BBC SSO/Gourlay
BBC SSO/Gourlay
City Hall, Glasgow
Michael Tumelty
OH dear. I am going to be lynched for this; for the rest of the week I'd better go in disguise. As the crowd poured out of the City Hall yesterday, flushed with excitement and passion from the emotional gamut they had run in the performance they'd just heard of Tchaikovsky's Sixth Symphony, The Pathetique, all I could hear were expressions such as "incredible", "astonishing", and " powerfully moving". So why was this listener unmoved? Why had I turned to stone?
In my view, conductor Andrew Gourlay barely scratched the surface of the symphony. That symphony is not a collection of notes. It is one the greatest creations in musical history. It is a living, breathing, and ultimately dying organism.
It pulses with emotion, but that pulse has to be activated by the conductor. Gourlay's pacing was routine and erratic. He failed to secure sound synchronisation of the big ensemble.
He was often inflexible in his pacing. He got a poor balance from the brass section, which was too loud. There was little sense of real dynamic shading, warmth, or of come and go with the momentum of the music.
Of course there was excitement in the stunning march of the penultimate movement, but that was the electric playing of the SSO, supping deep from its personal well of fierce intensity. Worst of all, I have never heard that finale so quickly hurried through its final exhalations. I was rigid at its superficiality.
Martin Roscoe's brilliantly characterised portrait of Strauss's Burleske, and the SSO's charming account of Mozart's wee Seventh Symphony saved the day for this soul. The stars are for the SSO playing.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article