National Youth Orchestras of Scotland Symphony Orchestra: Summer Concert 2023

Perth Concert Hall - 15/07/23

Martyn Brabbins, conductor | Elena Urioste, violin | Blair Sinclair, trombone | Cillian Ó Ceallacháin, trombone

The Symphony Orchestra of the National Youth Orchestras of Scotland presented their 2023 Summer programme on the evening of 15th July in Perth Concert Hall, reprising the Aberdeen performance of the night before, under the baton of Martyn Brabbins.  The concert also marked the launch of the Richard Chester Creativity Fund, in memory of the visionary director of the NYOS from 1987 to 2007 and to further securely support the ongoing mission of the NYOS to ensure that musical talent in Scotland will continue to be nurtured, and to remove financial barriers to realising the potential of that talent.  Renowned conductor, cellist and one of the trustees of the new fund, Will Conway, addressed the auditorium before the performance to introduce the fund and its aims and explain the relevance of its eponym.  In a surprise prologue to the advertised programme, and because Richard Chester had first met his future wife when he was principal flautist in the pit of a Scottish Opera production of ‘Cosi fan tutte’, while she was assistant stage manager, a wind sextet of players from the orchestra stepped forward to the front of stage and delivered a crisp rendition of a chamber arrangement of the overture to Mozart’s comic opera.  A delightful apéritif.

First on the menu was Richard Strauss’ deliciously whimsical tone poem, ‘Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche’ (Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks), making this the third performance, in less than a year, of this ever-popular concert opener that I have reviewed (the others being Brett Dean’s chamber arrangement with the Hebrides Ensemble, and the BBCSSO).  A tale of mischief and direst retribution, it never fails to delight and it did so in Perth no less than the other performances.  This young orchestra responded magnificently to Martyn Brabbins’ direction, whose attention to detail was rewarded with characterful horn and wind solos, robust brass playing, and string-playing with swagger and mischief when they were called for.  The violas and bassoons were superb in the passage depicting Till’s mockery of the prim clergy, while leader Chun-Yi Kang’s sweet solo tone perfectly characterised Till in flirtatious mode.  Scored for large orchestra, it was the perfect vehicle for showcasing the full band and setting out their stall, enthusiastically applauded by the large (though far from capacity) audience.

American virtuosa violinist Elena Urioste has been championing the music of black British-American composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor for a while, but her performance of his 1912 three-movement Violin Concerto, which followed, was a revelatory first hearing for me.  Elena, I noticed in a Twitter post she made a few days before the concert, has been openly critical of the publishers of his sheet music, which is apparently riddled with errors, despite being outrageously expensive.  You would never guess at any of these issues from the performance I heard.  It is very much a romantic violin concerto, but with unmistakable American influences, especially from the Southern states, from spirituals to music hall.  I was occasionally reminded of both the Dvořák and Glazunov concerti, especially in the outer movements, but nonetheless with a totally individual compositional voice.  I was struck by the composer’s melodic and harmonic inventiveness and richness, rivalling those of Dvořák and Schubert.  The first movement’s cadenza, dramatically set against a drone of the double basses and timpani roll, was quite magical.  It was the slow movement, however, that was the revelation of the evening for me, an exquisite shimmering nocturne, played with the sweetest tone and the most engaging phrasing by Elena and her Alessandro Galgiani instrument.  Heartstoppingly good.  The finale, alternating between a main dance theme and a second cantabile theme, joyously developed both, before the minor key asserted its gravitas for the dramatic coda.  This was Coleridge-Taylor’s last major work and he has left us a gem that deserves a surer place in the repertoire.  It could not ask for a finer advocate than Elena Urioste.  The Perth audience agreed and the applause was rapturous, prompting an encore: the Sarabande from Bach’s Partita No.2 in D minor.  Superb.  I know that gluttony is unattractive, but now I want to hear her Chaconne.

Speaking of gluttony, another concerto awaited the Perth audience after the interval: innovative Scottish composer Claire McCue’s 2019 ‘In Pursuit’, a one-movement double trombone concerto, in a brand-new version for full orchestra commissioned by the NYOS and receiving its première (technically, after Aberdeen, deuxième) performance.  It is a hugely theatrical work, exploiting not only the aural characteristics of the instrument (with one player doubling on the rarely-seen alto instrument for some passages, while the other added wah-wah mute to the standard mute used occasionally by both) but also the visual physicality of the playing of a slide instrument in music that was not just scored, but choreographed.  Two trombone virtuosi, New Zealander Blair Sinclair and Corkonian fellow-Irishman Cillian Ó Ceallacháin, took the solo roles.  Both players start far apart at opposite sides of the stage, blowing into the instrument, then short staccato figures, then gradually introducing cantabile, legato and glissando, then melodic elements with more rhythmic complexity after moving to music stands closer together.  All the while the orchestral parts increase in complexity too, with increasing use of the harp and tuned percussion, and harmonies that transition from non-functional to functional.  For the last section, the soloists move together to centre stage and play the most complex music from memory, whilst following the choreographed movements (including even slide positions).  The closing pages accelerate to a climactic rush of sound.  Pretty amazing.  Tumultuous applause confirmed the approval of the Perth audience and the composer came to the stage to acknowledge it in the company of conductor and soloists.  As an aside, that now makes, in the space of 9 months, three female composers whose work I have felt moved to regard as confirmation of absolute mastery of orchestration: Anna Thorvaldsdóttir, Mingdu Li and now Claire McCue.  That fact, and the excellence of NYOS, allow me to believe that orchestral music has an assured future, in Scotland and internationally.

The concert closed with a 1904 Elgar masterpiece, described in the programme notes as a ‘tone poem’ but generally regarded as a concert overture, ‘In the South’, subtitled ‘Alassio’, commemorating Elgar’s feelings of elation on holiday in the Italian coastal resort.  He had intended to work on his first symphony, and indeed so much of the orchestral sound in the substantial overture is recognisable as that which would eventually return in the symphony.  The inspiration was an idyllic pastoral scene contrasted with thoughts of the battle that had been fought in the same place in Roman times.  The harmonic complexity of the passage depicting the might of the Roman legions always thrills me, just as much as the similarly-evocative finale of Respighi’s ‘Pini di Roma’ of exactly two decades later, and Brabbins delivered, as ever, a master painter of musical pictures with a palette of orchestral musicians of amazing artistic maturity.  The viola solo of the contrasting pastoral scene was beautifully played.  After a reprise of the opening themes, the work drives to a joyful coda and final peroration.  Absolutely excellent.