Music
SCO/Richard Egarr
City Hall, Glasgow
Keith Bruce
four stars
SUPERFICIALLY it may have appeared an understated celebration of the 25th anniversary of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra Chorus – hardly a venerable age for an amateur choir, as chorusmaster Gregory Batsleer conceded in his programme note – but this concert was beautifully shaped and a fine showcase for the capabilities of the Herald Angel-winning ensemble.
That came in the second half of the concert, when the comparative rarity of Mendelssohn's Verlieh uns Frieden – almost a pop song as much as a hymn – was followed by the Magnificat by the composer to whom it was a sort of homage, Johann Sebastian Bach. Conductor Richard Egarr's instrumental first half mirrored it, by preceding Mendelssohn's Reformation Symphony with Bach's Overture from Suite No.3, which he introduced as "Bach at his most joyful". With an extra string bass and Tony George playing early bass horn, the serpent, there was a precision about the instrumentation for the symphony that made the gorgeous orchestration of the second movement more apparent.
The same careful thought had gone into the staging of the Magnificat, with some of the soloists at the front of the stage but soprano Mhairi Lawson taking a place between choir and orchestra for her first appearance, and the trio, with mezzo Daniela Lehner and alto Susannah Bedford, a choral scholar from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, assembling in a similar location. Tenor Andrew Tortise and baritone completed the line-up in a beautifully detailed performance featuring lovely continuo and wind accompaniment from the players. Perhaps the men of the chorus lacked a little muscle in the finale, but this was a concert about precision rather than power.
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 here