BBC SSO

BBC SSO

St Mary's Church, Haddington

Keith Bruce

AS the SCO is to East Neuk, so is the BBC SSO to Lammermuir, the apparent challenge of shoe-horning a symphony orchestra into any of its East Lothian venues notwithstanding. In fact the effect of the layout of rising tiers of players, with the violas located to conductor Martyn Brabbins's right, is entirely positive in the acoustic of St Mary's, quite un-churchlike in its lack of reverberation, as one of the musicians pointed out.

So Brabbins's leisurely reading of Wagner's Siegfried Idyll showcased the dynamic range of the SSO strings, especially the delicate in the quieter passages, as well as the clarity of the wind soloists.

Similarly the flutes and piccolo in the final of Strauss's Four Last Songs have never sounded lovelier than here, but having heard Canadian Erin Wall sing so brightly and precisely at the Edinburgh Festival, it was hard to be as enthusiastic about the performance by Christine Brewer. The lower part of her range was often almost inaudible, particularly at the start of the sequence, and throughout she was guilty of travelling to the notes rather than hitting them, with number three, Beim Schlafengehen - the highpoint of this well-loved work - the worst affected.

I'm more ambivalent about Elgar's Enigma Variations, musical portraits which, for all their lovely melodies and attractive scoring, can seem a bit of a technical exercise in composition and orchestration, with none of the emotion of, say, the cello concerto (or the Serenade for Strings, whose second movement we heard as a nice coda for an encore). Brabbins's approach was winning though, again unhurried, although brisk enough in parts, and St Mary's made those timpani rolls in Nimrod sound like distant thunder.

Steven Osborne

Abbey Church, North Berwick

Kate Molleson

After all the tensions of past days and weeks, what a balsam this was. Olivier Messiaen's monumental Vingt regards sur l'enfant Jesus is a two-and-a-half-hour outpouring of ardour, hope and kaleidoscopic imagination. Written in occupied Paris in 1944 for the woman who later became his second wife, it is the composer's best-known piano work - and yet few pianists can fully encompass its vast architecture, intense colours and astounding expressive range.

Today there is no greater interpreter of Vingt regards than Scottish pianist Steven Osborne. He has been playing it for nearly 20 years and recorded it (brilliantly) in 2002. This performance at the Lammermuir Festival was a profound musical experience, crafted in a single arch but given ample room to breathe. Sun streamed through the windows of North Berwick's simple, airy Abbey Church and gulls screeched in the background. As Osborne began to play a large black butterfly flitted across the stage.

Messiaen gives his performers a huge amount of information, from what colour palette or bird call to conjure down to what finger to use on a particular note. Yet Osborne's personal touch is unmistakable.

In calm movements he captures an extraordinary stillness; in agitated movements he is muscular, forthright and passionate. There's an honesty to his playing that doesn't attempt to mask the fearsome technical challenges of this work, but he achieves an overview, too, never bogged down in the dense writing.

And although Messiaen isn't often associated with humour, there was undeniable wit in Osborne's fifteenth Regard, a sultry lullaby full of pastiche and flourish.

Scottish classical audiences rarely give standing ovations; here it was inevitable.

Bartosz Woroch

Holy Trinity Church, Haddington

Kate Molleson

All violinists have to confront Bach at some point or other: the composer's six partitas and sonatas are the bedrock of the instrument's solo repertoire and the benchmark for generations of great players. Polish violinist Bartosz Woroch, born in 1984, devised his late-night Lammermuir Festival recital around the first of the sonatas: the dark G-minor, with its searching adagio and fitful presto finale. Around it he programmed two 20th century works, both also in G-minor, both directly inspired by Bach's sonata.

He began with a full-throttle, brawny account, Eugene Ysaye's First Sonata, full of fire but a little relentless. Woroch was leader of the Poznan Philharmonic from 2002-2008 (dates that, when you do the arithmetic, made him outrageously young for the post) and his orchestral experience shows in his unfussy, forthright attack. The fluidity of his playing is refreshing and his sound is wonderfully rich and uninhibited, but in such an intimate setting - Haddington's Trinity Church is petite, its acoustic warm and immediate - he could have afforded more attention to contour. To paraphrase the great Hungarian violinist Sandor Vegh, he could have spoken, not shouted.

This was especially true in the Bach. Woroch's performance of the First Sonata was hearty and robust but not especially nuanced, with a bold, anguished adagio, a thick-set fugue and a blistering finale. He was at his best in the Chaconne from Bartok's Sonata for solo violin. Written in the early 1940s for Yehudi Menuhin and infused with a fierce Hungarian folk spirit, this is music that demands the kind of scale and hot-blooded drama that Woroch gave it.

Hebrides Ensemble/Leleux

Stenton Church

Kate Molleson

The terrific French oboist Francois Leleux was artist in residence at this year's Lammermuir Festival, using the opportunity to explore repertoire from Bach to Berio.

He is a fearless, flawless player - during this recital with the Hebrides Ensemble he breezily turned pages with one hand while playing with the other. His sound is plush and enormous. It would be a treat to hear him in just about any music.

That said, his choice of an arrangement for oboe, string trio and piano of Mozart's great Gran Partita serenade was bizarre. The reduction was made by a contemporary of Mozart called Christian Schwenke, presumably to suit a combination of instruments available at the time. Why play it now?

The Gran Partita is a glorious piece of wind writing full of weird and wonderful colours: that squeezebox gaggle of basset horns, that lavishly dark, buzzy combination of bassoons and horns.

Inevitably Schwenke channelled much of it into the piano part, which even in Philip Moore's classy hands sounded like the filler it is.

There was some fine playing (and some ropey playing) in this performance, but where was the textural magic at the beginning of the adagio? Where was the playful spark in the theme and variations? Without the intriguing instrumental pairings the minuets felt long - and the Gran Partita should never feel long.

The programme opened with Oliver Knussen's Cantata for oboe and string trio. This is gorgeous writing, and very vocal. Leleux's lines were rhapsodic, then passionately agitated, then a puckish, crazed dance, then a soaring voice against pale, lapping strings.

The closing bars are classic Knussen atmosphere, beautifully evoked here.