bass line, it is a satisfying sonata form.  The exposition concludes in the relative major of D.  The development does some exploration of other minor keys before a conventional recapitulation leads to a thrilling hectic più presto B-minor coda.  A super wee piece, it got the full SCO Strings treatment in a chamber-focussed performance of great immediacy and flair.

Schubert’s 5th, with its Mozart-sized orchestra, is a sunny B-flat major Mozart tribute from a 19-year old Schubert, and Viviane returned to lead the orchestra in a sunny chamber reading of the piece.  Rather more playing around with key changes than Mozart, but perhaps not as much as more mature Schubert.  Otherwise, a fairly conventional first movement.  The second movement, an Andante con moto, is not exactly slow, but there is more major key charm threatened by some anxious exploration of bizarre choices of contrasting minor key.  Lovely wind playing in these excursions and a sweet horn cadence at the end.  The wittily rambunctious minuet makes up in emphatic minor-key vigour what it lacks in grace, whilst the slower trio’s major-key pastoral charm is slightly subverted by irregular phrase lengths – teenage Schubert having a laugh.  The Allegro vivace finale is a light-hearted sunny cross-country dash, with good humour and smiles at every turn, and homage to Mozart never far from the surface.  At the start of the development (and as the only significant such instance all evening), I felt that the ensemble came adrift briefly, with winds out of sync with strings, showing that you can’t always predict when a conductor is needed.  It gelled almost immediately and didn’t spoil the good humour (and, of course, these things can happen with conductors too).  It was still a heart-warming performance of a tasty bit of Schubert which I would have been sad to miss.  My highlight of the evening, however, remains the slow movement of the concerto, which was truly magical.