RSNO: Beethoven and Brahms
Usher Hall - 27/01/23
The return of the RSNO to the Usher Hall after the Festive Season was a spectacular success. A full house greeted Thomas Søndergård and the orchestra and was rewarded with magnificent performances of Beethoven’s Fifth Piano Concerto and Brahms Fourth Symphony. The ERCU Messiah on January 2nd and this concert were both sell-outs, as was my recent recital at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, suggesting that the worst effects of the pandemic may be behind us. Let’s hope so!
This concert was the final appearance with the RSNO of its principal French horn player, Christopher Gough, who, as well as leading his section wonderfully over the last six years, has been developing his compositional skills. We all wish him well for the future!
Before the Beethoven, the orchestra played the World Premiere of Lisa Robertson’s new piece, ‘Am Fìor-Eun’, an exposition in music of the majestic eagles who soar over the composer’s home in the West Highlands of Scotland on the Sound of Mull. Am fìor-eun is poetic Gaelic for the eagle, literally true bird, and Lisa has written her composition partially to express her awe at the way these magnificent birds live and fly over the mountains and seas of the Inner Hebrides, but also partially to warn us of the ever-encroaching dangers of climate change on these creatures, and ourselves. She is the winner of the RSNO Composers’ Hub 2021-2022 and this short piece was extremely expressive in conception and performance, using the full forces of the RSNO to great effect. She has specifically created a soundscape reminiscent of the sounds of the area and mimics the flight of the eagles in the orchestra, using different playing techniques and instrumentation. Many of these short new compositions commissioned by the orchestra, have been interesting but ephemeral, but ‘Am Fìor-Eun’ seemed to me to have a sense of purpose and direction which augured very well for the future of this young composer, born in 1993.
Next, we had a performance of Beethoven’s majestic fifth and final piano concerto, the Emperor, played with luminous virtuosity by the Swiss-Italian pianist, Francesco Piemontesi. Conceived during the siege and fall of Vienna to Napoleon’s invading French army, which resulted in the Treaty of Vienna in 1809 in which Austria lost a large part of its empire, Beethoven experienced real fear during the bombardment, which, added to his increasing deafness, would have worn down a lesser man. However, he came up with this wonderful piano concerto which was given its first performance in Leipzig on 28th November 1811, played by Friedrich Schneider and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. No one seems to know why it has acquired the name of Emperor, and indeed it was Napoleon’s decision to become emperor himself that caused Beethoven to turn away from the idea of the French general as his hero, so it is unlikely that the composer would have been happy with this moniker, and yet, with its connotations of grandeur and magnificence, the title of ‘Emperor Concerto’ is not without its merits.
From the very first chords in the striking opening bars of the concerto, it was clear that we were in for a splendid performance, and the rapport between Søndergård and Piemontesi was immediately obvious. The Swiss pianist produced sounds of astonishing beauty from the Usher Hall Steinway, flawlessly finding his way through the intricacies of Beethoven’s writing and delighting in the tintinnabulation of the upper register. He was equally superb in the gorgeous slow movement, creating an oasis of calm in the midst of the heroic music before and after. The Finale was breath-taking and the final chords were greeted with a roar by the enthusiastic audience. The RSNO has managed to come up with some quite sensational soloists this season, and Francesco Piemontesi stands for me as the pinnacle so far. Not content with delivering an immaculate performance of the Emperor, Mr Piemontesi offered us a thrilling and supremely virtuosic encore of Lizst’s ‘Transcendental Étude’ No 10, which was phenomenal!
After the interval, we began the RSNO’s Brahms season with the Fourth and final Symphony of the great German composer. I have always loved the Brahms symphonies, and I was interested to note that Mr Søndergård chose to begin with the last. He brought his usual technically fluent conducting style to the piece (I think his stick work is on a par with Sir Colin Davis, the finest conductor I ever worked with in my career), and from the start, with that miraculous undulating and sweeping melody, reminiscent of the third of Brahms ‘Four Serious Songs’, written 10 years later just before his untimely death, he demonstrated a complete control over the progress of the symphony. He favoured measured tempi, which was rather a change from the often breathless speeds chosen by the younger generation of Brahms conductors, as we were led through the twists and turns of this remarkable symphony, and the RSNO was on top form. It was marvellous to hear the superb horn section, led, as I mentioned, for the last time by Christopher Gough, and indeed all the sections were excellent. The strings, with the violas prominent at the front of the stage, were wonderfully sweet-toned, Paul Philbert on timpani was a model of rhythmic precision, and the whole woodwind section was sensational, with exceptionally expressive playing from Katherine Bryan on flute.
I love the fact that the young Richard Strauss, who was assistant to Hans von Bülow at the Meiningen Court Orchestra, which gave the first performance in December 1885, prepared the orchestra for the premiere, conducted by Brahms himself. Strauss worked extensively in his final decade with the great German bass-baritone, Hans Hotter, with whom I studied in the 1980s, and so I feel I have a linear connection with this symphony by Brahms through only four channels!
The old, heavily-bearded composer would have loved this performance of his final symphony, as did the full house at the Usher Hall.
