SCO
City Hall, Glasgow ****
There was a very special character to the SCO's outstanding performance on Friday night of Haydn's The Seasons, conducted by Olari Elts and closing the orchestra's winter concert season in Glasgow.
Clearly, the reaction of the large audience, which included a contingent bussed through from an Edinburgh with no functioning Usher Hall, chimed with my own view. But what was that special quality? What was it that made this performance a fitting anniversary tribute to Haydn's incredible originality and peerless invention?
It wasn't just the playing of the SCO, which might have been a shade under the level at which it has been performing most of this season. Nor was it just the astounding woodwind playing of the band, or the phenomenally decisive continuo playing of the SCO's great principal cellist, David Watkin.
It wasn't just the trio of superb soloists, soprano Elizabeth Watts, tenor John Mark Ainsley and ubiquitous baritone Roderick Williams who, individually and collectively, graced The Seasons with their characterisation, wit and warmth; or the SCO Chorus with their solid body of sound, impressive balance, and articulation that demonstrated equal awareness of music and text.
And nor, indeed, was it just Olari Elts, whose conducting conjured all the Handelian majesty, Beethovenian drama, atmosphere, pictorialism, humour, tenderness, humanity and sheer fun with which Haydn's magnificent score is suffused.
So what was it, then, that made this account of the Seasons, still ringing in my head as I type, two hours after the show ended, so memorable?
There's no punchline. Simply, it was a compelling compound of all the above elements, combined in a very rare democracy of excellence. At every level it was stamped with integrity. That's it.
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