BBCSSO: Hough Plays Rachmaninov
City Halls, Glasgow - 18/04/24
BBCSSO | Ryan Wigglesworth, conductor | Sir Stephen Hough, piano
“Escape into Dazzling Virtuosity”: the confident tagline for the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra’s return, after a month’s hiatus, to the live broadcast Thursday night series in Glasgow’s City Halls was no idle promise, with Chief Conductor Ryan Wigglesworth conducting and pianist Sir Stephen Hough as the soloist in Rachmaninov’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. Bracketing the Rachmaninov masterpiece were two works inspired by Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy-tales. The concert opened with a suite from Danish composer (and Composer-in-Association of the BBCSSO) Hans Abrahamsen’s 2019 opera, Three Fairy-Tale Pictures from ‘The Snow Queen’, and concluded with Stravinsky’s 1928 ballet in homage to Tchaikovsky, ‘The Fairy’s Kiss’, based on Andersen’s ‘The Ice Maiden’. As customary, the programme was introduced for Radio 3 (and the pleasingly packed auditorium) by Kate Molleson. Virtuosic leader of the Tippett Quartet and the John Wilson Orchestra and co-leader of the English Chamber Orchestra, John Mills, guested as leader for the evening.
The orchestra for the Abrahamsen was huge, with mixed triple/quadruple winds, an array of tuned percussion including marimba, vibraphone and tubular bells, celeste, harmonium and two harps, a bass trumpet in addition to the usual brass, and I definitely saw a pair of Wagner tubas (not credited in the programme). At first, the forces were used sparingly, exploiting the broad timbral palette for orchestral colour in an exercise in musical picture-painting. There was no break between the three ‘pictures’, and the music, though theoretically programmatic, was fully appreciable as pure music. Evoking a chill stillness with only 4 notes of the scale and a plaintive cor anglais, detail began to emerge with a passage for marimba, vibraphone and clarinet, broadening into a more richly melodic and harmonic landscape with full orchestra. A passage for piccolo over high tremolo strings had an icy beauty. A magical 5/4 section evoked a snowy dreamscape. A dialogue of rising figures for solo trumpet and trombone carried a kernel of warmth into the closing pages and the final crescendo with Mark O’Keefe’s trumpet radiant. A very satisfying first hearing for me of a super piece. The playing was phenomenal, as was Wigglesworth’s expert picture-painting. On a night when the publicity for the BBCSSO’s 2024/25 season was launched with the slogan “80 world-class musicians at the top of their game”, that was exactly what was on display.
From fairy-tale to urban myth, the rumour (which violinist Paganini did nothing to dispel) that his virtuosity was due to a pact with the devil himself gave Rachmaninov the excuse, if ever he needed one, to indulge his obsession once again with the Dies Irae plainchant, using it to fashion a countermelody to Paganini’s 24th Caprice. The resulting Rhapsody is a set of 24 characterful variations in the form of a piano concerto. I love every note of it and, on the basis of what I heard in the City Halls, so do Stephen and Ryan. From the outset, the playing was crisp and playful, with more than a hint of mischief. Rachmaninov makes significant demands on all the players and I was particularly blown away (no pun intended) by the quality of wind playing throughout. The kaleidoscopic range of moods visited by the variations encompassed tongue-in-cheek loucheness, funereal macabreness, sinister melodrama, romantic passion, thrilling mystery, jazzy American swagger, a headlong chase, and scintillating pianistic fireworks. Throughout, Stephen’s flawless articulation was matched by the BBCSSO’s legendary commitment to concertante dialogue. Special mention is due for an exquisitely melancholic violin solo from John Mills. Over the years, I’ve probably been to about 10 live performances of this work, and I cannot recall any better than Stephen Hough with the BBCSSO under Ryan Wigglesworth. Glasgow agreed, with a standing ovation as Stephen and Ryan embraced. Grieg’s Notturno, No.4 of the Op.54 set of ‘Lyric Pieces’ was the delicate encore, the birdsong imitation as lovely as I have heard.
Stravinsky’s ‘ballet in four scenes’, played without a break, takes material from piano pieces and songs by Tchaikovsky and fashions them into a narrative allegory of Tchaikovsky’s life, cut short by illness, the muse of music taking the place of the icy fairy that kisses the child in infancy but returns to claim him on his wedding day and carry him off to the Land Beyond Time and Place. Hearing Tchaikovsky ‘in a Stravinsky accent’ is a strange but not unpleasurable experience, each shedding new light on the other. It is a bit like seeing Shakespeare performed by a cast of foreign actors trained outside the Shakespearean tradition; simultaneously unfamiliar and revelatory. The ‘Stravinsky accent’ is that of the score of Petrushka. Little flashes of pure Tchaikovsky tropes appear from time to time, especially in the tuttiwriting for strings and winds. A very high and challenging horn solo was given a flawless outing by Guest Principal Lisa Maria Cooper – unforgettable. Yann Ghiro’s clarinet also shone in a characterful solo. A barrel organ waltz sounded straight out of Petrushka. A trio for cello, harp and clarinet was another highlight, extending to an expressive cello solo from Rudi De Groote. A series of character dances at the wedding was just like similar sets in the great Tchaikovsky ballets, but with added flashes of Stravinsky humour. The chill heartache of the final separation was made more poignant with the hint of a melancholy lullaby. In this Stravinsky score, perhaps above all others, his austere emotion-denying mask slips. Ryan and the BBCSSO caught this perfectly and gave it a committed, persuasive and cathartic outing. Full marks from me.