SCO, 18/03/2022

Glass : Symphony No. 3

Stravinsky : Concerto in E flat "Dumbarton Oaks"

Barber : Adagio for Strings

Copland : Appalachian Spring - Suite

Scottish Chamber Orchestra

Hugo Ticciati

Philip Glass's 3rd Symphony was composed in 1995 for the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, and is scored for 19 string players.  It's structured in four movements, slow-fast-slow-fast, which gives it an almost Baroque feel, like an early Sinfonia, which is enhanced by the fact the third movement is a chaconne, with a ground bass.  By the 90s, Glass's particular brand of minimalism had become much less mechanistic, he was introducing more overt lyricism, singing out over the steadily pulsing rhythms that are his hallmark.  The first movement is more like a prelude to the vigourous second, which has something of a flavour of Bartók about it, a suggestion of some sort of stamping folk dance, and this atmosphere is picked up again in the last movement, whose syncopations also have a dance-like quality to them.  

However, the heart of the work is the 10 minutes of the chaconne.  The lower strings set up the bass, with a mid-level partial melody over it, building up in layers as various players enter the game.  The first violins stay silent for quite a while, until finally the leader (Ticciati, directing from the violin) introduces a high-flying, yearning theme, above the dark-timbred bass.  Each iteration of this theme introduces another violinist, who picks it up while those who  have played before embroider increasingly elaborately around it, until at one point, the theme seems to float in the middle of the orchestral texture, everywhere and nowhere at the same time.  It's a quite extraordinary effect, and to be honest, I'd have been just as happy to end the work there, on that rather other-worldly impression.  

The neo-Baroque connection having been formed, the step to Stravinsky's Dumbarton Oaks came easily; Stravinsky too utilised chugging rhythms, tireless and energising, though his homage to the Brandenburg Concertos is perfectly overt.  Ticciati resumed a more normal position on the conductor's rostrum for this (as for the Copland later), and directed with crisp efficiency and energy, producing a coolly elegant reading.  

Barber's Adagio for Strings needs no introduction, but I have to say that increasingly, I prefer it in its original context, as the slow movement of Barber's String Quartet.  I find that the enlargement to a string section actually dilutes the emotion of the piece, which is much more intense in its quartet form, and despite the sober quality of tonight's playing - and its dedication to the Ukrainian victims of the current Russian aggression - it never quite achieved that level of heart-wringing anguish that the string quartet alone can bring to it.

Copland actually wrote five ballets in all, but it's the three written between 1938 and 1944 that endure outside of the theatre, possibly even more so that inside.  They represent the core of Copland's "Americana", his representation of his country, of its territory, in music, and of the three, the last, Appalachian Spring, is probably the best known.  Looking back, I've heard this piece quite a lot - five times in ten years, twice previously from this same band, to whom it's clearly an old, familiar friend.  There was some lovely wind playing, particularly Maximiliano Martín's velvet clarinet, and nice, springy rhythms in the central sections, and the Simple Gifts variations showed a fine range of colour.  That said, there was a little magic missing from the very ending, which should be utterly serene, with a magically dimming radiance as the sun sets, and which here was just a well-managed fadeout.  

Still, this was a nice programme, varied and well delivered.

[Next : 23rd March]