Lammermuir Festival: BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
St Mary’s Church, Haddington - 18/09/23
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra - Ryan Wigglesworth, conductor | Steven Osborne, piano
The closing concert and the second of the two symphony concerts in this year’s Lammermuir Festival brought our own BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, under the baton of their Chief Conductor Ryan Wigglesworth, to the thrilling acoustic of a packed St Mary’s Church, Haddington, on the night of Monday 18th September. The programme comprised two masterpieces: Tippett’s 1953 Piano Concerto with our own Steven Osborne as soloist and after the interval Beethoven’s heroic Symphony No.3.
As with the first symphony concert two days previously, Artistic Co-director of the Festival, James Waters, addressed the assembled company, first thanking the Lammermuir Festival ‘family’, with special mention for the front-of-house team, to enthusiastic applause from the audience, as indeed they have been excellent. Thanks too were voted to the artists, new and returning, and the enthusiastic audiences, who this year have set new records. In his previous address, he had shared news of the challenges faced by the Festival, following withdrawal of funding by Creative Scotland, and the threat this posed to the long-term sustainability of the Festival and even the 2024 Festival. The response from the public to these revelations has, he said, been overwhelmingly encouraging and he and the Festival Board are now resolved to do whatever is necessary to place the Festival on a firm sustainable financial footing for 2024 and into the future. Repeating his enjoinder for audience members to consider becoming Friends or Benefactors, he withdrew and the orchestra tuned.
Having heard Steven Osborne’s stunning performance of Tippett’s austere fragmented Second Piano Sonata in the Perth BBC Proms a fortnight previously, I was very much in the mood for his take on the 1955 Piano Concerto, an altogether more optimistic work, with the same sound world as the opera ‘The Midsummer Marriage’. It is a huge work, bursting with vitality, both mundane and supernatural, thrilling contrasts of light and shade, yet an almost total absence of conflict. There is an important role for the celesta, rippling high in its register, suggestive of the presence of ethereal supernatural entities (or at least that component of the human psyche) and the only other instrument playing in the first movement’s fabulous cadenza. Equally thrilling is the earthier sound of the double basses, the thrusting life force proclaimed by the brass and beauty of the natural world in the breathy twittering of the woodwind. I consider the Piano Concerto to be the pinnacle of Tippett’s skill as an orchestrator. The first movement, by far the longest of the three, can be seen as an expression of awe at the wonder of existence, though I find it pretty amazing as just pure music. But maybe that’s the same thing. The slow movement has rich sound textures from sections of the orchestra in an increasingly complex ferment, the piano plotting an independent equally complex line, seemingly struggling to remain unaffected by the orchestra’s troubles. At one point, however, the violins divisi repeatedly play an agitated ascending close harmony figure, the piano responding with calming placatory chords until the tension subsides. This is reminiscent of the drama of the slow movement of Beethoven’s Fourth Concerto and I was interested to read in the programme notes that it was hearing a fine performance of that concerto that convinced Tippett of the need for a 20th century concerto that eschewed the spikiness of Prokofiev and Bartók (I do love them too, mind). The finale, played attacca, launches with a playful orchestral dance with lovely comments from celeste and timpani. The piano joins in almost immediately with the celebratory mood and what I can only describe as boogie-woogie passages of great joie-de-vivre. This was life-affirming music with a message of hope, performed with commitment and conviction. Quite superb. On a sad note, of all the composers I have met in my life, and though in the mid-80s I lived in Wiltshire not far from Corsham where he lived and knew many who had met him, I never did meet Michael Tippett.
Before starting the ‘Eroica’, Ryan Wigglesworth addressed the audience in praise of the venue (hear, hear), the Festival (ditto) and the opportunity to play “the greatest symphony” there (well, you know what? I’m not going to argue). When it was audaciously premiered to a private aristocratic audience in 1804, it was, as a symphony, unprecedented in length, complexity, emotional scope, cultural outlook and technical ingenuity and must have been virtually incomprehensible to most, if not all, listeners. The date says ‘classical’; the passionate music says ‘romantic’. Either way it is mind-blowing, and Wigglesworth, the BBCSSO and the acoustic of St Mary’s conspired to give a memorable performance. The BBCSSO horns gave of their best in a symphony that glorifies the instrument. The clarity of detail, in instrumental timbre, chording and line was also truly impressive. If Ryan’s remark “the greatest symphony” could be taken as a pledge to convince us of the fact through performance, I would say the pledge was honoured. From the heroic struggles and triumphs of the first movement, through the grief and hope of the funeral march and the good-natured rustic revelry of the scherzo to the celebration of humanity and diversity in the theme and variations of the finale, we were guided to the fullest appreciation of Beethoven’s genius and the joy of being alive. Pretty special. And unforgettable.
Cover photo: Marina Manina, Ben Ealovega