Scottish Ensemble
Scottish Ensemble
City Hall, Glasgow
Michael Tumelty
JONATHAN Morton, artistic director of the Scottish Ensemble, himself asked the question of the night in his introduction to the group's concert in Glasgow on Sunday: in a programme entitled Love And War In Bohemia, what on earth is Handel doing here?
Morton's answer was disarmingly honest: "I have absolutely no idea." But the real question then was: does it matter?
And the answer to that was, unequivocally: not one jot.
Apart from anything else, the concert, which goes to the Wigmore Hall in London tomorrow night, was a marvellous display vehicle for the luxurious vocal riches of mezzo Sophie Harmsen to vent her rage and passion in arias from Hercules and Serse, and, impressively, explore emotional depths in the long, slow aria from Ariodante, which was numbing in its intensity.
Additionally, back on the Bohemian theme, Harmsen's presence gave the audience the rare opportunity to hear Dvorak's eight little Love Songs, in David Matthews's arrangement for voice and strings.
These are exquisite vignettes which, as Harmsen's performance demonstrated, exemplify the composer's genius at capturing, in just a few words and notes, the essence of an emotion.
We also heard, from the black side, Pavel Haas's Study For Strings, written in the death camp from which he never emerged.
And then (and how could it otherwise be Bohemian in the broadest sense?) we had a bit of noisy fun with Biber's riotously clattering Battalia before the concluding gem of the night - Josef Suk's idiomatic and glorious Serenade For Strings in a superb performance by the ensemble. I know this piece, and why it is not central to the repertoire is beyond me.
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