RSNO: Beethoven's Eroica
Usher Hall - 09/12/22
Ten minutes into this excellent concert came the famous trumpet call, heralding the Galop from Rossini’s Overture to his opera ‘Guillaume Tell’. A collective sigh went up from the audience as we all swooned at the theme tune to ‘The Lone Ranger’, and we could settle down to the last RSNO concert before Christmas.
Except, of course, as I had worked out earlier, you had to be a least 60 years old to remember the story of the Masked Man and his faithful Indian guide, Tonto, in their relentless pursuit of justice! Following on from a successful radio series, the television series aired from 1949 to 1957, with repeats into the 1960s. A considerable swathe of the audience would just be hearing the conclusion of one of the great operatic overtures, and so I tried to erase my childhood memories to see how the overture stands up.
It is a remarkable and brilliant piece of music, all the more so as ‘Guillaume Tell’ proved to be Rossini’s last opera, although he lived another forty years. Premiered in Paris in 1829, it is a musical version of Friedrich Schiller’s great play of 1804, ‘Wilhelm Tell’, first staged in Weimar, directed by Schiller’s friend and neighbour, Johann Wolfgang Goethe, which tells the tale of the Swiss patriot, Tell, who frees the Swiss cantons from the tyrannical rule of the Austrian Habsburgs in the 14th century.
The overture starts with an extended section representing Dawn over the Swiss Alps, scored for five solo cellos and double bass, an astonishingly creative idea, which leads into a dramatic storm. As the storm dies away, we hear a bucolic section depicting the local herdsmen calling to their cattle on folk instruments, a staggering evocation of rural life in the mountains. This tranquil scene is interrupted by the trumpets who announce a Galop, which is quickly taken up by the whole orchestra, the March of the Swiss Soldiers as they rise up to follow Tell in defeating the hated Austrian overlords. The story of William Tell follows, a dramatic ‘opera seria’ lasting four hours, in which we see Tell firing the famous crossbow shot to split the apple placed on his son’s head, keeping the second bolt for the despised Austrian governor, Gessler. The legend inspired the formation of the Swiss Confederation and is seen by all Swiss as the pivotal moment in the creation of their unique country.
The RSNO continued their recent sequence of concerts with guest conductors and were led this time by the dynamic South Korean conductor, Han-Na Chang. A cello virtuoso in her own right, Ms Chang moved to New York at the age of 11, and at that tender age, won First Prize at the 1994 Rostropovich International Cello Competition. Turning to conducting at the age of 24, she is currently chief conductor of the Trondheim Symfoniorkester in Norway. Her style at the podium is very fluent, and it was immediately apparent that she had an excellent rapport with the orchestra. From the opening cello passage in the overture, she demonstrated a firm grasp of the work’s structure, and her own cello background must have helped start the concert on the right foot. A word here for the Guest Principal Cello tonight, Benjamin Hughes; usually principal cello of the BBC Concert Orchestra, he was pitched into the fray right at the start of tonight’s concert and played with a lovely tone and solid technique. It can’t be easy, on a guest appearance, to play a solo at the very beginning of a concert, and indeed, one conducted by a famous cello virtuoso, but Mr Hughes acquitted himself splendidly.
The cello theme continued into the second work in the programme, the Cello Concerto by Edward Elgar, premiered in London in 1919. Unashamedly romantic in an era which saw the appearance of modernity in the work of Stravinsky, Prokofiev and Milhaud, this work has become much loved, especially after the recording made by the 20 year old Jacqueline du Pré in 1965 with Sir John Barbirolli. This recording was so dramatic and electrifying that it is very hard to listen to the concerto played by anyone else, but tonight’s soloist, the young Frenchman, Bruno Delepelaire, gave an altogether different insight into this wonderful piece. Perhaps because Han-Na Chang is herself a cellist, there was a close relationship between soloist and conductor which made for an outstanding performance. There was no lack of drama and anguish from Mr Delepelaire, but perhaps less of the almost visceral tragedy which came from Ms du Pré’s recording. Consequently, we were able to hear more of the beauty of the score, one of my favourite works of Elgar. I have come to appreciate this most English of composers more as I have grown older, and the cello concerto is one of his finest works. Indeed, it was his last large scale composition, and although by no means modernistic, it feels a bit like a swan song, almost a farewell to the world, although he lived another 15 years.
This performance was lovingly crafted, beautifully played by Mr Delepelaire, the principal cellist of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, playing on a Matteo Goffriller cello of 1720, and sympathetically conducted by Han-Na Chang.
After the interval, we heard Beethoven’s great Third Symphony, the Eroica, premiered in Vienna in 1805. Ms Chang, conducting the whole programme from memory, guided us through this monumental work with skill and dexterity, and it was a great pleasure to watch her flamboyant style as she brought out all the nuances in this amazing score. Written just over ten years after the death of Mozart, the Eroica represents an astonishing development in symphonic writing, heralding the beginning of the Romantic Era and pointing the way towards Brahms, Wagner, Bruckner and Mahler. The sense of struggle, with the elements, with history, with his own psyche, is pivotal in our understanding of Beethoven, but the story of the symphony’s initial dedication to Napoleon and then its withdrawal after his self-proclamation as Emperor, although interesting, is, I feel, something of a red herring, clouding our appreciation of this monumental musical edifice.
From the enormous first movement, through the grim funeral march of the second movement, into the rumbunctious scherzo with its trio section scored for three horns in hunting mode (surely not battlefield celebrations, as suggested in the programme notes!), and then the eventually triumphant finale, the RSNO and Ms Chang brought the final concert of the autumn season to a fitting end.
There was another more than decent audience in the Usher Hall and given the Lyceum next door was playing its ‘Christmas Carol’, it was good to see Edinburgh turning out in good numbers for their national orchestra. Speaking to management at the interval, it seems that attendances are back to pre-Covid levels, and possibly increasing, a very positive position.
It is all the more important that we keep vigilant in the face of philistine governments on both sides of the border and guard our precious national cultural bodies against the onslaught of cuts in the name of elitism and spurious diversity. Complaints of elitism are completely inaccurate. Classical music is not the preserve of some white, middle aged, middle class cohort. It is a bastion of excellence and wonderment, the fruits of some of the greatest minds of all time, producing works that stimulate, entertain and move all sections of society, regardless of creed, class or race. Any attempt to pit classical music against other art forms is ridiculous, and counter-productive, and will harm all the arts. We must fight against any cuts in funding, or we will find ourselves back in a position where music becomes the preserve of the rich and powerful, as it was at the beginning of the modern era. Classical music in Scotland needs to be nurtured, and encouraged, and its excellence must be promoted to all, not decried as elitist and irrelevant.
I hope my reviews over the past months will tempt more people to come along to the RSNO concerts in 2023, and perhaps encourage those who are not sure whether this music is for them. Live music is life-enhancing, and our orchestra is fantastic. Gaelic speakers in Scotland have a fabulous word for what I mean: Sgoinneil – Brilliant!
