SCO, 03/10/2017
Rautavaara : Cantus Arcticus
Vasks : Viola Concerto (Maxim Rysanov, viola)
Respighi : Gli Uccelli
Copland : Appalachian Spring - Suite
Scottish Chamber Orchestra
Olari Elts
Cantus Arcticus, or Concerto for Birds and Orchestra, is probably Rautavaara's most popular orchestral work, its luminous orchestral writing, and the sheer whimsy of the inclusion of a tape track of actual birdsong, having by now captured audiences' imaginations quite thoroughly. This is the third time I've heard it live, in the space of maybe a decade, not to mention numerous passages on the radio. Rautavaara certainly deserved his reputation as one of Finland's foremost composers in the wake of Sibelius, and the Cantus Arcticus is often spoken of as one of the natural successors to Sibelius's great evocations of Finnish landscape and nature. However, there's another comparison I have always found more apposite, to the glacial beauty of Vaughan Williams's Sinfonia antartica, and tonight's performance certainly drew that forth for me again. Rautavaara's score is, despite the bird-calls, less alien than RVW's, less dangerous, but the cool, distant appeal is very similar, and came across very well here.
Pēteris Vasks's new Viola Concerto was written for tonight's soloist, and given its premiere last year. The orchestral part is for strings only, an interesting choice given that the solo instrument is also a stringed one, and you would normally be looking for contrasting colours in the score. Instead, the viola seems to emerge organically from the string texture, and now, with a couple of hours' hindsight, the concerto seemed to me to be equally organic, like watching a tree grow. The outer movements are slow, its birth and death, perhaps, while the central section is more energetic, its flourishing, dominated by a long and immensely complex cadenza for the soloist. The style is overall fairly lyrical, but it coils and uncoils in extended, almost meandering phrases, winding up to climaxes that never quite emerge or, as at the end of the cadenza, come to an abrupt, cliff-hanging stop. Rysanov met the technical demands effortlessly, while deploying a rich, warm timbre in a thoughtful and gracious performance.
On consideration, tonight's concert looked rather like a musical exercise in six degrees of separation. Finland and the Baltic States have long had close cultural connections. Latvia, from whence Vasks hails, however, didn't really exist in its present form until a brief period of independence between the two World Wars, and during Respighi's student years was very much part of the Russian Empire. Respighi's first paying job (as a violinist) was in Saint Petersburg, where he met Rimsky-Korsakov, whose pupil he became for a few months, and from whom he learnt the glittering command of orchestration that marks so much of his music. And Aaron Copland, who was from a family of Lithuanian Jewish origins, was Rautavaara's teacher in the late 50s.
Respighi's suite The Birds, however, was not an exercise in new music, like all the other pieces tonight, but rather one in old music. Both Respighi and his wife were notable early-music scholars, and Respighi frequently used his findings in his own music. It's not neo-classical in the way that Stravinsky's music defines that particular genre; Respighi's musical idiom was too intrusive or transformative for that. Nevertheless, The Birds, and the suites of Ancient Airs and Dances come as close as anything to the neo-classical style, for there Respighi was primarily orchestrating keyboard or lute music. His orchestrations are very colourful, and in The Birds, he amuses himself, and charms his audience, with the bird imitations, from the specific calls (some very insistent cuckoos) to a more generalised fluttering and twittering. As in the Rautavaara at the start of the evening, the winds section had ample opportunity to shine, and seized it, figuratively speaking, with both hands.
Finally, the suite from Copland's ballet Appalachian Spring, which is the one piece I have heard specifically from this orchestra before. It was a pity, therefore, that this particular reading did not quite come up to the standards previously encountered. It's a little difficult to pinpoint the exact source of dissatisfaction was, but there were two things in particular. First of all, I found, at times, Elts's choice of tempi a trifle eccentric. There was an impression of jostling and shoving, pushing the lines a bit out of shape at times. The result was a sort of disjointed impression of the overall piece. Although this was the Suite, and not the complete ballet, there should still be a sense of the progression of the day, from dawn to dusk. The dawn and the dusk were nicely enough done, but in-between, the transit was not entirely cohesive.
Secondly, although once again the winds were playing very well indeed, I was not getting that "open-air" feel, that sense of drawing in deep lungfuls of pure, fresh air, that is absolutely integral to this score, and much of early Copland in general. It is, perhaps, that Joseph Swensen's lovely performance with the SCO six years ago is still clear in my mind, that I came away just a little discontented, from what was otherwise a very interesting programme, finely executed.
[Next: 4th October]
Vasks : Viola Concerto (Maxim Rysanov, viola)
Respighi : Gli Uccelli
Copland : Appalachian Spring - Suite
Scottish Chamber Orchestra
Olari Elts
Cantus Arcticus, or Concerto for Birds and Orchestra, is probably Rautavaara's most popular orchestral work, its luminous orchestral writing, and the sheer whimsy of the inclusion of a tape track of actual birdsong, having by now captured audiences' imaginations quite thoroughly. This is the third time I've heard it live, in the space of maybe a decade, not to mention numerous passages on the radio. Rautavaara certainly deserved his reputation as one of Finland's foremost composers in the wake of Sibelius, and the Cantus Arcticus is often spoken of as one of the natural successors to Sibelius's great evocations of Finnish landscape and nature. However, there's another comparison I have always found more apposite, to the glacial beauty of Vaughan Williams's Sinfonia antartica, and tonight's performance certainly drew that forth for me again. Rautavaara's score is, despite the bird-calls, less alien than RVW's, less dangerous, but the cool, distant appeal is very similar, and came across very well here.
Pēteris Vasks's new Viola Concerto was written for tonight's soloist, and given its premiere last year. The orchestral part is for strings only, an interesting choice given that the solo instrument is also a stringed one, and you would normally be looking for contrasting colours in the score. Instead, the viola seems to emerge organically from the string texture, and now, with a couple of hours' hindsight, the concerto seemed to me to be equally organic, like watching a tree grow. The outer movements are slow, its birth and death, perhaps, while the central section is more energetic, its flourishing, dominated by a long and immensely complex cadenza for the soloist. The style is overall fairly lyrical, but it coils and uncoils in extended, almost meandering phrases, winding up to climaxes that never quite emerge or, as at the end of the cadenza, come to an abrupt, cliff-hanging stop. Rysanov met the technical demands effortlessly, while deploying a rich, warm timbre in a thoughtful and gracious performance.
On consideration, tonight's concert looked rather like a musical exercise in six degrees of separation. Finland and the Baltic States have long had close cultural connections. Latvia, from whence Vasks hails, however, didn't really exist in its present form until a brief period of independence between the two World Wars, and during Respighi's student years was very much part of the Russian Empire. Respighi's first paying job (as a violinist) was in Saint Petersburg, where he met Rimsky-Korsakov, whose pupil he became for a few months, and from whom he learnt the glittering command of orchestration that marks so much of his music. And Aaron Copland, who was from a family of Lithuanian Jewish origins, was Rautavaara's teacher in the late 50s.
Respighi's suite The Birds, however, was not an exercise in new music, like all the other pieces tonight, but rather one in old music. Both Respighi and his wife were notable early-music scholars, and Respighi frequently used his findings in his own music. It's not neo-classical in the way that Stravinsky's music defines that particular genre; Respighi's musical idiom was too intrusive or transformative for that. Nevertheless, The Birds, and the suites of Ancient Airs and Dances come as close as anything to the neo-classical style, for there Respighi was primarily orchestrating keyboard or lute music. His orchestrations are very colourful, and in The Birds, he amuses himself, and charms his audience, with the bird imitations, from the specific calls (some very insistent cuckoos) to a more generalised fluttering and twittering. As in the Rautavaara at the start of the evening, the winds section had ample opportunity to shine, and seized it, figuratively speaking, with both hands.
Finally, the suite from Copland's ballet Appalachian Spring, which is the one piece I have heard specifically from this orchestra before. It was a pity, therefore, that this particular reading did not quite come up to the standards previously encountered. It's a little difficult to pinpoint the exact source of dissatisfaction was, but there were two things in particular. First of all, I found, at times, Elts's choice of tempi a trifle eccentric. There was an impression of jostling and shoving, pushing the lines a bit out of shape at times. The result was a sort of disjointed impression of the overall piece. Although this was the Suite, and not the complete ballet, there should still be a sense of the progression of the day, from dawn to dusk. The dawn and the dusk were nicely enough done, but in-between, the transit was not entirely cohesive.
Secondly, although once again the winds were playing very well indeed, I was not getting that "open-air" feel, that sense of drawing in deep lungfuls of pure, fresh air, that is absolutely integral to this score, and much of early Copland in general. It is, perhaps, that Joseph Swensen's lovely performance with the SCO six years ago is still clear in my mind, that I came away just a little discontented, from what was otherwise a very interesting programme, finely executed.
[Next: 4th October]