RSNO: Steven Osborne Plays Beethoven
Usher Hall - 04/02/22
It was a welcome relief to return to the Usher Hall, after a hiatus of two months, for the first concert in the Spring/Summer 2022 Season. It has been a long wait, and we were greeted by the unusual sight of the strings of the RSNO grouped together in a ring on the platform. 16 instruments, all standing except the cellos, were arranged musically in 4 groups, for the piece, Hirta Rounds, by the young Irish composer, David Fennessy. Directed by the orchestra’s leader, Sharon Roffman, this was an interesting work, without time signature and using the harmonics of the string instruments to a great extent. Hirta is one of the islands of the St Kilda archipelago, situated 64 kilometres to the north west of the Outer Hebrides, wild barren islands in the middle of the ocean. A small community lived there for centuries until the islands were evacuated in 1930, and their evocative story has appealed to artists ever since. The RSNO have featured several works inspired by St Kilda over the last year or two, and this piece, written for the Munich Chamber Orchestra in 2015, was a fascinating opener, full of atmosphere and mystery.
At 12 minutes I fear it rather overstayed its welcome, as it didn’t appear to develop musically over its course, and I spent the latter half trying to work out how it was played. With no time signature and no tunes, it transpires that each player has to be aware of who plays before or after them to find the right moment to play themselves. This necessitates a fantastic awareness of each other, and you could see the players listening carefully to their peers throughout. The cellos seemed central to the work, and it was certainly played well, but, for me, the constant use of harmonics became rather tedious, and I was reminded of the old Gaelic phrase “Thalla a Hiort!” (Clear off to St Kilda!!), imagining an endless loop of Hirta Rounds, as a sort of Purgatory on the island.
While the stage was reassembled and the piano brought in for the ensuing Beethoven Piano Concerto No 4, Sharon Roffman amusingly took us through the evening’s programme, explaining that each piece involved a conversation of some sort. The Fennessy piece was all about the instrumentalists listening and replying to each other, the piano concerto was a brilliant conversation between solo instrument and orchestra, and the Beethoven fourth symphony after the interval would be a sort of continuous conversation amongst the instruments of the orchestra.
Once the piano was in place, the orchestra took up their positions, all standing except cellos and bassoons, and it was clear that we were in for an unusual performance.
Unusual and wonderful! Readers of my Blogs on EMR will know that I am a devotee of Ludwig van Beethoven, and consider him to be the greatest of the great (I shall not use the tennis world’s acronym, GOAT (Greatest of all Time)). In this concert we heard one of his finest works, the Fourth Piano Concerto, and one of his less well-known symphonies, also the Fourth. Both were played without a conductor, relying on Sharon Roffman’s playing and body language to lead the ensemble, and with only a few minor caveats in the symphony, it worked wonderfully well.
The soloist for the piano concerto was the magnificent Scottish pianist, Steven Osborne, for whom no praise can be high enough. His mastery of the instrument is total, and his performance was stunning. Technically perfect, deeply expressive and muscularly dominant, he played this sublime concerto superbly. With no histrionics, and yet a complete confidence, he and Ms Roffman combined perfectly to bring out all the marvellous nuances in Beethoven’s masterwork. From the extended first movement with all its twists and turns, through the fascinating dialogue of the second movement with its angry orchestra soothed by a reflective piano, to the thrilling finale, brought to an end with a flourish of drums and trumpets, we were present at a fabulous performance, and the bravos were loud and well-deserved.
As an encore, Mr Osborne played a haunting Improvisation on a theme by the American jazz and classical composer, Keith Jarrett. It was in brilliant contrast to the fireworks of the Beethoven, its dreamlike serenity lingering in the mind into the interval. We are fortunate, at the moment, to have two world class instrumental soloists, Nicola Benedetti and Steven Osborne, who are Scottish and at the forefront of their profession. We should all be proud of them, and certainly the Usher Hall audience cheered Mr Osborne to the rafters!
After the interval, we were privileged to hear a supreme performance of Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony, a work which is surprisingly little played in comparison with the big blockbusters. It is by no means less worthy than its illustrious companions, and this performance showed why we should hear it more often. Its four movements are full of twists and turns, as it takes us into the sunny uplands of musical splendour. It is a symphony where the old notion of Beethoven as Mr Grumpy is laid to rest, as it unfolds, along with some good musical jokes, into a fizzing perpetuum mobile at the end.
It is scored for Beethoven’s smallest orchestra, and so this conductorless concert was an ideal vehicle, and gosh, did they take it and run with it! Sharon Roffman’s delightful demeanour at the head of the ensemble was an excellent catalyst to another revelation of just how good the RSNO now is, and, in the week after Sir Alexander Gibson’s widow, Lady Veronica, sadly died, it was a reminder for me of what that great and wonderful man did for our wee country, founding Scottish Opera and taking the SNO to great heights of excellence. Even he would have been astonished at the superb playing of the present orchestra, and the 4th Symphony, with its wonderful musical conversations between various sections was the perfect piece for them. Katherine Bryan’s deeply expressive flute playing, Adrian Wilson’s perfect oboe contributions, David Hubbard’s virtuosic bassoon and Paul Philbert’s ever rhythmic timpani were highlights of an ensemble which again was cheered greatly at the end.
Since there was no conductor as such, the orchestra could hardly complain about being pushed to lightning fast speeds in the outer movements, and they seemed to be having such fun that any slight ensemble imbalance was more than compensated for by the wonderful brio of the whole performance. For this, we must thank Sharon Roffman, who dominated the symphony with her expressive playing and obvious empathy with her colleagues. I don’t think anything much later than Beethoven would work without a conductor, but this experiment, following on from some Beethoven concerts in 2019/20, is definitely worth repeating. It was fantastic to see all the orchestra lined up at the front of the platform at the end, receiving the cheers and applause of a wildly enthusiastic audience.
