Music
Under the Skin of Rachmaninov
RSNO Centre, Glasgow
Michael Tumelty
three stars
I WASN’T expecting to have to slip on a newsy bunnet on Wednesday at the RSNO’s Under the Skin of Rachmaninov programme in the RSNO Centre, which I understood was to be presented by music director Peter Oundjian with assistance from associate leader, violinist William Chandler. In fact, it wasn’t presented by Peter Oundjian at all, but by Bill Chandler in his new role as artistic director of Learning and Engagement.
This is an important development. Bill Chandler (William in his formal violinistic role) is an American musician, 20-odd years in the RSNO. He is an extremely genial chap and a good communicator who has established himself as a gregarious participant in the orchestra’s pre-concert events. People warm to him: as simple as that. Now Chandler has been appointed to this new role, critical in the orchestra’s aspirations. He’ll work about 50-50 over the two jobs.
And he did pretty well in his first big outing on Wednesday: there is all the difference in the world between a 20-minute pre-concert chat and a full-on 90-minute presentation of Rachmaninov’s Second Symphony. Chandler’s biographical portraiture of the composer at play with his family offset Stravinsky’s description of Rachmaninov as a “six-and-a-half feet scowl”. He homed in on the homogeneity of the compositional technique. He zoomed in on the ubiquity of the Dies Irae chant throughout Rachmaninov’s music; and he prepared us well for Oundjian and the RSNO’s richly-played extracts. Oundjian himself was in hilarious form with his demonstrations of Rach 2 conducted badly. We are in for one cracker of an RSNO opening weekend: these guys are flying.
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