RCSSO, 16/02/2018
Tchaikovsky : Hamlet Overture
Stravinsky : Symphony in Three Movements
Mussorgsky : Night on Bald Mountain
Stravinsky : The Firebird - Suite (1919)
Royal Conservatoire of Scotland Symphony Orchestra
Geoffrey Paterson
The Conservatoire's orchestral concerts have a tendency to be well-stocked (so to speak) and on the lush side. It's mostly so as to provide as much opportunity to as many of their young players as possible, but in any event, the end results tend to be rather enjoyable. Certainly this all-Russian programme was very much to my taste, and I was looking forward to see what they would make of it.
The Hamlet overture is the last of Tchaikovsky's Shakespeare trilogy of symphonic poems, and the least known. It's not difficult to see why, the melodic inspiration is not quite at the same level as its predecessors. Tchaikovsky's characteristic sequences of repeated melodic cells on a rising or falling scale are particularly obvious here, and it takes a truly inspired conductor and orchestra to really make something of it. The performance tonight had its moments, but there were some balance problems, some sections either just a little submerged, or a little too prominent at times. It was a little like looking at an image through a lens that had to be constantly adjusted, and the focus would slip from time to time.
The Stravinsky was much better, more incisive, and a clearer sound from the brass and winds. The middle of the first movement wandered slightly, but the elegant, neo-classical pastiche of the slow movement was very nicely done. The fugato of the last movement could have been more precise, but on the whole this was a good, solid performance.
It was the Mussorgsky that finally tipped me off as to the primary difficulty with the playing tonight. This was the original version, which I have never heard in concert, and it's certainly startling to realise just how profoundly Rimsky-Korsakov tampered with the score to create the version better known to most of us. However, there was a distinct lack of shiver-factor, very little sense of supernatural shenanigans, and watching Geoffrey Paterson, I thought that, frankly, he looked a little bored with it. His conducting seemed stiff and mechanical, and looking back at the first half, I realised that the same thing - though to a lesser extent - had been the case in the Tchaikovsky. When it came to the Firebird suite, the difference was immediately apparent. Paterson has quite a CV in contemporary music, and it seems that he distinctly favoured Stravinsky over the other composers. If the conductor's not all that interested in a particular score, how can you expect the orchestra to be?
The Firebird suite was everything the Mussorgsky was not, full of mystery from the outset, then alive with rustling wings and fire, then the antique grace of the Ronde des princesses, to truly set the scene. The Infernal Dance leapt and bounded, the Lullaby soothed, and the French Horn fulfilled his part of the contract admirably with the "sunrise" leading into a triumphant, glittering Finale. This was an excellent reading, genuinely magical, with orchestra and conductor excited by and committed to the music, and able to communicate that to us.
[Next : 21st February]
Stravinsky : Symphony in Three Movements
Mussorgsky : Night on Bald Mountain
Stravinsky : The Firebird - Suite (1919)
Royal Conservatoire of Scotland Symphony Orchestra
Geoffrey Paterson
The Conservatoire's orchestral concerts have a tendency to be well-stocked (so to speak) and on the lush side. It's mostly so as to provide as much opportunity to as many of their young players as possible, but in any event, the end results tend to be rather enjoyable. Certainly this all-Russian programme was very much to my taste, and I was looking forward to see what they would make of it.
The Hamlet overture is the last of Tchaikovsky's Shakespeare trilogy of symphonic poems, and the least known. It's not difficult to see why, the melodic inspiration is not quite at the same level as its predecessors. Tchaikovsky's characteristic sequences of repeated melodic cells on a rising or falling scale are particularly obvious here, and it takes a truly inspired conductor and orchestra to really make something of it. The performance tonight had its moments, but there were some balance problems, some sections either just a little submerged, or a little too prominent at times. It was a little like looking at an image through a lens that had to be constantly adjusted, and the focus would slip from time to time.
The Stravinsky was much better, more incisive, and a clearer sound from the brass and winds. The middle of the first movement wandered slightly, but the elegant, neo-classical pastiche of the slow movement was very nicely done. The fugato of the last movement could have been more precise, but on the whole this was a good, solid performance.
It was the Mussorgsky that finally tipped me off as to the primary difficulty with the playing tonight. This was the original version, which I have never heard in concert, and it's certainly startling to realise just how profoundly Rimsky-Korsakov tampered with the score to create the version better known to most of us. However, there was a distinct lack of shiver-factor, very little sense of supernatural shenanigans, and watching Geoffrey Paterson, I thought that, frankly, he looked a little bored with it. His conducting seemed stiff and mechanical, and looking back at the first half, I realised that the same thing - though to a lesser extent - had been the case in the Tchaikovsky. When it came to the Firebird suite, the difference was immediately apparent. Paterson has quite a CV in contemporary music, and it seems that he distinctly favoured Stravinsky over the other composers. If the conductor's not all that interested in a particular score, how can you expect the orchestra to be?
The Firebird suite was everything the Mussorgsky was not, full of mystery from the outset, then alive with rustling wings and fire, then the antique grace of the Ronde des princesses, to truly set the scene. The Infernal Dance leapt and bounded, the Lullaby soothed, and the French Horn fulfilled his part of the contract admirably with the "sunrise" leading into a triumphant, glittering Finale. This was an excellent reading, genuinely magical, with orchestra and conductor excited by and committed to the music, and able to communicate that to us.
[Next : 21st February]