Scottish Chamber Orchestra: Café de Paris with Maxim and Friends
Queen’s Hall - 25/02/24
Maxim Emelyanychev, piano | SCO wind soloists
The Scottish Chamber Orchestra’s wind players are second to none. This afternoon’s chamber concert stars four of them, André Cebrián, flute, Robin Williams, oboe, Maximiliano Martin, clarinet, Cerys Ambrose-Evans, bassoon, along with guest horn player, Máté Börzsönyi, all working with Principal Conductor, Maxim Emelyanychev, playing one of the Queen’s Hall’s concert grand pianos.
The all-French programme entitled ‘Café de Paris’ is especially relevant to Jean Françaix’s 1947 ‘L’Heure de Berger (Musique de Brasserie)’ in which he honours the restaurant of that name with musical portraits of its clientele. Maxim on piano is at the back of the stage with the wind players in a line in front of him. The first portrait is ‘Les vieux beaux’ – David Kettle in his programme notes suggests ‘The Old Dandies’ as a translation - and their dignity, somewhat undermined by a few libations, is perfectly captured in the bright if unsteady music, Cerys Ambrose-Evans’ bassoon bobbing as the rhythm staggers. A quicker middle section suggests dreams of a more active youth before the gentlemen stot to a mellow close. The term ‘Pin-up girls’ may have entered the French language through Jane and the other comic-strip blonde bombshells popular in World War II, and the presence of their real-life counterparts is celebrated by some sultry sounds from Máté Börzsönyi’s bluesy horn, with bubbling melodies on Maximiliano Martin’s clarinet and André Cebrián’s flute suggesting the women’s flirtatious personalities. ‘Les petits nerveux’ (nervous children) chatter, run and frolic in the instruments’ flowing overlapping lines, until the stern notes of the horn bring them to order.
After this cheerful opening, Maxim plays Ravel’s ‘Jeux d’Eau’ (water games), written in 1901 when the composer was 26, and, with some echoes of Liszt who wrote a piece with a similar title, the composer set out to replicate the sounds of “fountains, cascades and streams” using the sounds of the piano. It’s also a virtuosic challenge for the soloist, one which Maxim, playing from memory achieves with ease. The gently rippling opening eventually unleashes torrents in the lower notes, before a restoration of calm waters.
André Jolivet’s 1944 ‘Chant de Linos’ is a duet for flute and piano, which takes us far from cafes and fountains of Paris to ancient Greek myth. In 1936 Jolivet founded a composers’ group dedicated to the performance of music as ritual, emphasising the shared spiritual experience between player and audience. Unsurprisingly this set Jolivet at odds with the witty music of Poulenc, Françaix and others. This work is a threnody, a funeral dirge, for Linus, son of Apollo, and alternates furious outbursts for both instruments with quieter, almost jazzy piano passages accompanied by swoops on the flute. This challenging work – like the clarinet duet which is next in the programme – was written as a competition piece, and it makes high demands on the soloist. It reaches a peaceful close when the piano quietens and the flute plays a restrained legato melody.
After the interval, Debussy’s duet for clarinet and piano ‘Première rhapsodie’ is a warmer piece, written to show the variety of moods which the instrument is capable of. Maxim with Maximiliano Martin relish the contrasts the work provides. It begins with a slow clarinet theme which lingers on the beautiful lower notes, while a speedy more staccato section requires more virtuosity. The very fast conclusion ends with a clarinet flourish.
The ensemble lines up again for Poulenc’s ‘Sextet’, written between 1932 and 1939, today’s longest work. Poulenc was a member of Les Six, who took delight in offending the sensibilities of an older generation of composers, and this is a typical example of cheek and panache. The first movement ‘Allegro Vivace’ starts with a furious piercing passage in a stop-start rhythm, until a more delicate melody on flute and bassoon emerges. A cadenza on the bassoon and a piano melody becomes a rather lovely chanson for the whole ensemble, although ruder, more raucous sounds break through. The ‘Divertissement: Andantino’ quirkily explores the first theme of Mozart’s ‘Piano Sonata in C’, with quotations on the piano elaborated by oboe and flute. A friend told me at the interval that the piano part in the Poulenc is “a bit bonkers” and in the opening of the ‘Finale: Prestissimo’ it certainly is, Maxim enjoying a fast piece of ragtime. This is overtaken by an unexpected ballad, like the orchestration of a Jerome Kern song, which slides into a jazzier section, then a slow sensuous conclusion.
An enjoyable matinee with superb musicians making light work of witty and complicated music has delighted the sizeable audience, who make their way out into the almost spring-like afternoon.
