RSNO, 28/05/2022

Holmès : La nuit et l'amour

Mendelssohn : Violin Concerto (Noa Wildschut, violin)

Berlioz : Symphonie fantastique

Royal Scottish National Orchestra

Fabien Gabel

In this age when many neglected female composers' works are being re-discovered, Augusta Holmès tends to get the short end of the stick, as far as I can tell, and I think it is partly because a lot of her output is on a seriously large scale, which renders it too impractical, too expensive, or both, to perform.  Yet of all the names emerging from the shadows, she is one of the most interesting, a fiercely independent, passionate spirit, a pianist, composer and lyricist whose talent and beauty drew many to her, and who held to her path despite all obstacles.  She wrote the cantata Ludus pro patria (Patriotic Games), inspired by a painting by Puvis de Chavannes, in 1888, and La nuit et l'amour is an orchestral interlude from it, a short piece of swooning romanticism, whose principal theme has the kind of lyrical sweep that Puccini would tap into so successfully a decade or so later.  Fabien Gabel and the strings of the RSNO indulged to the full, and its brevity was appreciated, because it was rather like a piece of white chocolate - delicious, but any more would feel a little sickly.

Originally, we were to have heard the Scottish premiere of Mark Simpson's 2021 Violin Concerto, written for Nicola Benedetti who was, naturally, to have played it.  However, Benedetti had to withdraw, which meant a change of concerto, as well as soloist.  In exchange we got the ever-popular Mendelssohn concerto, with young Dutch violinist Noa Wildschut as soloist.  This was a very respectable reading, with fine support from the orchestra, but I found Wildschut's timbre a little under-nourished in the upper reaches, as well as occasionally subject to suspect intonation, and like Jörg Widmann a couple of weeks ago, she seems to be another player who tends to play towards the orchestra, rather than the audience.  At any rate, we all saw a good deal more of her back than might be expected of a solo violinist, and it does create an exclusionary atmosphere that is unwelcome.  I'm not saying any soloist (of those who are free of constraints unlike, say, pianists or cellists) should stand face forward and not move from that position.  If they feel like moving around, well and good, but there are ways of doing it that do not give the audience the impression that the soloist is literally turning their back on them, and especially not when doing so alters the sound of the instrument.  Patricia Kopachinskaya is a an excellent example of how to be mobile and lively, and continue to reach out to the audience.

Hearing the Symphonie fantastique hard on the heels of the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto - which it predates by fifteen years - is just one more flagrant example of how extraordinarily forward-looking that flamboyant, extravagant score is.  It's impossible to imagine Mendelssohn - even the wonderfully inspired Mendelssohn of the Octet, or the Dream incidental music - writing anything as raw and as raucous as the last movement of the Fantastique, with that wailing slide of flutes and clarinets in the opening bars, and the deliberately squawky rendition of the idée fixe that immediately follows.  And yet, the shadow of Beethoven is there, so very clear, so much of its time.  Gabel gave an excellent reading, plenty of forward momentum so the first and third movements never dragged, while the waltz of the second swirled with dizzying grace.  Ravel may have called Berlioz a "musician of great genius and little talent",  La Valse nevertheless owes a clear debt to this movement.  The force of the last two movements pinned us back in our seats with all the energy of a rollercoaster, which is exactly what this music is, and deserves to be enjoyed as such.

[Next : perhaps 7th June, for a live stream, otherwise 30th June]