Music
Scottish Chamber Orchestra
City Halls, Glasgow
Keith Bruce
five stars
PERHAPS more often heard singularly as encore pieces played by symphony orchestras, particularly the melodically gorgeous tenth and final one of the sequence, Robin Ticciati revealed Dvorak's Legends to be ideally suited to a chamber ensemble, the resources required never grand although varying piece by piece, and the music Dvorak at his lyrical best. On the orchestra's European tour the conductor has chosen a selection of half of them to play as a suite, but Edinburgh and Glasgow audiences were treated to the full set, teamed with two Mozart Piano Concertos with soloist Maria Joao Pires, the vibrant No 23 in A and the more melancholic – and operatic – No 27 in B Minor from the last year of the composer's life.
The tour programme (heard this week in Perth) also includes a Haydn symphony, but this concert was a real treat for the home ground, with Pires, who is a more musically mercurial performer than her modest demeanour can suggest, on absolutely magnificent form. Tiny and powerful, she is the ideal partner for the SCO, and their seasoned relationship produced the finest results here, with the contrast between the two concertos mirroring the transformation in the sound produced by the players between the Dvorak and the Mozart – rarely can a century's difference in compositional thought have been so eloquently expressed as it was here by Ticciati and the orchestra.
The final ingredient was the acoustic of the City Hall itself, which was utterly perfect for the clarity and balance of the music. If you were not among the large number of ticket holders on Friday evening, by sure to tune in to the BBC Radio 3 broadcast on Monday evening.
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