Scottish Chamber Orchestra: Maxim’s Baroque Inspirations
Queen’s Hall - 24/11/22
It’s conductor Maxim Emelyanychev’s first concert in the Queen’s Hall this season, and there’s a pretty packed house. The band, numbering nearly 50 in the programme, are back on their stage again after using the floor space for last year’s concerts. They have enough room, as different permutations of players are needed for each work. Maxim directs from the harpsichord.
Baroque Inspirations covers a lot - works from the nineteenth to the twenty-first centuries are in the first half, with two Vivaldi concertos, plus a twentieth century pastiche in the second. So the programme says, but as the string-player who introduces the concert reminds us, “With Maxim, we must expect the unexpected.”
Edvard Grieg wrote some works in 1884 to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the birth of Danish-Norwegian historian and playwright, Ludvig Holberg. A set of piano music was later orchestrated as the Holberg Suite using baroque music from Holberg’s time as his inspiration. The five movements for string ensemble are alternating fast and slow dances. In each the tuneful subject matter is played first in strict dance tempo before a more fluid development. In the slow movements, the Sarabande and Air, marked andante religioso, this involves tender very quiet playing. In contrast the final Rigaudon is a rollicking hornpipe for a duet of strings, with accompanying pizzicato for the rest of the orchestra.
Lulled by this music, listeners find a rude awakening in Escaich’s Baroque Song (2007). David Kettle’s programme notes tell us it is based on “half-remembered melodies” from Bach cantatas. Some of the strings are joined by a back row of wind players. Polite listening to the first movement reveals only one minimally Bach-like flute solo, after which increasing frantic orchestral noises (which seem to incorporate the squeak from a near-by seat) led only to closed eyes and some teeth gritting.
You can’t win them all, and now the piano-stool is brought on for Gorecki’s Harpsichord Concerto. Maxim’s direction consists of the occasional umpire-like head-swivel. Otherwise, his attention is wholly on the keyboard. In two movements, the work begins fast (allegro molto) and gets much faster (vivace). After the Escaich, minimalism has never sounded so refreshing! In the first movement, the strings bow in unison while rapid scales are played on the harpsicord; in the second, the strings mostly saw away even faster together, apart from a section when the violas rapidly repeat the same chord numerous times, while Maxim plays louder and louder, faster and faster chords on the keyboard. By the final flourish he is on his feet, hitting the keys so hard that the wood rattles. And this amounts to? For the orchestra and most of the audience a completely joyous experience! Many on the stage and in the hall smile broadly or laugh out loud. Gorecki said himself that it was a bit of a prank. If so, it’s surely an innocent one in which there is no fall guy and everyone can enjoy the joke.
During the interval, the harpsichord gets appropriate loving care from the tuner, as the stage is set mainly with music stands: the players are going to stand during the Vivaldi. Seasoned SCO attendees anticipate the exciting playing which this always inspires.
After a change in programme we begin with the 1740 Concerto con molti instrumenti RV558. The many instruments include a big and a small theorbo, two mandolins, two (or more) recorders, and two violins ‘in trombo marina’ Modern violins have tin-foil pressed over their bridges to recreate buzzing sound, which – we think – was the horn-like sound which Vivaldi wanted.
The allegro molto first movement is in my top ten of baroque music. Catchy and rhythmically bouncy, it shows off these wonderful rasping, whistling, crooning and plucking sounds to perfection. I recognised it immediately as one of the first discs purchased for that miracle innovation, the CD player, in 1986 and one seemingly also appreciated during various bouncing activities by my son a few years later. After repetitions of this theme for full orchestra the quieter middle section features pairs of instruments getting their turn in the limelight, some with nicely syncopated variations. A brief recapitulation (Vivaldi concertos never outstay their welcome), and we’re into the lovely short Andante, mainly played by the strings, before the allegro final movement contains more work for paired instruments, this time with the winds getting more of a hearing. Maxim directs from the harpsichord. I urge you to find this cheerful and virtuosic piece online and spend 10 minutes listening to it!
Surprisingly and delightfully, the subversive twentieth century composer Paul Hindemith plays it absolutely straight in his ‘Suite Französiche Tänze’ (1948). These tiny dances for small string and wind ensemble mimic the baroque sound world with ease. Maxim carries a small chair-leg on to conduct, but it proves to be a small recorder on which he tootles with expertise. As in the Vivaldi, the players are mostly in pairs of instruments. There’s a trumpet here too, and Louise Lewis Goodwin adds bell-like percussive noises.
After this harmonious interlude, Vivaldi’s Concerto for four Violins and Violoncello Op 3 No 8 RV 580 concludes the programme. Written in 1711, it’s from much earlier in the Red Priest’s long career, but already we can see his liking for composing for duetting strings. In the second movement, very slow reflective largo passages are interspersed with quicker larghetto sections in which he explores simultaneously different bowing techniques for the four violins. We’re reminded that Vivaldi was always an innovator. After much-deserved applause, we have an encore, just for strings, and we’ve come full circle to Grieg, with Solveig’s Song from Peer Gynt bringing the concert to a peaceful close.
Another great night at the Queen’s Hall. Before finishing can I recommend that, perhaps while listening to Vivaldi 558, you might look online here for details of the Christmas Give 2022? Between November 29th and December 6th, the value of any donation to the SCO will be doubled. In the weeks after the Filmhouse has closed, and the Book Festival has announced drastic cuts, it’s more important than ever to secure continuing wonderful performances from the SCO.
