RSNO, 14/12/2017
Herrmann : Love Scene from Vertigo
Korngold : Violin Concerto (Baiba Skride, violin)
Tchaikovsky : Symphony No. 5
Royal Scottish National Orchestra
John Storgårds
The first half of tonight's concert was solidly anchored in Hollywood. To begin with, a major cue from Bernard Herrmann's score for Hitchcock's Vertigo. It's the moment when Judy resumes the appearance of Madeleine, because Scottie has asked it of her, and the wonderfully atmospheric score is probably the most significant aspect of that scene, as the camera tracks around the embracing pair. It is Herrmann at his evocative best, both passionate and fragile, intensely vulnerable, and beautifully played tonight, with all its Wagnerian undertones brought well forward, Storgårds clearly completely engaged with this music.
Korngold's Violin Concerto was created in 1947, at which point he had more or less retired from writing film scores. The concerto includes a good deal of music that appears in earlier film scores, although according to the violinist Bronislaw Huberman, who encouraged Korngold to write the concerto, it was perhaps more a question of themes from the concerto having been 'tried out' in film scores first.
It was created by Jascha Heifetz, and while I don't know if it was written with him in mind (particularly given that Huberman, also a very great interpreter, was around) but it's certainly clear in the violin writing that it's a piece ideally suited to Heifetz's sound, with much high-flying melodic writing, that calls on that particularly sweet, vibrant tone Heifetz could command in the upper reaches of the violin. Latvian violinist Baiba Skride threw herself into the concerto with evident relish, as did Storgårds and the orchestra, with just that right quality of sound, and a kind of devil-may-care flamboyance well suited to the bounce of Korngold's outer movements, while there was no lack of poetry in the slow movement.
With Tchaikovsky's 5th Symphony, we still were not too far away from highly visual music, first because the piece has a programme of sorts, secondly because the second and third movements really sound like preparatory work for Sleeping Beauty, especially the second. The first movement was given a good, efficient reading, but the second was superb, richly textured, with big-hearted, warm playing from Christopher Gough (Principal Horn).
After that, the third movement was oddly disappointing, the waltz not as smoothly flowing as it should be. It wasn't the primary theme that was the problem, so much as those skittery phrases of the Trio, which seemed a little snatched, and robbed the whole of its grace. The last movement, however, put things back on track, despite some slight exaggeration in changes of tempo (for my liking) and brought the whole to a suitably rousing conclusion.
[Next : 15th December]
Korngold : Violin Concerto (Baiba Skride, violin)
Tchaikovsky : Symphony No. 5
Royal Scottish National Orchestra
John Storgårds
The first half of tonight's concert was solidly anchored in Hollywood. To begin with, a major cue from Bernard Herrmann's score for Hitchcock's Vertigo. It's the moment when Judy resumes the appearance of Madeleine, because Scottie has asked it of her, and the wonderfully atmospheric score is probably the most significant aspect of that scene, as the camera tracks around the embracing pair. It is Herrmann at his evocative best, both passionate and fragile, intensely vulnerable, and beautifully played tonight, with all its Wagnerian undertones brought well forward, Storgårds clearly completely engaged with this music.
Korngold's Violin Concerto was created in 1947, at which point he had more or less retired from writing film scores. The concerto includes a good deal of music that appears in earlier film scores, although according to the violinist Bronislaw Huberman, who encouraged Korngold to write the concerto, it was perhaps more a question of themes from the concerto having been 'tried out' in film scores first.
It was created by Jascha Heifetz, and while I don't know if it was written with him in mind (particularly given that Huberman, also a very great interpreter, was around) but it's certainly clear in the violin writing that it's a piece ideally suited to Heifetz's sound, with much high-flying melodic writing, that calls on that particularly sweet, vibrant tone Heifetz could command in the upper reaches of the violin. Latvian violinist Baiba Skride threw herself into the concerto with evident relish, as did Storgårds and the orchestra, with just that right quality of sound, and a kind of devil-may-care flamboyance well suited to the bounce of Korngold's outer movements, while there was no lack of poetry in the slow movement.
With Tchaikovsky's 5th Symphony, we still were not too far away from highly visual music, first because the piece has a programme of sorts, secondly because the second and third movements really sound like preparatory work for Sleeping Beauty, especially the second. The first movement was given a good, efficient reading, but the second was superb, richly textured, with big-hearted, warm playing from Christopher Gough (Principal Horn).
After that, the third movement was oddly disappointing, the waltz not as smoothly flowing as it should be. It wasn't the primary theme that was the problem, so much as those skittery phrases of the Trio, which seemed a little snatched, and robbed the whole of its grace. The last movement, however, put things back on track, despite some slight exaggeration in changes of tempo (for my liking) and brought the whole to a suitably rousing conclusion.
[Next : 15th December]