RSNO: Rachmaninov, Symphonic Dances
Usher Hall - 10/03/23
It’s very rare that I go to a concert of music completely unfamiliar to me, but that was the case last night (10/3/23) at the Usher Hall in Edinburgh, when the RSNO, conducted by John Wilson, played a programme of Gershwin, Copland and Rachmaninov. An encouragingly large audience turned up, with a large cohort of schoolchildren in their uniforms in attendance, with worried-looking teachers in tow. I can report that they all behaved impeccably, watching and listening with rapt attention, and they were treated to an excellent concert of 20th century music.
We started with a swing, as the orchestra played George Gershwin’s ‘Cuban Overture’ from 1932. The composer had recently returned from a riotous holiday in Cuba, where drink had been consumed in large quantities, whilst dancing the nights away in the bars and clubs of Havana. Gershwin had brought back several Cuban percussion instruments from his holiday, and they were all put to use in this jolly orchestral suite, initially entitled ‘Rumba’, but later made more serious-sounding as ‘Cuban Overture’. Apparently, it was first performed in Lewisohn Stadium in Upper New York, a Greek-style amphitheatre built in 1915 as an athletic arena for the City College of New York and used frequently for concerts until its demolition in 1973. For 25 cents, you could hear the finest artists of the Classical and Jazz world, and in August 1932, 18,000 turned up to hear Gershwin’s ‘Rumba’ played by the New York Philharmonic, conducted by Albert Coates.
John Wilson has established himself as an arranger of film scores, and a conductor of all sorts of music, primarily from the 20th century, and he is much sought after on the international circuit. At first sight, with his short back and sides haircut and a demeanour similar to many of the stuffy middle management figures played by Michael Palin in ‘Monty Python’, he seems an unlikely person to be leading an orchestra in jazzy American music, but, on the podium, his languid but precise style dominated the evening, and proved immensely entertaining for both the audience and the orchestra.
The second piece on the programme was Aaron Copland’s ‘Clarinet Concerto’, commissioned by the famous jazz clarinettist, Benny Goodman, in 1947, and premiered on NBC Radio on November 6th, 1950, conducted by Fritz Reiner. This concerto has established itself as a firm favourite among top clarinet players and was played on this occasion by the RSNO Principal Clarinet, Timothy Orpen. Mr Orpen has thrilled us by his stunning playing in numerous orchestral pieces from his seat among the woodwind, and it was a great privilege to hear and see him standing in front of his orchestra and playing with such style and verve in the Copland concerto. The work is in two movements with a fabulous cadenza in the middle, the first a slow and very beautiful lyrical waltz, full of warmth and tenderness, superbly played by Mr Orpen. After the virtuosic cadenza, the final movement, in Rondo form, reveals a jazzier feel, with clever interplay between soloist and orchestra. Copland scored the concerto for strings, piano and harp, allowing the soloist to dominate without competition from woodwind or brass. Pippa Tunnell (harp) and Lynda Cochrane (piano) made important contributions, but the glory went to Timothy Orpen, who demonstrated just how good the principal players of the RSNO are. He has a very lithe and dramatic way of playing, using all the space between first desk and conductor as a stage for his memorised performance, which I thoroughly enjoyed, and his red shirt dazzled almost as much as his playing. I was also delighted to see the gentlemen of the orchestra playing in simple black gear, rather than their normal white tie and tails, and I am sure that the watching children would have felt more at home. Edwardian formal dress is all very well, but perhaps a little anachronistic these days!
After the interval, we were treated to a stunning performance of Rachmaninov’s late masterpiece, his Symphonic Dances, from 1941, expertly conducted by John Wilson. This piece was composed in Long Island in the USA, not long after the composer had left Europe for the last time, in 1939, as the drums of war were becoming more persistent. Coming from an aristocratic background, although falling on hard times due to his father’s gambling habit and financial incompetence, he had been forced to flee Russia in 1917 following the Revolution, and he never returned. For the rest of his life, he nurtured a great sense of nostalgia for his homeland, and the Symphonic Dances, first performed in Philadelphia in January 1941, display a strong feeling for Russia, as well as reminiscences of liturgical music, chiefly the Dies Irae plainsong theme, picked out by tubular bells in the third and final movement. Rachmaninov had discussed choreography with the exiled Russian dancer, Michel Fokine, but his untimely death in 1942, and then the composer’s own death in 1943, brought such ideas to an end. Truth be told, the music is rhythmically powerful but not particularly balletic, and I imagine a concert performance, such as we heard in the Usher Hall, is its best environment.
John Wilson and the RSNO delivered a strong and ultimately thrilling account of this, Rachmaninov’s last composition, and, coming new to the score, I found it fascinating and marvelled at some of its orchestration, particularly his use of percussion, echoing something of Stravinsky’s sound world, with xylophone, glockenspiel, tamtam and side drum heavily featured. Hats off to the busy RSNO percussion section, and also to the fine contributions of Lewis Banks on alto saxophone and Maya Iwabuchi on violin. John Wilson’s energetic, yet restrained, conducting was extremely effective, demonstrating a fluid technique which was fascinating to watch from behind.
The younger element in the audience greeted the grand finale of the work with whoops and hollers, perhaps reflecting the trans-Atlantic nature of the programme, and it was satisfying in the extreme to see such a reaction to a relatively unknown selection of works. The RSNO is to be congratulated for offering such a mixed series of concerts this season, combining much loved favourites with lesser known works, worthy of our consideration.
I have one caveat, which I have referred to before. Why is it necessary to dim the auditorium lights so low that one cannot read the, usually excellent, programme notes? Indeed, bizarrely, the programme, were one able to read it in the gloom, includes an extraordinary sentence at the bottom of the first page: “If viewing these notes at the concert, please do so considerately, and not during the performance!” What?
