EIF: RSNO and Thomas Søndergård
What a joy to have the RSNO back! This first (for me) post-lockdown RSNO concert has a delightful choice of programme. Since in this special Edinburgh Festival we are necessarily preoccupied with the weather, one might even fancy a climate-appropriate one too, for Mendelssohn’s outdoor woodland setting is no parched Athenian scrub, but much more closely allied with the central European forests of his homeland, or even Shakespeare’s (and Robin Goodfellow’s) English woodland. Indeed one contemporary biographer surmised that Mendelssohn had composed the opening chords of the Overture after hearing an evening breeze rustle the leaves in the garden of his family's home. Not too fanciful for us then to surmise that the swirling breeze and spots of rain blown into the open-sided pavilion at the Festival’s Edinburgh Academy Junior School site were reflected in the same playful music that represented the scampering feet of mischievous fairies.
There was nothing so very obtrusive in the weather to distract us from this magical music and its skilful presentation. Mendelssohn wrote the Overture to A Midsummer Nights Dream as a freestanding orchestral work at the age of 17. A youthful light-heartedness and humour shines through, and is in no way diminished in the 15 years that elapsed before he was commissioned by the King of Prussia to provide incidental music for a full performance of the play, incorporating the Overture within the longer work. The incidental music develops the Overture with 12 additional movements, including a lively Scherzo, a melodic Nocturne representing Puck’s righting of his mischievous spells, and the famously popular Wedding March to accompany Theseus and Hippolyta’s marriage. It includes songs from soprano, mezzo and chorus, and a narration based on selected parts of Shakespeare’s roles for Puck, Oberon, Theseus and others. The narration was here spoken by Dame Harriet Walter, who demonstrated ably that the spoken word and voice can give the greatest of singers a run for their money in conveying ideas, emotion and poetic beauty.
But the musicians were in fine form. The RSNO, always at their best under the baton of Thomas Søndergård, performed the music with energy, humour and joy, and both Rowan Pierce and Kathryn Rudge sang the first and second fairies beautifully. A smaller than usual Festival Chorus, under the direction of Aidan Oliver, were magically present, though nowhere to be seen. They emerged under umbrellas outside the pavilion to take a bow at the end, presumably from an adjoining space to avoid Covid hazards, but with skilful acoustic work giving the impression that they were somewhere ‘onstage’. The parts together produced an artistic work of distinction, and a musical memory to remain with us in the years to come.
