Scottish Chamber Orchestra: Lindberg, Stravinsky and Shostakovich
Queen’s Hall - 22/02/24
Maxim Emelyanychev, conductor | Pekka Kuusisto, violin
Tonight’s concert pairs for the first time two of the most exciting musicians associated with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Principal Conductor, Maxim Emelyanychev and regular guest director, violinist Pekka Kuusisto. In an interview before the concert, Pekka tells SCO Sub-Principal second violin, Gordon Bragg, that he first met Maxim two days ago, but that the Lindberg Violin Concerto was part of their planning for this concert from the beginning.
The first work tonight is the earliest, Fauré’s ‘Suite: Pelléas et Mélisande,’ based on Fauré’s incidental music for a 1998 London production of Maeterlinck’s play, and commissioned by Mrs Patrick Campbell, who was to take the leading role. The performance, including the music, was a great success, and the version heard tonight is the distillation of the nineteen movement original into a four movement suite, premiered in Paris in 1912. The music is sumptuous and requires the biggest orchestra of the evening: twenty-four string players, with three double basses in the middle of the back row; a wind section , including four horns and two trumpets; timpani and harp. The slow ‘Prélude’ represents Mélisande in the woods at the beginning of the play, tentative and mysterious, although with deeper emotions indicated by the lusher sounds which end abruptly with the note of Golaud’s hunting horn. Light rapid notes on the violins accompanied by pizzicatoon the other strings represent the sound of Mélisande’s spinning wheel in ‘Fileuse.’ Fauré, working to a tight schedule, re-used one of his popular works , the ‘Sicilienne’ which became the third movement. The delicate music for harp and flute develops into a burbling melody, marking one of the few happy moments in the play. ‘Le Mort de Mélisande’ begins quietly but soon becomes a full -blown death march, with a crescendo on violins, bassoons, trumpets and timpani. It’s an immediately accessible and enjoyable work, seemingly very different from some of the austerity to follow, although it has an operatic echo near the end of the evening.
There’s nearly a full house tonight, with many Pekka fans in the audience, and he receives an enthusiastic welcome. In the pre-show interview he spoke of the genesis of fellow-Finn, Magnus Lindberg’s 2006 ‘Violin Concerto no 1.’ Written for a Mozart anniversary, Lindberg chose a Mozart-sized orchestra rather than the large forces he usually liked to write for. A reduced number of strings take the stage, along with two oboes, two flutes and two bassoons. The first movement begins on very high pitched notes on the solo violin, with first violins, equally high but dissonant. The theme comes from Sibelius’s ‘Violin Concerto’, and Pekka whistled it for us during the interview. There are multiple orchestral parts in the concerto, sometimes with only one player to a part. Gordon Bragg said that the chamber forces may be small, but the rich texture created by the many parts makes it feel like playing in a much larger orchestra. With a great deal going on, Maxim’s conducting, seemingly less exuberant than usual is focused on Lindberg’s rhythms, which provide an underlying precision throughout the work. The second movement begins with anthems from the winds, as the soloist’s part becomes more intricate, with slides, sudden pizzicato, repeated notes and very fast playing. After an orchestral climax, Pekka unleashes an astonishing cadenza. He spoke earlier about his interest in developing his own sounds on the violin, and we hear the full gamut of these, swoops, high notes, snatches of folk or jazz, and as he bends over the violin for some complicated chords, does he join in by whistling the Sibelius theme or is that a harmonic? For five minutes the orchestra sit amazed and the audience seem scarcely to draw breath. The third movement is short - a wild dance is begun by the oboes, and is quickly taken up by the soloist, and after the recapitulation of the main theme, there’s tumultuous applause. A tour de force for the orchestra, and an incredible performance by Pekka Kuusisto. The encore, he says, will have fewer notes, and is, I think, one of his own compositions, folk melodies from everywhere, with a tricky series of rhythms, so there are hints of Scottish reels, Scandinavian music and a bit of Stephane Grappelli perhaps, recognisable but elusive at the same time.
After the interval, fifteen players return to the stage for Stravinsky’s Concerto in E-flat major, ‘Dumbarton Oaks.’ Earlier, cellist Donald Gillan said in his introduction to the concert that playing ‘Dumbarton Oaks’ was like “walking across stepping stones over shark-infested water.” This is a brisk and witty piece, but not in any sense jolly so the phrase sums up the unease underlying this modernist take on the baroque concerto grosso. Maxim sits to conduct, adding to the intimacy of the performance, in which each of the players has a turn in the spotlight.
Shostakovich’s ‘Chamber Symphony’ was arranged by his friend, Rudolf Barshai, in 1968 from the composer’s 1960 ‘String Quartet No 8.’ Both as a quartet and in the chamber version we hear tonight, this is a devastating but difficult work, and I’m indebted both to David Kettle for his programme notes here, and to my Edinburgh Music Review colleague, Donal Hurley, for his review of the Scottish Ensemble’s short film of part of the second movement here. Both are well worth reading for their insights into the background to the work.
We’re familiar with the dynamic performances of the SCO Strings under Maxim’s conducting in the baroque repertoire. Their performance tonight of this key twentieth century work is equally inspiring. The four note motif, which is the notation of Shostakovich’s name, forms the basis of the opening largo. Stephanie Gonley’s solo violin is outstanding, while Maxim moves around to drive the orchestra on and point up the key phrases in the long lines of the music. The transition to the second movement allegro molto is as exact and shocking as it needs to be. Ferocious and demanding of the players and the audience, the music doesn’t loosen its relentless grip. The jaunty rhythm of the third movement’s eerie waltz at first seems like a relief but the repeated high discordant outbursts on the violins perpetuate the discomfort. The fourth and fifth movements are marked largo. The fourth begins with a percussive six note motif on the double basses which becomes a slow march for the whole orchestra. Out of this Philip Higham’s cello solo, based on an aria from ‘Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk,’ another tragic love story like that of Mélisande, adds a brief poignant interlude. The last movement returns us to the desolate mood and some of the material from the beginning of the work. With the propulsion of Maxim’s exemplary conducting, the SCO strings provide as good as a performance of Shostakovich’s deeply personal response to conflict as anyone could wish for.
