Scottish Chamber Orchestra: Maxim’s ‘Eroica’
Usher Hall - 28/09/23
Maxim Emelyanychev, conductor | Kirill Gerstein, piano
Edinburgh’s Usher Hall is the second stop on the Grand Tour of Scotland, in which Maxim’s ‘Eroica’ visits six destinations at the start of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra’s 50th Anniversary celebrations.
Jay Capperauld is the SCO’s Associate Composer and the World Premiere of his ‘The Origins of Colour’ begins tonight’s well-attended concert. Based on a short story by Italo Calvino which tells how colour came to earth, the music moves from white noise, representing a colourless landscape, to flashes of dramatic sounds and rhythms, as colour arrives everywhere after a meteor explosion. Capperauld’ s ‘Death in a Nutshell’ two seasons ago, required different players to participate in percussive effects including, memorably, the use of (empty) beer bottles. Tonight Tom Hunter on timpani starts proceedings with a persistent rattling sound, then there’s whispering and wind noises as musicians blow across the mouth-pieces of their instruments, and a soft shushing sound, whose origin I can’t identify. This short colourless opening bursts into musical life with forceful pizzicato by the string sections – the four double bass players in the organ gallery seeming to hammer the strings, while the full sound of the timpani is unleashed, with the pedal used during playing to raise and lower the pitch. In Calvino’s story there is a love affair, though listening to the music, I can’t be sure where it starts. The pace becomes more frantic, while a woodblock scraped on metal and muted and unmuted brass provide further mysterious sounds. Then there’s a hush interrupted by a piccolo, and possibly a bassoon. Is this birdsong, and a precursor to a happy ending? No, an abrupt crack of the wooden blocks brings the work to a sudden close.
Can sounds replicate colour? Capperauld’ s work is a rewarding exploration of that idea, and I imagine will have left behind a variety of memories of the sounds heard and the colours and emotions evoked. His notes on its composition can be found in the programme here. In an interesting addition to the music, artist(and double bass player), Kirsty Matheson has painted five acrylic panels as her response to the music. On show at the Edinburgh and Glasgow concerts, they can be seen here.
We move from the new to the familiar. The Steinway is pushed on, more players move onstage including three trombone players - and the orchestra with pianist, Kirill Gerstein launch into Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No 1. But it turns out, not quite as we remember it. In his introductory talk, Principal Second Violin, Marcus Barcham Stevens tells us that this is the 1879 original version of the score with its less flamboyant opening, and gentler arpeggio chords. Gerstein recorded it in 2015 and said then that Tchaikovsky called this his lyrical concerto, “and it’s so important to get back to that idea … the small changes to the score make it very different, more subtle.” So this favourite warhorse of the big symphony orchestra is in this version ideally suited to the SCO’s 40-plus chamber forces.
The pianist and orchestra give us the best of both worlds. The opening section is thrilling without being bombastic, and then in the quieter central section as the piano explores the new folk-inspired theme, we can hear the details of the accompanying strings and winds. Gerstein’s performance is committed and sensitive throughout, with his technical brilliance on show in the prestissimo section of the second movement. Emelyanychev keeps up a pacy tempo in the third movement, as the orchestra and pianist seem to race together towards the brilliant conclusion. Gerstein responds to the audience cheers by announcing an encore which, unusually, will involve the orchestra – the second movement of Scriabin’s Piano Concerto, whose long legato lines provide a serene contrast to the Tchaikovsky.
After the interval, the orchestra returns to the earlier part of the nineteenth century: the modern drums are replaced by the smaller timpani, the trombones depart, there are period horns and trumpets and a bass clarinet. So from the first bars we hear a distinctly different sound. Maxim, as he often does, stands on the platform floor to conduct, moving around the U-shaped space formed by the front rows of the string sections. His hands seem to beat in double time as he starts conducting the Eroica, perhaps to better indicate the syncopated rhythms. Beethoven’s disillusionment with Napoleon, the original dedicatee of this symphony, is well known, and his rewritten epigraph, “composed to celebrate the memory of a once-great man,” suggests that the ‘Eroica’ (heroic) title may be ironic or even bitter. There’s certainly a driven quality in the playing of this first movement, especially the forceful pounding of the repeated chords which fits that interpretation. This symphony, like Tchaikovsky’s concerto, now so well-known, shocked as much as it excited its first audiences.
The second movement funeral march is deliberate and contained, with the double basses growling out the lower notes. The sudden forte outbursts featuring the period brass and timpani resound dramatically before the inevitable resumption of the slow match. There is a controlled tension in this movement which is released in the light airy scherzo in which the higher winds contrast with the rustic dance-rhythms of the strings. The four horns shine in their glorious hunting call in this movement of deceptively easy nonchalance showing the SCO at its best.
The finale is a set of variations on a simple theme, beginning with the basics, when the tune is played by the string principals, through variations featuring different sections of the orchestra, different tempos, and a fugue, until finally a brief, joyous and truly heroic conclusion emerges. The applause for Maxim Emelyanychev and the orchestra is enthusiastic and prolonged, as I imagine it will be everywhere on their Grand Tour.
Back at the Usher Hall on 12th October, Richard Egarr conducts the orchestra, the SCO Chorus and an outstanding cast of soloists in Bach’s B Minor Mass. On October 19th, Sally Breamish’s ‘Opus California,’ filmed in Leith Town Hall, is the first concert in the Digital Season, while on 26th October, works by Mozart and Haydn are played in a matinee concert at 2pm in the Queen’s Hall.
