Lang Lang

Usher Hall, Edinburgh

Mitsuko Uchida

Usher Hall, Edinburgh

The Mutter Virtuosi

Usher Hall Edinburgh

All runs ended

Reviewed by Alan Morrison

The old joke says that Scotland’s weather can deliver all the seasons in a single day. The Edinburgh International Festival’s classical concert series at the Usher Hall went one better: not once but twice did big-name performers rip through January to December in their respective programmes. First came Chinese superstar Lang Lang with Tchaikovsky’s 12-part piano cycle; a few days later it was the turn of violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter and her young string ensemble, making something bright and vibrant of Vivaldi’s repertoire favourite, Le Quattro Stagioni.

There was no hotter ticket in town than Lang Lang’s solo recital EIF debut, particularly after an ear infection had caused him to cancel his performance of Bartok’s Piano Concerto No 2 (with the Philharmonia Orchestra) two days earlier. His flamboyant attack on the keyboard is not always to the purists’ taste. Hands rise high in the air, seem almost to stroke his heart or his cheek, then float down to caress a note or descend dramatically to pound out a rhythm. Concert hall etiquette be damned: the most popular sections of Tchaikovsky’s The Seasons (a calm June, a stormy August) received their own rapturous applause before December drew to a close.

His unfashionably expressive reading of Bach’s Italian Concerto pushed feeling ahead of formal technique – no mean feat in itself – but the programme as a whole seemed to have been chosen to accentuate opposites: sudden tempo changes, abrupt emotional about-faces. This carried through to the second half, with Chopin’s Four Scherzos, all played with exhibitionist style over genuine artistic substance. He even changed his shirt at the interval, from crisp white to deepest black.

If Lang Lang’s EIF appearance was a calendar event above all else, Mitsuko Uchida’s solo performance a few nights later was the kind of world-class recital on which the EIF thrives. Even if she did dress in something that resembled Elsa’s cloak from Frozen, her playing on Schubert’s Impromptus was more notably restrained, fingers rarely a few millimetres above the keys. And yet the full spectrum of tonal shades was here: joy in the shimmering velocity of the E flat major Allegro, rippling pools of serenity in the G flat major Andante, a singing voice drawn from the A flat major Allegretto.

Her second-half performance of Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations – 33 bursts of colour that, over an hour, can sometimes be as demanding for the audience as for the musician – shone with technical brilliance, achieving an astonishing balance of delicacy and power. There was no self-conscious flash here but, as applause rang out, Uchida sat on the piano stool, head bowed, emotionally spent.

Choice of apparel was also a clue, it has to be said, to the thinking behind Anne-Sophie Mutter’s presentation of her ensemble of gifted young musicians, the Virtuosi: she in tight, oriental dress of shocking pink and gold, them in concert-stage black. Were it not for the undoubted talent of the young players, you’d be forgiven for considering this as star veteran and backing band.

This programme didn’t take as many risks as appeared on paper. Yes, two new 21st-century pieces were juxtaposed with two of the most familiar 18th-century favourites, but in the event Krzysztof Penderecki’s Duo Concertante for Violin and Double Bass was but a brief prelude, albeit one with thrilling bass textures, while Andre Previn’s Nonet for Two String Quartets and Double Bass (receiving its world premiere) set up intriguing conversations between soloists, individual quartets and the whole group but disappointed in terms of its harmonic and melodic ideas.

Like a proud mother showing off her clever children, Mutter brought out a different musical partner for each of the three movements of Bach’s Concerto for Two Violins; the leader’s encouraging smiles and post-finale hugs were also shared after Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. Both pieces benefitted from youthful vigour but felt very safe in their settings.

In terms of audience crossover and opening the Usher Hall’s doors to a wider public, Mutter, Uchida and Lang Lang have the box-office clout of, say, Juliette Binoche and Sylvie Guillem on the Festival’s other stages. But, Uchida aside, their musical star power occasionally skimmed over the surface of less exciting repertoire choices.