EIF: The Opening Concert
Old College Quad
Fergus Linehan, not given to speeches, was applauded as he welcomed us to this Opening Concert. The new auditorium is vast! It seats 700, and like the Old College venue it’s comfortable and doesn’t have significant sound problems, though those further back must feel remote from the stage. Even on a sunny evening, there’s a chill wind – best to dress for camping, as one audience member remarked.
The BBC Symphony Orchestra are under their principal guest conductor, Dalia Stasevska, who conducted the Proms Last Night in 2020 and First Night in 2021. They play three pieces which provide a contemporary twist on traditional themes and musical forms. Anna Clyne, a composer from New York, wrote PIVOT, here given its World Premiere, to reflect her own experience of the Festival. The piece “pivots” between a cheerful, noisy theme with a jagged rhythm to quieter passages, featuring Scottish traditional tunes. (The Pivot is the former name of the Royal Oak, famous as a folk venue). ‘The Flowers of Edinburgh’, a dance tune, is played on massed fiddles, and there’s a hint of pipe music too. This exuberant opening involving the whole orchestra deserves a place as a fanfare in future Edinburgh concerts.
The Respighi ‘Trittico Botticelliano’ is new to me. It’s an exploration of Renaissance painting and music from earlier periods. The three movements are named after Botticelli paintings. The second section, the Adoration of the Magi, explores eastern melodies and harmonies in the woodwind, before developing variations on the Christmas hymn ‘Oh Come Emmanuel’. This is a very old tune, a plain chant first sung 1200 years ago, and its strange qualities are emphasised when it’s played in the minor key in the lower strings and then on celeste and harp. The sections of the orchestra excel in their time in the spotlight. Stasevska, serene at the podium, makes the most of the different textures and rhythms, just what’s needed in this large space.
Stravinsky’s ‘Pulcinella’ incorporates music from Pergolesi and his contemporaries. We hear the full ballet suite, originally commissioned by Diaghilev in 1920. The brassy opening is familiar as are some of the later sections, with imitations of the sounds of early instruments, though always with modern syncopations and idiosyncratic harmonies. Three talented young artists sing the short texts which develop the ballet’s plot. There’s some amplification, I think, and all take some bars to get used to the acoustic. Rosie Aldridge has a lovely pastoral love solo with cello accompaniment, and New Zealand-Tongan Filipe Manu relishes the agitated brass orchestration as he rails against the wiles of women! Glaswegian, Michael Mofidian, about to make his Salzburg debut this summer, shows off his voice’s impressive range in a punchy rhythmic aria.
This well-chosen programme, balancing the familiar and the unusual, was warmly appreciated by the near-capacity audience. The venue was flooded on Friday – Festival staff must have slept more easily on Saturday night!
