Scottish Chamber Orchestra: Tchaikovsky’s Fifth

Queen’s Hall - 4/5/23

John Storgards, conductor | Lawrence Power, viola

As the Scottish Chamber Orchestra take their places for the last Queen’s Hall concert of the season, it’s good to see Colin Scobie in the Leader’s seat.  I’ve heard Colin several times as first violin with the Maxwell Quartet at Paxton, where their playing of Haydn and their own arrangements of Scots fiddle tunes have been greatly appreciated. Ruth Crouch makes a welcome reappearance with the first violins.

The concert begins with ‘The Tempest Suite No 2’ by Sibelius, a selection the composer made from his incidental music for Copenhagen’s Royal Theatre performance of the play in 1925.  The original music was written for a large orchestra as was the Suite No 1, but this suite was specifically written for chamber orchestra.  The nine short movements don’t follow the play’s narrative but present characters and episodes from different parts of the text.

The work features several distinctive sounds which together provide an atmospheric commentary on Shakespeare’s magical island. The harp symbolises Prospero and is often accompanied by rumbling timpani, as in the opening ‘Chorus of the Winds.’ Louder harp and a beating drums are heard in the dances. A bass clarinet, played by Scott Lygate, provides a resonant lower timbre, often accompanied by Maximiliano Martin on clarinet , and the bassoonists, Cerys Ambrose-Evans and Alison Green.  They and the brass combine to create the baroque-style tribute to Prospero, always depicted with some ambiguity as well as pomp. Throughout the work the string tone is particularly beautiful, creating a secure foundation for the contrasting harp and timpani on either side of them.  Conductor John Storgards and the orchestra provide a vivid account  of this relatively unfamiliar work.

I last heard Lawrence Power when he played with Nicola Benedetti at the SCO’s last Edinburgh concert before lockdown in March 2020.  Their poignant encore was Sally Beamish’s arrangement of Peter Maxwell Davies’ ‘Farewell to Stromness’ which ends with the players leaving the stage one by one.   Tonight Power plays the UK premiere of Cassandra Miller’s ‘I cannot love without trembling (Viola Concerto)’ which he premiered in Brussels in March.  Power, a advocate for new music, intends to commission ten viola concertos, of which this is the first.  Cassandra Miller, a Canadian composer is currently based in London, and her work has been championed by critics Andrew Clements and Kate Molleson, who chose her ‘Duet for cello and orchestra’ (2015) as one of the Guardian’s 25 best pieces of  21st century  music.

The concerto is in one movement written in five sections, four ‘verses’ and a cadenza, each of which has a title.  The title of the second ‘verse’ and of the whole work is from the writing of French philosopher, Simone Weil, who wrote in the last year of her life, “Human existence is so fragile a thing and exposed to such dangers that I cannot love without trembling.”  The work is also influenced by the music of Greek violinist, Alexis Zourbas. You can read Miller’s full commentary here.

In the first two sections, Power plays on the highest possible notes of the viola.  He’s accompanied by percussion and by swooping strings.   From the third ‘verse’, ‘Buried deep under the sound of lamentations is the pearl of the silence of God,’ Power plays the viola at a deeper pitch, and some melodic lines for the cello also explore the idea of depth. Power begins the cadenza by interspersing bowed sections with single plucked notes.  He’s later joined by percussion, sometimes a bell-like effect but at others a scraping noise, apparently made by running a bow along the side of a xylophone.  A very loud piccolo is also heard.  There’s much applause at the end for the performer, the orchestra and the composer, who is in the audience.

Before the concert I listened to part of the concerto online, and during the performance thought about other contemporary works based on pre-existing texts or music which I’ve enjoyed, Thomas Ades’ 2003 opera, ‘The Tempest’, and Errollyn Wallen’s 2021 opera, ‘Dido’s Ghost.’  Both feature sopranos singing near the upper limits of their range.  Unfortunately, I found it hard to engage with this work, and the musical effects often made me feel physically uncomfortable.  I’ll comment no further, but will direct readers who wish to judge for themselves to the New Yorker music critic, Alex Ross, who was at the Brussels premiere and said the concerto is “immensely beautiful and immensely haunting.”  His blog, which you can find here contains a link to the live stream.

After the interval the orchestra returns for Tchaikowsky’s ‘Symphony No 5 in C Minor.’ The version played tonight is the SCO’s arrangement of George Morton’s chamber orchestration from 2017.   He wrote it for one stringed instrument per part, while the SCO play with their normal forces of around 40 musicians.

The lower clarinet notes, so prominent in the Sibelius, introduce the fate theme in the first movement andante, and the clarinets with bassoons often begin new musical themes in this symphony.  The slow opening march changes to an allegro as the strings, sometimes sweeping, sometimes shimmering with light pizzicato build up a crescendo where they’re joined by the full weight of the brass, with trumpets and trombones.  Throughout the work, Storgards clarifies the shape of the work and gives due emphasis to the different dynamics.  There are loud passages in this movement but it ends quietly,  The second movement, andante cantabile, starts softly with a lovely horn melody (possibly the inspiration for John Denver’s ‘Annie’s Song.’) The oboe briefly introduces a second theme, and the movement consists of the development of these two melodies in  strings and woodwinds.  The brass intervenes twice when the fate motif interrupts the serenity.  The third movement allegro is a gentle waltz with some off-beat additions by bassoon and flute. There’s no brass in this section, but the fate theme reappears suddenly but quietly in the woodwinds at the end of the movement.  It returns, in a major key in solemn march time, in the andante maestoso  at the start of the finale.  The brass and timpani emphasis the solemnity until the strings introduce a bright dance marked allegro vivace.  Storgards and the orchestra emphasise the tension between these different moods and musical themes throughout the movement.  Even as we get to the final cadences, there are a number of false endings to negotiate before fate finally has its way.  It’s an appropriately barnstorming finish which brings sections of the audience to their feet during the tumultuous applause.

Next week is the last concert in the season at the Usher Hall with Maxim Emelyanychev conducting the orchestra and SCO Chorus in Brahms Requiem.