Scottish Opera, 06/07/2021
Dvořák : Serenade for Winds
Stravinsky : Octet
Crespo : Suite Americana No. 1
The Orchestra of Scottish Opera
Stuart Stratford
I did not expect the first orchestral performance I saw live in over a year to be given by the Orchestra of Scottish Opera, but they suddenly materialised three lunchtime concerts, during their Glasgow run of Falstaff, also given at the 40 Edington Street venue, and this one, for wind and brass players, offered a particularly interesting and unusual programme.
They began with Dvořák's luminous Serenade in D minor, inspired by Mozart's "Gran Partita" but a little more modest in format. The first movement was a trifle ponderous for my taste, but otherwise it was an attractive performance although, alas, the gentle 3rd movement gained the additional, and unwelcome accompaniment of pneumatic drill from some external worksite. Such are the unavoidable disadvantages of open-air performances in the middle of a busy city, particularly during working hours. The musicians, in true professional form, never batted an eyelid, and completed the work with a zesty Finale.
The scoring for Stravinsky's Octet of 1923 is typically atypical - flute, clarinet, two bassoons, two trumpets and two trombones - and a reviewer after a performance in Austria in 1924 described it as a 7th Brandenburg Concerto. If the start of Stravinsky's "neo-classical" phase is the ballet Pulcinella, the Octet is perhaps the point where Stravinsky lays full claim to the style, making it wholly his, as opposed to the pastiche nature of Pulcinella, which is a reworking of period pieces, rather than a wholly original work. The very dry quality of the instrumentation was well conveyed, and the best of the playing was in the Rondo Variations of the 2nd movement, lean and sharp, yet lyrical when required.
Enrique Crespo (1941 - 2020) was a Uruguayan composer, arranger, bandleader and trombonist, whose career was largely based in Germany. The Suite Americana No. 1, for brass quintet (two trumpets, French horn, trombone and tuba) was written in 1977, and the 'Americana' refers to the continent as a whole, although Crespo's view was definitely turned southwards, as he evoked New Orleans, Brazil, Peru, Argentina and Mexico in this 5-movement suite of dances. After a toe-tapping Ragtime, the music does, in the central movements, rather sound of its period, but the final "Son de Mexico" has a more intemporal, and exciting feel to it. It's rhythmically very complex music, however, and I imagine brass players enjoying getting into its challenges, as today's musicians (despite occasionally squally playing from the French horn) certainly seemed to. It was a lively conclusion to a rewarding lunchtime engagement.