SCO, 04/03/2022

Bizet : L'arlésienne - Suite No. 1

Petitgirard : Oboe Concerto "Souen Wou K'ong" (François Leleux, oboe)

Beethoven : Symphony No. 2

Scottish Chamber Orchestra

François Leleux

Somewhere in the archives of French Radio, there is a broadcast recording of the complete L'arlésienne play, with all Bizet's incidental music in its original pit band orchestration, and a Comédie Française cast of which I primarily recall the redoubtable Berthe Bovy as Rose Mamaï.  I've only heard it once, but it really brought to life the quandary of this play.  The tale started out as a compact, compelling three-page story inspired by a real-life event, the suicide of Frédéric Mistral's nephew over a love-affair gone wrong, but then Daudet was asked to turn it into a 5-act play (sometimes delivered as 3 acts with 5 scenes), and that was really stretching the material very thin.  On the other hand, you have Bizet's music, which is inspired, and for an orchestra about half the size of that present on stage tonight, incredibly effective.  You end up sort of hanging in there, just to hear the music.  Fortunately, we have the orchestral suites, the first compiled by Bizet himself, the second by Guiraud (who wrote the recitatives for Carmen that allowed it to be performed at the Opéra).  There were a few uneven spots here and there tonight, I felt, but a very nice sax solo from Lewis Banks in the Prelude, and the Carillon was delightful.

I knew a little of Laurent Petitgirard for having been introduced to his first opera, Joseph Merrick, Elephant Man shortly after the Naxos recording came out, but I hadn't heard much else - excepting the music for the French television series of "Maigret" made during the 1990s, which I had not realised was Petitgirard's work.  I had initially been expecting something a little more rebarbative from this brand new oboe concerto, of which this was the second performance, but seeing the considerable body of film and TV composition to his credit, I should have known better.  Film music can certainly be challenging, but it's rarely indigestible, and so it proved with this concerto.  

The source of inspiration is the famous Ming Dynasty novel "Journey to the West" which (to paraphrase very roughly) recounts a pilgrimage in search of the ultimate truth, only to discover that the prize lies not at the end of the quest, but in the journey itself, and the lessons learned in the undertaking.  Souen Wou K'ong is one of the protagonists of this pilgrimage, the capricious Monkey King, a trickster-god figure like Loki, or Renard, or Anansi.  So there was much about this score that was quite playful, the oboe weaving in and out of the orchestral texture, which sounded much richer than the available forces would have suggested.  Directing an orchestra from the keyboard, or from the violin is not unusual; doing so from the oboe is much rarer, and although the concerto was written precisely for tonight's performers, and therefore in the full knowledge that Leleux would be both soloist and conductor, I do think it might benefit from separating out those two functions, although I may just be imagining that I heard a little slippage here and there.  Still, it was an enjoyable piece, engaging and quite easy on the ear.

Leleux ended the evening with an excellent performance of Beethoven's 2nd Symphony, bright and deft, full of bounce and vitality, with crisp articulation from the strings at all times.  However difficult Beethoven's life had become in the period of its composition, as he had to accept that his deafness was inevitable and irreversible, the music abounds with determination and resilience, and an appreciation of life to be lived to the full, and that was precisely that Leleux and the SCO delivered with gusto, in a rousing conclusion to the concert. 

[Next : 5th March]