BBCSSO: Mendelssohn Symphony No. 3

City Halls, Glasgow - 11/05/23

Simone Menezes, conductor | Denis Kozhukhin, piano

“Melodious, Evocative, Toe-Tapping” Mendelssohn – the penultimate tagline of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra’s 2022-23 season promised a spirited performance of the (numerically) first of Mendelssohn’s two ‘travelogue’ symphonies, his Third, nicknamed “Scottish”, and it did not disappoint.  The programme, under the baton of Italo-Brazilian Maestra Simone Menezes, standing in for Estonian Kristiina Poska, who was indisposed, also included Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho’s evocative, enigmatic 2008 piece ‘Laterna Magica’ (Magic Lantern) and Ravel’s 1931 snappy, snazzy, jazzy Piano Concerto in G with Russian virtuoso Denis Kozhukhin as soloist.  The concert was introduced by Kate Molleson and broadcast live on BBC Radio 3.  As usual, the recording will be available for listeners on BBC Sounds for the coming four weeks.

The Saariaho, inspired by a re-reading of Swedish director Ingmar Bergman’s autobiography, with which it shares a title, employs a large orchestra to evoke the mysteries of an early pre-cinematic moving images illusion-generating gadget.  Two sets of timpani, three each of percussionists, winds, trumpets and trombones, a tuba, a large string section and piano, harp and celesta, drove a formidable sonic experience, even without the no fewer than 6 horns – a truly fabulous sound.  Eschewing conventional melody, it explores orchestral textures and colours with shifting irregular pulses and dynamics.  It held the attention, indeed fascination, throughout its 22 minutes, though I have to acknowledge that not one note lodged in my memory for the journey home.  Yet I will remember the sense of fascination that the music engendered.  Notable special sonic effects included breathily blowing the flutes on the threshold of them sounding a note, and whispered quotations from Bergman’s text.  Undoubtedly a complex and challenging work to perform, the orchestra were maximally responsive to maestra Menezes’ ultra-clear direction, her tall, slender athletic form a commanding but genial stage presence.  This boded well for the popular goodies to follow, both works that had long and difficult gestations for their composers.

Ravel’s two piano concerti were composed contemporaneously, the commission for the Left-Hand Concerto arriving while he was working on the Concerto in G.  Though the latter is outwardly a more conventional 3-movement work, it is a fusion of many disparate unmistakably French yet foreign-influenced elements: urban swagger, blues-tinged loucheness, ribald rustic folksong, shimmering impressionism, flamboyant balletic elegance and expressive cantabile lyricism.  It demands awesome virtuosity, and not just from the soloist, with dauntingly agile staccato writing for trumpet in the outer movements particularly prominent in establishing the jazzy mood, and all the wind principals having challenging passages to negotiate.  Though only 22 minutes in length, it is chockful of memorable melodies and colours.  The first movement is launched by a whipcrack and a snappy syncopated jazz/folk melody on winds over a wash on piano.  From the start, Denis Kozhukhin’s virtuosity appeared effortless, equally in the alternating jazzy and lyrical passages, almost nonchalant.  Phrasing and syncopation were flawless from soloist and orchestra alike.  It is a fine conductor indeed that can make what must be carefully controlled music-making sound like free expression, and that is what the Glasgow audience got.  The movement has no fewer than three cadenzas, one for solo harp, one for winds and then finally one for piano.  Harpist Helen Thomson’s dreamy harmonics over pianissimo glissandi were absolutely delicious and as fine as I have heard.  The utterly bonkers coda, always a joy and easily in my top 10 codas, was equally excellent.  The rhapsodic lyrical slow movement mixes tenderness with pathos in a touchingly beautiful continuous melody suffused with a mood of reverie, which Ravel confided had proved exhausting to fashion to his own eventual satisfaction.  Slowly a note of anxiety enters and the music rises to a climax with an extraordinary chord held on winds and muted strings, magically resolving to the E major of the original theme, beautifully played on cor anglais by James Horan and accompanied by the touchingly romantic ornamentation on the piano.  This brought a tear to my eye.  The finale, a swaggering jazz/folk/blues romp, restores the mood of carefree abandon with some dazzling bravura writing for soloist and orchestra alike.  Full marks to the 2 bassoonists for carrying off their fiendishly difficult part with seeming effortlessness.  The Glasgow audience rewarded the superb performance with thunderous applause, whoops and cheers.  Maestro Kozhukhin played a short simple encore, Tchaikovsky’s ‘In Church’ from his ‘Album for the Young’ Op.39 No.24.

Whenever asked which is my favourite of Mendelssohn’s ‘Scottish’ and ‘Italian’ symphonies, I usually choose the latter, probably because I’ve known it for longer and its thematic material is largely more cheerful.  Yet every time I hear the ‘Scottish’ Symphony, I am captivated by its gravitas, majesty, nobility and grandeur – it is every bit as good and, indeed, probably even more dramatic.  In interview with our conductor Simone Menezes, Kate Molleson asked her whether she hears anything actually ‘Scottish’ in Mendelssohn’s Scottish Symphony.  She replied that it channels the national psyche: ‘deep, and not very happy’.  I’ll be taking the Fifth Amendment on that one.  But I will say she displayed great affection and esteem for the piece in a performance that exploited all its dramatic and musical possibilities and awarded them the fullest advocacy.  The slow introduction was solemn with subtle ebb and flow in both phrasing and dynamics.  The exposition, whose repeat was observed, seemed to anticipate the nervous energy and drama of Schumann, while the stormy weather of the development was captivating.  Tempi served the drama and felt natural without any sense of restraint.  The playing and ensemble sound were classic BBCSSO and thoroughly excellent.  The gleeful reel-like scherzo launched with a super tripping clarinet solo from Yann Ghiro and the scampering strings joined in the light-hearted party atmosphere.  The legendary Mendelssohnian light touch brings the ceilidh to a cheeky end.  The solemn and funereal slow movement, with its moments of tenderness and consolation, was dramatic without being overly sentimental.  The finale starts in A minor with a nervous pursuit under a cloudy sky, building to a climax.  But this ultimately winds down on clarinets and bassoon over string chords, whereupon a new chorale in the major is introduced by clarinets, bassoons and violas, taken up by the rest of the orchestra and driven to a triumphant conclusion with a great moment for the horns.

Another great concert from the BBCSSO.  The season concludes next week with Elgar 2.