Elder conducts Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty

BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra Mark Elder conductor, Tom Borrow piano

City Halls Glasgow 14/10/24

Relatively infrequent though Sir Mark Elder’s appearances conducting the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra are, they are always eagerly awaited, certainly by audiences and, one imagines and expects, by the musicians.  A special rapport and artistic partnership always finds expression, whatever the chosen repertoire (though invariably displaying the virtuosity of the orchestra, collectively and individually).  The Thursday night City Halls Glasgow concert of 14th November was no exception.  This time the ‘Imagine’ tagline was “enchanting tunes for a timeless fairy tale”, a fair description of a selection of numbers from Tchaikovsky’s ‘Sleeping Beauty’, which concluded the concert.  A Sibelius rarity, Suite No. 2 of his ‘Scènes historiques’ opened.  Prokofiev’s ferociously virtuosic Second Piano Concerto, with Tom Borrow as soloist, was the meat in this programmatic picture-painting sandwich.  The concert was introduced by Kate Molleson and broadcast live on Radio 3.  Associate Leader Kanako Ito led the orchestra.  The audio recording will be available for a month on BBC Sounds.  Live attendance was not full but entirely satisfactory.

The 3-movement 1912 Second Suite of ‘Scènes historiques’ is unmistakable Sibelius, the sound world immediately reminiscent (to this reviewer at any rate) of the very popular Third Symphony.  The horns of the BBCSSO, which I will never tire of praising, feature prominently in the first movement, ‘The Chase’, surging and pacy with a declamatory conclusion.  Lyrical violas, harp and winds shone in the ‘Love Song’ second movement, the harp located centre stage throughout the concert, a novel but very pleasing placement.  Finally, ‘At The Drawbridge’, seemed to depict an outdoor celebration, pizzicato strings and harp emulating guitars while the flutes led a rhythmic folkdance (with melodies like the Third Symphony but rhythms anticipating the Sixth), the horns depicting a glorious sunset, ending calmly with nightfall.  Super piece, very well received, Sir Mark singling out the horns and the winds to stand to acknowledge the applause.

In the 1990s while living in the UAE, I learned to fly a Cessna 172.  My flight instructor used to describe certain scenarios as ‘interesting’, a euphemism for ‘life-threatening’.  Prokofiev, comparing his Second Piano Concerto with his First (and undeniably courting the ‘enfant terrible’ reputation he was earning), said the Second was ‘more interesting’ for the soloist.  Whilst nobody would describe the First as ‘easy’, the euphemism here would appear to mean ‘fiendishly difficult’, the composer himself admitting he found it daunting.  The 1913 Russian audiences were not enamoured of it.  Revolution and Civil War prompted Prokofiev to leave Russia for America, without the orchestral score of the concerto.  This afforded him the opportunity to revise the piece in 1923.  The 1923 revision is what modern audiences hear.  It is still uncompromising but, to modern tastes that have endured far ‘worse’, rather thrilling in its audacity.  The unusual four-movement structure was not unprecedented (thinking of the Brahms Second Concerto), but the typically Prokofiev stark contrasts between lyrical expressiveness and spiky percussiveness give the music a very individual character, not everybody’s cup of tea perhaps, but definitely mine.  Last week a handful of punters baulked and bailed at the Lutosławski; not a soul sought to escape the fascination of the Prokofiev.  Israeli pianist and BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist 2021-23 Tom Borrow was more than equal to the work’s physical and artistic challenges.  Other than a cadenza-like passage in the middle, there is little hint in the opening Andantino of the fireworks to come, the piano discursive and relatively lyrical while ambling pizzicato and misty swirling legato in the strings paint a dreamscape.  The short obsessive moto perpetuo Scherzo gives the first hint of what will be unleashed.  The Intermezzo is a march, lumbering leviathan at first, slightly less brutal later with a very Russian feel and something of the charm of the final triumphal march of ‘Peter and the Wolf’, building to a huge climax before a sudden halt.  A Russian theme emerges in the finale too, but the setting is driven and percussive, another wild perpetuum mobile but, in Glaswegian parlance, ‘full radge’.  There is a beefier cadenza-like passage, a thrilling accelerando and a false winding down before a riotous coda.  The view from the stage as the applause thundered must have resembled hundreds of ‘wow’ emojis in tiered ranks.  Phenomenal. 

Sir Mark Elder’s selection of excerpts from ‘The Sleeping Beauty’ included many favourite highpoints (like the most famous Valse from Act 1) but there were also less well-known gems, knitted into an orchestral suite displaying Tchaikovsky at the height of his powers.  After a dramatic introduction depicting the curse of the wicked fairy Carabosse, the first half of the suite was an extended sequence, comprising the ‘Pas de six’ of the 6 benevolent Fairy Godmothers (with some delicious writing for the winds), followed by the big famous waltz and ‘Aurora’s Variation’ (a beautiful violin solo from Kanako Ito) and concluding with the Act I finale.  A series of character pieces from Act 3 wedding guests followed, starting with the charming ‘Polonaise’ with a tambourine (not a typically Polish instrument?), followed by a ‘Pas de quatre’ featuring The Bluebird and Princess Florine.  A flashback to earlier in Act 2 when Prince Désiré dances with a vision of Aurora before waking her featured a fabulous cello solo from Rudi de Groote.  Another ‘Pas de quatre’ from the wedding depicting the jewel fairies from Act 3 was followed by the Act 2 Finale, a perfect end to the suite.  As ever, the orchestra played their hearts out for Sir Mark.  Well worth a listen on BBC Sounds.