BUTTRESSING the Usher Hall programme at this year's festival will be two major choral concerts: Prokofiev's Alexander Nevsky with the RSNO conducted by Valery Gergiev on opening night, and Verdi's Requiem with the BBC SSO and Donald Runnicles, closing the festival three weeks later.
Blockbusters both; but actually, it's what's on in the hall on the nights in between that's more significant.
There was some widely held, if discreetly expressed, concern in the first few years of Jonathan Mills's tenure as festival director: that the Usher Hall programme, for many the heart of the Edinburgh International Festival, risked being sidelined. Everyone could understand Mills's urgency to address perceived gaps in programming, which basically he did by beginning with the early Baroque period and working backwards into medieval and even earlier times, digging right into the soil from which the earliest roots, shoots and influences upon western classical music emerged, from many continents. And of course the fascinating concert programmes that resulted, mostly staged in Greyfriars Kirk, became something of a cache, and big sellers in their own right.
The quiet concern about the Usher Hall programme persisted to a degree, though less so in recent years. But this year, Mills's penultimate as director, there is a rich, and rather stunning, Usher Hall programme, with night upon night of great performers, superb programmes, masses of the mainstream, and a few piquant and punchy elements bringing a tang to the brew. Here's a quick sweep through to whet your appetite.
After opening night, the BBC SSO and the electric Ilan Volkov follow with a crunchy night of Varese and Berio's spectacular Sinfonia, which asks big questions about the symphony as a species, but is also enormous fun, helping itself liberally to dollops of Mahler Two. The following two nights (August 11 and 12) the mighty Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra with the almighty Mariss Jansons blow into town with performances of Tchaikovsy's Pathetique and Beethoven's Fourth Piano Concerto with Mitsuko Uchida on night one, and Mahler Two the next night.
Uchida gets the hall to herself on August 13 for a recital of Bach, Schoenberg and Schumann, while the following two nights are given over to a survey of Schubert's symphonies by Mark Minkowski's magic band, Les Musiciens de Louvre. Then, in quick succession, we have the Chamber Orchestra of Europe with Yannick Nezet-Seguin (Metamorphosen and Eroica) the SCO and Ticciati (Faure Requiem) the COE/Seguin again ( with Mozart Sinfonia Concertante and Beethoven Seven).
Then the Russian National Orchestra and Pletnev move in for two nights with Nikolai Lugansky and both Rachmaninov's Second and Third Piano Concertos.
Things cool down a tad on August 21 and 22, with The Sixteen singing Carver and MacMillan, while super-cool Ian Bostridge sings Ives, Brahms and Schumann. They heat up again pronto with the arrival of the Bang on a Can All-Stars, then seriously turn up the voltage for David Zinman and the Tonhalle Orchestra, whose two programmes include Frank-Peter Zimmermann playing Brahms' Violin Concerto and the Edinburgh Festival Chorus singing Brahms' Requiem.
In between the Tonhalle concerts, Rene Jacobs takes the SCO for Beethoven's Prometheus music, while, on August 27, Peter Oundjian and the RSNO have a weird programme featuring Bruch's potboiler Violin Concerto (albeit with Pinchas Zukerman) and then contemporary US music by Rouse, Machover and Adams. Ensemble Musik-Fabrik run a tribute to Frank Zappa before, with the programme now in the home straight, the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir bring the music of Part, Schnittke and Rachmaninov to the big hall, followed by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra with Daniele Gatti playing Mahler Nine on the eve of Runnicles's closing Verdi Requiem. So there. A basket of delights at the Usher Hall. Enjoy.
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