BBCSSO: Bach and Stravinsky
City Halls, Glasgow - 26/01/23
After a six-week hiatus, the eagerly awaited return of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra to the Thursday night series of concerts in Glasgow’s City Halls rekindled magnificently on the night of 26th January, under the baton of Chief Conductor, Ryan Wigglesworth. Billed as “Heavenly, Spellbinding, Uplifting Bach & Stravinsky”, the program featured just these two composers, separated temporally by two centuries, yet in aesthetic outlook and philosophy remarkably consonant. The orchestra was joined by the BBC Singers for all but one work in the programme, with Stravinsky’s ‘Symphony of Psalms’ and the Bach ‘Magnificat’ grabbing the top billing. The concert was well attended.
The performance opened with a Stravinsky ‘arrangement’ (but more accurately a reimagined adaptation) of Bach’s Canonic Variations on ‘Vom Himmel hoch da komm’ ich her’. Stravinsky’s own musical language and quirky scoring (with flutes, oboes, cor anglais, trumpets, trombones, harp, violas and double basses) are ever-present, in music that is nevertheless unmistakably Bachian. The theme, stated boldly at the outset on gloriously rich brass chorale, grabbed the attention. The 5 variations (the choir only entering at the second variation) are contrapuntally ingenious canons on various intervals, with Stravinsky supplying equally ingenious instrumental colouring with unusual combinations. I particularly loved hearing cor anglais and harp in Bach melodies embellished with very Stravinskian harmonies. This was a first hearing of this super piece for me, and a great concert opener. The warm Glasgow audience gave it a great reception and one could readily sense the anticipation of the goodies to come.
Next up, unadulterated Bach, an early invocative two-part funeral motet, ‘Komm, Jesu, komm!’, the first part for double 4-part choir; the second part for combined choir, with continuo organ, cello and double bass. The choral sound and clear German diction from the BBC Singers was superb as ever.
The ‘main course’ of the first half is a great favourite of mine, Stravinsky’s 3-movement ‘Symphony of Psalms’. A Koussevitzky commission, and probably not what the conductor of the Boston Symphony had in mind at all, the work is a deeply personal expression of faith and devotion, but in Stravinsky’s wonderfully individual musical language, so equally immensely appealing to a non-believer such as myself. The scoring is as quirky as any other of the composer’s oeuvre from the 30s and 40s, with 2 pianos, winds (minus clarinets), horns and brass, cellos and basses, and timpani. The first movement (part invocation, part intimation of mortality) has a strange shuffling gait that suggests to me a malevolent circling goblin and always reminds me of the signature tune of the 1970s BBC adaptation of ‘I, Claudius’. The second movement’s plaintive oboe melody, joined by the flute as they snake sinuously around each other, gives way to a slow intricate double fugue, the most overtly neo-classical episode in the work. The music conjures for me two tortured souls, gaining solace from shared trauma, yet each stoically dealing with its own separate woe (the words are more about appealing to the Lord and the prayer being answered). The finale begins and ends with a calm and sweet cadence on the words “Alleluia! Laudate dominum”. But the central section, with its ebullient waka-waka-wakaaa rhythm is full of Stravinskian mischief in a confident hymn of triumphant praise. The Symphony was everything I could have hoped for and Wigglesworth and the band clearly love it as much as I do. Quite superb.
First up after the interval was Stravinsky’s ‘Symphonies of Wind Instruments’, a concise episodic paean for Debussy scored for 4 horns, 3 each of flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, trumpets and trombones, and 1 tuba. Not perhaps top-drawer Stravinsky but always glad to hear it. It was performed with total commitment and great artistry by the winds and brass of the BBCSSO.
The final work was Bach’s 1733 D-major revision of his ‘Magnificat’ in E-flat of 1723. It is a work of radiant optimism (a hymn of praise to God in the voice of Mary, the mother of Jesus). Through 12 numbers, the work includes 5 choruses and the rest are solos for 2 sopranos, alto, tenor and bass, performed by members of the BBC Singers. A similar arrangement in the Dunedin Consort’s ‘Messiah’ before Christmas had delivered solo performances of world-leading quality and it would be unrealistic to expect the same from the members of the BBC Singers. The solos were entirely satisfactory, but not perhaps in any sense excellent. The work as a whole is so upbeat and joyful, and the euphoria-inducing sounds of the 3 trumpets in D was so bright without ever being strident, that the performance as a whole was very uplifting and the Glasgow audience gave it their utmost seal of approval with thunderous applause.
Overall, another great concert from the BBCSSO and a great start back for 2023.