Scottish Chamber Orchestra
Usher Hall
Alma and Gustav Mahler compared!
This was the enticing headline of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra concert in the Usher Hall tonight and the interpreter was Scotland's favourite mezzo-soprano, Karen Cargill. She was guided by late substitute conductor Kensho Watanabe, taking the place of Mark Wrigglesworth. The conductor didn't display any signs of nervousness in his conducting, seeming very much at home with the orchestra and with Karen Cargill.The concert opens with a lively Mozart overture to the opera Idomeneo, very short and sweet, a perfect opening taster played with gusto by the SCO. The Orchestra looks tonight more like the RSNO, with 70 plus musicians, no doubt necessary for Mahler's fourth symphony.
The main interest of the programme is Alma Mahler's six songs, written in 1906 and orchestrated by Colin and David Mathews in 1996. Alma Mahler (1897-1964) was the golden girl of Vienna, who married Gustav Mahler when she was 22. He insisted she give up composing to look after him; no doubt because of that the marriage didn't last long and later she married the great German architect Walter Gropius. These six songs, sung by Karen Cargill tonight, were composed when Alma was very young, possibly in her teens. Regrettably her immaturity shows: they are pretty and of course Karen Cargill sings them well, but frankly they are underwhelming, and later when Karen sang Gustav Mahler's The Heavenly Life, the fourth movement of his fourth symphony, the contrast is very sharp. On this comparison there is no doubt who was the better composer.
Mahler's Fourth Symphony was premiered in Munich in 1901. He had been working on it for 2 years previously, but since he was director of the opera in Vienna he didn't have much time for composition. It is a mighty work and the expanded SCO under Watanabe handle it wonderfully. Karen Cargill's singing in the fourth movement is indeed heavenly. There is an ongoing issue of singing in a foreign language at the Usher Hall, and that is the question of understanding. Sometimes the lighting is too dim to follow the words in the programme. Fortunately that wasn't the case tonight, but I estimate that more than half the audience didn't have programmes so were unable to follow the words. I have raised this issue before with the RSNO and the SCO, and it seems to be a question of the cost of using surtitles, even though facilities for these are available at the Usher Hall. The Festival uses them regularly for concert operas, and as in opera houses around the world, it greatly aids understanding of the music. Still, despite this, this was an enjoyable concert, and the Usher Hall audience gave it a warm reception.
