Music

SCO/Uchida, Usher Hall, Edinburgh

Keith Bruce

Five stars

The programme for this week's concerts by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra had been sensibly re-ordered since the publication of the season brochure to chronologically sequence the French music that formed the bulk of it.

Conducting Faure's Pelleas et Melisande from a small plinth with neither score nor rail looked like a statement of intent from Robin Ticciati: here is big music best played by smaller forces, like the London theatre pit band for which it was first written. Ticciati is not a man to wallow in a tune, and the melodies here were given crisp expression as the perfect aperitif for the arrival of pianist Mitsuko Uchida.

There may be no finer thing than hearing someone as steeped in virtuoso performance of Mozart play the jazz-influenced concerto of Maurice Ravel, bringing that classical knowledge to bear on such definitively 20th century repertoire. The communication on stage was not just smilingly between soloist and conductor but with the whole orchestra, with harpist Eleanor Johnston on sparkling form. We'll hear Uchida solo in this hall in August, but this was all about team work.

This was also a concert that showcased the SCO's virtuoso winds, a particularly notable strength given the issues the band has to resolve in the strings, and while cor anglais Rosie Staniforth and bassoonist Peter Whelan had notable moments in the limelight, it was flautist Alison Mitchell out in front of an octet for Memoriale by Pierre Boulez. Again a showcase for more than the soloist, this little gem of conducted chamber music seemed another marker for what can be included in a big hall programme.

As for the concluding Haydn, "The Clock", with Whelan again on star form: why do we not hear more of this composer's many brilliant symphonies?