Renaud Capucon and friends

Renaud Capucon and friends

Queen's Hall, Edinburgh

Kate Molleson

ERICH Korngold is not everyone's slice of Sachertorte. (Oh to have never heard that indelible "more Korn than Gold" quip). The Viennese composer is best known as the man who invented the sound of Hollywood: think schmaltzy strings, harp glissandos and angelic offstage female choirs. The chamber music he composed in Europe before fleeing the Nazis in the late 1930s is similarly tuneful and breathless, but more intimate and occasionally daring in its way.

If you're going to listen to this music, it might as well be in the hands of someone as virtuosic and flamboyant as Renaud Capucon. The French violinist embraced the fervency of Korngold's early Violin Sonata in D, Op 6, bringing swing, passion and plenty of gushy slides to the overheated melodies.

His sound was on the harsh side, glinting off the score's gilt surfaces rather than absorbing their luxury.

Pianist Jerome Ducros was a fantastically muscular partner: he conjured up the extravagant orchestration that was to come in Korngold's opera Die tote Stadt.

Closing the concert was Korngold's Suite for two violins, cello and piano left hand, Op 23, written in 1929 for pianist Paul Wittgenstein, who had lost his right arm in the First World War.

Ducros was an easy match for its monumental left-hand challenges: he dutifully kept his right hand out of action (it must be tempting to cheat) and gave a storm of a performance. The string players (violinist Hanna Weinmeister and cellist Edgar Moreau made up the numbers) gave equally full-throttle attack.

Between the two Korngolds we heard very early student works by Mahler (Piano Quartet Movement) and Webern (Two Pieces for Cello and Piano). Both were ardently played and interesting enough as curios.

Ricercar Consort

Greyfriars Kirk, Edinburgh

Michael Tumelty

WHAT an amazing musical and cultural journey we've had in this year's Greyfriars series of concerts. We've travelled from Messiaen's prisoner of war camp, to the Sistine Chapel with the Collegium Vocale Gent, and to the Great Wall of China with the extraordinary Wu Man.

On Wednesday, Philippe Pierlot and his Ricercar Consort plonked us right in the middle of the Thirty Years War where, in central Germany - and notably in Leipzig, Dresden and Halle - life for musicians and composers was falling apart.

They had no money, they had little in the way of resources and they had to shrink their musical productivity and the size of their pieces. Yet they composed, and some of the music written by the leading composers of the day, under the impact of these dire circumstances, was the substance of another enthralling Greyfriars concert, with gripping instrumental Canzons and vocal numbers by the big three of the early baroque, Schutz, Scheidt and Schein, along with some of their vocal and mixed ensemble works, some of which were very close to mini-cantatas.

I have to say that I was underwhelmed by the Ricercar Consort's overall presentation and delivery. They spent ages tuning up and were self-effacing almost to the point of being apologetic about their projection. And didn't they want applause? It was all done in silence. And when one plonker, clearly a Weegie (moi, actually) erupted into applause after a great precursor by centuries of the Z-Cars theme, he was frowned into the silence of the trams. What a clanger, Tumelty. A great programme, massively provocative of thought, but with less impact than it should have had.

Collegium Vocale Gent/SCO/Herreweghe

Usher Hall

Kate molleson

FOUR nights ago at the International Festival, Philippe Herreweghe's account of Bach's B Minor Mass was intimate, delicate and unhurried - a marvel, but too finespun for a venue the size of the Usher Hall.

Last night found the Belgian conductor and his terrific Collegium Vocale Gent choir in altogether grander form, and the results were spectacular.

The instrumental ensemble this time was the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, who in Haydn's Nelson Mass played modern strings and period winds; Herreweghe is a period specialist but no puritan. He and the SCO are a superb match. He draws out the best of their energy and poise; they respond expertly to his knack for gorgeous phrasing.

The Nelson is more operatic than it is pious mass, and it suits the kind of big singing required from where the soloists stood behind the orchestra.

Soprano Sophie Bevan made the most of it, her contributions terrifically passionate and full-voiced.

Mezzo Sarah Connolly added clout to the line-up just by sitting there but she was wasted with so few solos.

After the interval the choir sang alone: three of Bruckner's religious motets, including the sumptuous seven-part Ave Maria. This was exquisite choral singing. It was lovingly shaped, glowingly blended, radiant from inside out. The sound was very light for Bruckner, but that is no bad thing.

Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms closed the concert in a performance that honoured every aspect of this stately, mysterious score.

Herreweghe didn't go in for the kind of Slavic pastiche or souped-up smells-and-bells that some conductors do; instead he simply found an impeccable blend between chorus and orchestra and allowed the movements to unfold with a dignity that was very moving.