BBCSSO, 01/12/2022
Adès : Three-Piece Suite from Powder Her Face
Bloch : Schelomo (Pablo Ferrández, cello)
Rimsky-Korsakov : Scheherazade
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
Alpesh Chauhan
From his first, ground-breaking opera, Powder Her Face, Thomas Adès initially created the "Dances", and then three Suites, for full symphony orchestra, where the opera itself is a chamber opera for four singers and 15 instrumentalists. The "Three-Piece Suite" is the first of these (adapted from the original "Dances"), with movements labelled "Overture", "Waltz" and "Finale". The 20s dance-band element features strongly in the outer movements, but skewed and mocking. In fact, the whole piece sounds like the musical equivalent of a first-rate bender, as the music lurches drunkenly around, raucous and sleazy and a little sinister, with a ticking, mechanical music-box centre. It's a striking opener to any concert, but sort of gives you a hankering for a good drink yourself.
Ernest Bloch was Swiss-born, but moved permanently to the United States in 1916, eventually taking full American citizenship. His best-known works are mainly those in which he explored his Jewish heritage, and although they appear throughout his life, there is a particular batch which fall between 1912 and 1916, of which Schelomo (subtitled a Hebrew Rhapsody) is the last. It was also the last work he completed before emigrating, and it received its premiere at Carnegie Hall in New York.
It is a work for solo cello and large orchestra. The name is the Hebrew form of Solomon, as in the King of Israel, son of David, from the Bible, and the work is a portrait of the king, and his thoughts on the world around him. It's a solemn, brooding piece, you feel that Solomon is not particularly hopeful, and it ends quietly and darkly. There are moments, when the full orchestra is unleashed, when there seems to be a cinematic quality to the music, as if written for a Hollywood Old Testament epic, until you remember that those were yet to come and, if anything, Bloch showed how it should be done. Certainly the Jewish nature of the music is unmistakable, without being predictable. Spanish cellist Pablo Ferrández deployed a rich, dark tone, yearning and questioning, and Chauhan and the orchestra provided lush, evocative support.
Of the five concerts I've seen Alpesh Chauhan conduct, he has played Russian music in four of them. Two were 20th Century music, but the other two, including tonight, were Late Romantic, and in the light of tonight's reading of Scheherazade, I have been wondering whether that repertory, the big, late-19th Century pieces, are quite his cup of tea. Almost exactly a year ago, it was a very humdrum performance of Tchaikovsky's 6th Symphony; tonight, the Rimsky-Korsakov very definitely got off on the wrong foot with too slow an introduction. It wasn't just the introduction either, the rocking figuration (mostly in the cellos) that should evoke the swell of the sea was just a fraction too slow, and became stilted and unnatural.
The problem persisted throughout. The central sections of the second and third movements were a little better, but "The Young Prince and the Young Princess" - which was already my least favourite movement - became syrupy with sentiment, too thickly texture, and tooth-decayingly sweet. Only the final movement hit the right tempi, by and large, until the great surge of the return of the sea settled back down, and the rocking figuration was again a little on the slow side. It wasn't much, a tick or two on the metronome, but it was noticeable, as were the liberties Chauhan took with the tempi in general, pulling them around to excess. Otherwise, the orchestra was playing well, fine solos from the woodwind in particular, and leader Laura Samuel her usual reliable self, her tone sweet and expressive, even if the playing was not always absolutely clean. I realise two cases is hardly an adequate sample size, but just like last December, there was a form of self-indulgence going on here that wasn't doing the music any favours, and it was a pity to close what had been a very enjoyable evening on such an indifferent note.
[Next : 4th December]
