Scottish Chamber Orchestra: Thomas Zehetmair
After last week’s all-standing, all authentic instruments concert, the SCO get a chance to sit down this week for a programme of Bach, Mendelssohn, and Haydn, with a bit of Mozart. Originally billed as Aurora, this concert was to have featured a double-bass concerto of the same name by Eotvos. This was cancelled only this week, and in its place, tonight’s conductor Thomas Zehetmair is to play and direct Bach’s Violin Concerto.
All the (distanced) seats seem to have sold, so there’s a large appreciative audience. The orchestra is again playing on the floor of the hall as Zehetmair stands centre front. During the Bach he directs minimally with a bare nod to the players to set the pace at the start of the first two movements. The programme notes that this concerto is an early example of modern concerto practice as the violin solo has different material from the orchestra. This is apparent in the Allegro first movement when the violinist has longer lines and employs more rhythmic freedom than the orchestra. However, unlike more modern concertos, the soloist and the orchestra play nearly all the time. So the band may be seated but are in continual motion. The slow movement is the most familiar, with the repeated insistent beat of it first theme set by the double basses. This is contrasted with the lighter second theme, with no lower strings and the soloist playing long slow notes above the orchestra. In his loose black silk shirt, Zehetmair is a compact figure on the stage, unshowy in his gestures, but producing beautiful sounds on the violin.
The other distinctive 18th century sound in the concerto is David Gerrard on harpsicord. Now he and the keyboard depart, and a podium is brought on before the second work. We do in fact have a premiere. It’s Zehetmair’s own conclusion of the fragment of a string trio which Mozart wrote in the last year of his life. Sitting in their usual places, the Leader, Cecilia Ziano, the Principal Second Violin, Gordon Bragg, and the Principal Cellist, Philip Higham, play Mozart’s 100 bars. It’s an engaging tuneful piece, with nice tricky touches for the first violin, very ably played by Ziano. Then the orchestra continues with an elaboration which as Zehetmair says in his commentary “pulverizes the pure sound of the Trio” – but in the nicest possible way!
The full orchestra comes on stage for Mendelssohn’s Overture, ‘Die Schőne Melusine’. This was a piece of youthful impertinence, written after Mendelssohn had heard but hadn’t much liked the overture to the older composer, Kreutzer’s new opera ‘Melusina’ in 1833. The brass - two horns and two trumpets at either end of the back row - and a full complement of woodwinds make their presence felt at the opening of the overture when they produce suitable “watery” music, with burbling bassoons, clarinet and horns to the fore. The sound is like the Rhinemaidens’ music in the Ring. Do we recognize it as watery music because we link it with Wagner? Or did the first audience know that it was music to represent Melusine, the water-nymph? (And did Wagner maybe pinch it?).
The second theme is more strident, with all the winds and timpani joining in, perhaps to represent Count Raymond, Melusine’s saviour but eventual nemesis. It’s a wonderfully rich sound. This overture and the Scottish Symphony in the first concert this season have been welcome reminders of less frequently played Mendelssohn works.
A slightly smaller group of winds remain for the final work, Haydn’s Symphony No 92 in G Major (Oxford). After 30 years working for the Esterhazy family, Haydn was able to branch out, visit northern Europe, make some money, and be feted as the great composer that he was. In June 1787, he was given an honorary degree at Oxford University, and this symphony was played at the Sheldonian Hall to mark the occasion. Though it may well have had earlier performances, it was thereafter nicknamed the ‘Oxford Symphony’. Hearing the jaunty first movement (allegro spirituoso) I’m reminded that it was when listening to Haydn Symphonies that I first realized how much syncopation there was in classical music! My father signed up for Concert Hall mail-order LPs when he got his treasured stereo system, and I still have his Haydn vinyl recordings, including the Oxford played by the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra under Lorin Maazel, a recording from the late 70s. It still sounds good, and Maazel, like Zehetmair tonight, drives the music forward through these syncopated rhythms in the first movement, and more subtly in the slow movement.
The Minuet and Trio third movement begins with a more pronounced regular beat, a very stately dance, with rhythmic variety to follow. Woodwind and brass have an important role in this symphony, not just playing with the strings, but often in short melodic sections in various combinations of wind instruments. The airy texture of the fourth movement is enhanced by having only two violins playing the rapid notes of the first subject before it’s picked up by the rest of the strings, and then working through a speedy crescendo adding woods, and timpani. There’s witty interplay between the various wind instruments and the rest of the orchestra, with the high woodwinds, and the brass alternating cheerfully in the spirited finale.
Two concerts ago, the SCO Chief Executive Gavin Reid said that the orchestra had entered lockdown as a world-class ensemble. These first three concerts, all different, have provided ample proof that this still holds true. We look forward to the rest of the season.
There’s another Haydn symphony in the SCO’s digital concert on 15th November. Also featuring ‘The Lark Ascending’ and Benjamin Appl singing Butterworth, it will be well-worth watching online. See the SCO’s website for details.
