EIF: RSNO and Valery Gergiev
This concert of Russian music has a Russian conductor, but Russian pianist Daniil Trifanov was unable to travel. Steven Osborne is a most acceptable substitute! His performance ten years ago with the RSNO of both Shostakovich concertos on one night is an Usher Hall legend!
Tonight the RSNO is entirely a string orchestra. The first and second violins face each other across the stage, with the lower strings, violas to the front, across the back of the platform. It’s a formation which provides wonderful effects in the resonant solemn opening to Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings. Gergiev in a frock coat stands on the stage, not a podium, and is free to move around, using his body and his hands to indicate his intent. In the Valse, the second movement, he encourages the orchestra to delicate effects with his fluttering hands, and the pianissimos even in the big tent can be heard clearly.
The main event is Shostakovich’s First Piano Concerto. It’s for piano and trumpet, and the orchestra’s Principal Trumpet Christopher Hart shares star billing. Osborne plunges straight into an extended series of fast jagged rhythms. There are none of Shostakovich’s favourite snare drums in this piece, but he’s soon accompanied by percussive effects from the lower strings hitting their instruments with their bows. What a brilliant explosive performance from Osborne, an experience that shows us the power of live music to move and excite! Hart on the trumpet follows the piano’s syncopated theme in the first movement in a breathless canon. The second movement is marked Lento, and the slow high theme on the violins, Hart’s muted trumpet, and Osborne’s piano trills are all moments which are listened to intently by the capacity audience. A solo cadenza from the piano leads into the final movement. I can think of no other piano concerto where the ending builds up this momentum. Orchestra, piano and trumpet accelerate towards its breath-taking conclusion, and the cheers ring out.
We’ve had a wonderful evening, and I will say as little as possible about the last item, Stravinsky’s ‘Apollon Musaget’ (Apollo, leader of the Muses) which seemed an ill-advised programme choice. This ballet written in the late 1920s was conceived as a contrast to the fiery ballet scores of Stravinsky’s youth, a ‘ballet blanc’ deliberately lacking in sharp dynamics, and with choreography and monochrome costumes to match. Hmm… The orchestra worked hard, there were lovely effects, and outstanding solo work from Leader Maya Ewabuchi, but overall it did nothing for me. Best to remember that glorious energetic concerto in as good a performance as you’ll ever hear.
