Scottish Chamber Orchestra: The Lark Ascending, Glasgow

Scottish Chamber Orchestra, SCO Academy, Andrew Manze (conductor), Stephanie Gonley (violin)

City Halls, Glasgow, 3/5/24

 In a reprise of an all-Vaughan Williams programme from the previous night in the Usher Hall, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, with 39 young musicians of the SCO Academy, performed in Glasgow’s City Halls on the night of Friday 3rd May under the baton of the SCO’s newly-appointed Principal Guest Conductor, Andrew Manze.  The concert opened with the young string musicians, augmented with SCO string players and string tutors from St Mary’s Music School, Edinburgh, in a performance of the 1950 Concerto Grosso.  SCO Leader Stephanie Gonley was the soloist in the 1921 orchestral version of his 1914 idyll, ‘The Lark Ascending’.  After the interval, the serenely stoic Fifth Symphony, written during the Second World War, brought the evening’s music-making to a close.

The SCO Academy is a collaborative project involving SCO strings, City of Edinburgh Council Instrumental Music Service, Glasgow CREATE and students and staff from St Mary’s Music School.  It allows young players of all levels of proficiency, from beginner to advanced, to rehearse and perform with professional musicians.  Vaughan Williams’ Concerto Grosso is a piece devised for just such a scenario (though on a larger scale with no fewer than 400 players in the first performance in London in 1950 under Sir Adrian Boult). The string orchestra comprises 3 groups: the concertino of advanced players handling the more technically demanding music, the tutti of intermediate players functioning as ripieni, and the ad lib composed of beginners playing mainly on open strings.  What I found astonishing, in this first hearing for me of the piece, was that there was nothing in the ensemble sound to suggest that this was anything other than a professional ensemble at the top of its game. Nor did the music sound like children’s music. The form may be a 5-movement neo-classical suite, but the sound world is squarely in the realm of 20th century English string music, rich in the modal harmonies that Vaughan Williams loved. The opening Intrada was very suggestive of the mood of the Tallis Fantasia, while the folk-like melody and dance rhythm of the Burlesca ostinata reminded me of Holst’s St Paul’s Suite, a sotto voce episode offering an attractive contrast. The stoic melancholy Sarabande seemed at once to look back to Elgar and forward to Britten. Hints of Britten’s Simple Symphony and Warlock’s Capriol Suite were discernible in the dancelike Scherzo, yet it was unmistakably pure Vaughan Williams. The initially mischievous concluding March was similar, before becoming expansive with glorious polyphony and delicious harmony, recalling the melody of the Intrada in a mood of glowing contentment for the closing bars.  I am frankly astonished at the quality of performance achieved after only two weekends of rehearsal.  Andrew Manze, himself a violinist of the highest calibre, drew ensemble playing of great cohesion, expressiveness and commitment from a diverse band of players.  This will have been an unforgettable experience for the young players, but it was no less for the audience. 

It is always a treat when a principal of the SCO appears in a solo role with their own band.  Chamber music of great intimacy invariably happens, on which the lucky audience gets to eavesdrop.  So it was with Stephanie Gonley’s reading of ‘The Lark Ascending’.  In my youth, the ‘Fantasia on Greensleeves’ was Vaughan Williams’ ‘greatest hit’, but in the era of Classic FM and the classical charts (not to mention downloads), it has been eclipsed by ‘The Lark Ascending’, and rightly so, because it is a gem.  As an evocation of a tranquil summer’s day in rural England, and the joys of the natural world, it has few equals.  Stephanie Gonville’s playing, supported by SCO and Andrew Manze, painted an idyllic picture, with mellifluous tone and a sense of unbridled delight. Perfect.

The same landscape is evoked by the Fifth Symphony but, while it has its idyllic moments, there are also dark shadows cast and hints of unspoken woes. The music seems to acknowledge pain yet allow the world of nature and the imperturbable landscape to work its magical healing. The Fifth is my favourite of the nine and I have no doubt that Andrew Manze and the players of the SCO hold it in the same esteem and affection, as the performance was breathtakingly lovely, subtle yet expressively moving.  The Praeludio is an idyllic sunrise emerging out of harmonic ambiguity, leading to an anxious central section where furtive strings seem to seek to explore the landscape under the disapproving modal glare of the winds, before a climactic showdown drives the music back to a surer reprise of the idyllic serenity of the sunrise, yet ending in unresolved harmonic ambiguity.  The tripping Scherzo lightens the mood with fleeting glimpses of insubstantial fairylike beings dancing in the mist, with more mischievous interruptions from puckish pranksters, recalling Job’s comforters in the balletic Masque for Dancing.  The surpassingly beautiful Romanza began with muted strings divisi into 15-part harmony, while a cor anglais (Katherine Bryer) sang a plaintive aria, leading to a song of devotion from the strings, followed by ornate arabesques from the winds.  The music became increasingly impassioned and anguished, the suppressed anxiety finally erupting in a series of cathartic cris de coeur.  A pianissimo horn solo from Máté Börszönyi seemed to plead for mercy.  The song of devotion answered the plea climactically before the tranquillity of the opening was restored, Stephanie Gonley (back in the Leader’s chair, as is the SCO custom) played a solo arabesque, answered muted and pianissimo by Máté on solo horn as the final cadence drifted to silence on lower strings.  The Passacaglia started serenely, its repeated theme and its counter-melody exuding D-major confidence and building to a climax, before the shadows reasserted themselves, beginning an anguished search through a series of minor keys for the lost confidence of the opening melody.  Instead, the theme of the Praeludio returned, quieting the anxiety.  When the Passacaglia theme returned, it was slower, older and wiser, clothed in exquisite polyphony, and when the strings divided into 9 parts, as always happens with this work, I could no longer hold back the tears.  Over a lifetime of concertgoing, I have probably attended half a dozen live performances of VW5, most recently in November 2022 with the BBCSSO under Martyn Brabbins.  All have moved me deeply, but I can honestly say that Andrew Manze’s vision and the SCO’s unique sensitivity and humanity brought a new perspective and dimension to the experience.  For this, I am profoundly grateful.