Ravel’s Piano Concerto
Queen’s Hall - 25 April 2024
Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Andrew Manze, conductor, Steven Osborne, piano
Cellist Su-a Lee introduces tonight’s Scottish Chamber Orchestra concert with the news that the 2024-2025 programme has been launched. “I wouldn’t want to miss one note of it,” she says. (See it online Music for Everyone in 2024/25 | Scottish Chamber Orchestra and look out for the Edinburgh Music Review preview.) And she welcomes tonight’s conductor, Andrew Manze, with the further good news that he has just been appointed the SCO’s Principal Guest Conductor – a popular choice with the players and the audience, as the applause shows.
The link between the four works played tonight is Paris. Honegger and Ravel both lived there, and Haydn’s ‘Symphony No 87’ was one of his ‘Paris’ symphonies. For more details on the background to tonight’s works see David Kettle’s programme notes here Programme Notes | Scottish Chamber Orchestra. Arthur Honegger, recently confirmed as one of the groups of composers named ‘Le six’, was taking a break from the rigours of Parisian life in the Swiss mountains when he wrote ‘Pastorale d’été’ in 1920. The short piece for string orchestra and five wind instruments is a splendid opening number. Under guest leader, Russian-born American violinist, Johnny Gandelsman, the strings set up a rocking background as the horn begins a slow melody, shortly followed by clarinet and flute, imitating bird-song. The summer dawn which Honegger evokes, following the line from Rimbaud which prefaces the work, is languorous, rich with promises which are never quite fulfilled. There’s a brisker feel to a folk-like passage in which the bassoon leads the other wind instruments into a crescendo, but gradually the slower waves of the strings return to lull us as the short phrases from the wind instruments indicate pastoral sounds in the distance.
Pianist, Steven Osborne now takes the stage for Ravel’s ‘Piano Concerto.’ Written between 1929 and 1931, it is Ravel’s last completed major work, and the problems of its composition caused such a deterioration in his health that he became unable to play its first performance himself, as he had intended, and instead asked French pianist Marguerite Long to première the work. None of this strain is apparent in the concerto itself, in which the breath-taking virtuosity of the outer movements is balanced by the still centre of the slow movement’s heart-breaking melody. It’s played live rarely enough that many of the older audience find it unfamiliar - and could the many students and school-pupils here ask for a better introduction to the thrills of orchestral music?
The work calls for a large array of instruments: there are now three horns, the woodwinds are all doubled, Peter Franks is on trumpet and Duncan Wilson on trombone. In the “rhythm section” Louise Lewis Goodwin plays timpani alongside three percussionists. Often when that number of percussionists are playing, they are spread out along the back or the side of the stage, but here Tom Hunter, Alasdair Kelly and Kate Openshaw work closely together, very busily in the first and third movements, on various drums, cymbals, triangle and gong.
A whip-lash percussion sets off the vivace first movement and as the pianist plays preliminary flourishes on the upper notes and then ripples up and down the keyboard, the piccolo (Marta Gómez) makes its presence felt. There’s a sense of exploration in the concerto of the highest and lowest notes of the piano and the orchestra. A jazzy theme is begun, initially followed by the piccolo but continued as an introspective solo, eventually joined by bluesy brass, until interrupted by a faster percussive section on the piano, during which the trumpet and trombone, now harsher, provide a syncopated accompaniment. The Gershwin-like theme is elaborated over harp and gong, until the pianist beats out a tattoo on the bottom notes of the piano, rousing the rest of the orchestra to an increasingly frenzy when the raucous descending minor scale brings the first movement to a close. There’s an involuntary but entirely justified ‘wow’ from one young listener!
The long legato phrases of the second movement are a restrained expression of deep emotion. The piano is eventually joined by flute and then Katherine Bryer on cor anglais sets out a distinctive melody. After the strings make an appearance, she plays the main melody while Osborne provides a delicate tinkling accompaniment. The pianist takes off at high speed in the presto with the fully rested percussionists playing snare drum and the woodwind competing to produce the highest screeches. Trumpet calls briefly intervene before the piano races off again with the orchestra chasing towards the swift conclusion. It’s twenty virtuosic minutes which Osborne and Andrew Manze control with precision, and which demands exceptional performances from the individual performers I’ve mentioned and the whole orchestra. Last month I heard Steven Osborne’s concert of solos and duets by Ravel and Debussy at Stockbridge Church in which his spoken commentary was welcoming, witty and committed: he cared about this music and wanted other people to enjoy it too. That same dedication to the music is apparent tonight and explains why such an unshowy pianist receives such an excited ovation. His quiet encore, concentrating on the middle keys of the piano is, we learn later from Andrew Manze, his own transcription of Keith Jarrett’s recording of ‘My Song.’
After the interval we go back to the beginning of Ravel’s career for ‘Pavane pour une infante défunte’ in the orchestral version, written by Ravel in 1910, because of the popularity of the solo piano version from 1899. He apparently had no particular infant in mind and chose the title because it sounded good. Manze describes it as “another long slow movement by Ravel”, and in this setting for strings, horns, woodwinds and harp, the familiar tune is embellished with luscious harmonies.
Haydn’s Paris connection came about when after twenty years of writing exclusively for the Esterházy family, he was allowed in the 1780s to accept other commissions and was asked to compose six symphonies for the Concert de La Loge Olympique, conducted by Joseph Bologne, the Chevalier de Saint-Georges. ‘Symphony No 87 in A Major,’ numerically the last of the six, though the first composed, is a cheerful and energetic piece. Two natural horns provide the required oomph, and the ever-experimenting Haydn used sudden silences in the vivace opening movement, stopping the music in its tracks only to start again unperturbed a couple of seconds later. The adagio has an elaborate flute solo from André Cebrián, followed by a stomping clog dance masquerading as a minuet before the final movement returns us to the vigour of the opening. It’s enjoyable and receives an excellent performance from Manze and the orchestra.
This was the last of this year’s Queen’s Hall concerts (contrary to the information I gave you last week). Next week’s concert of three works by Vaughan Williams, also conducted by Andrew Manze, is in the Usher Hall, and young players from the SCO Academy will join the orchestra. In the final concert of the season on May 9th, Maxim Emelyanychev conducts the orchestra, the SCO Chorus and soloists in Mendelssohn’s ‘Elijah.’
