Festival Music
Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia
Usher Hall, Edinburgh
Martin Kershaw
four stars
ORCHESTRAL concert programming is a study in itself, a balancing act fraught with peril. Go too far off the beaten track and you risk low audience turnout (or alienation of those who do attend); play it too safe and you are accused of selling out to the lowest common denominator.
Here we had what appeared to be the best of both worlds: evergreen classics in the first half, less familiar (and arguably more challenging) fare in the second. Now it was simply a case of presenting a strong performance, irrespective of the material, but having wheeled out cast-iron favourites in the form of Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet Overture and Rachmaninov’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, the orchestra weren’t fully convincing on either. The Tchaikovsky was an ill-disciplined affair – plenty of expressive range but lacking in cohesion (especially in the woodwind and brass), and come the full unfurling of that iconic love theme the horns fell alarmingly out of sync with the strings. The Rachmaninov, in spite of soloist Boris Berezovksy’s bullish, technically assured performance, felt like a bit of a gabble, rushing along without taking the time to savour the subtleties of the composition or revel in its lush romanticism.
Not a convincing start then, but the ensemble came wonderfully alive after the break with a truly spellbinding rendition of Schoenberg’s astonishing Pelleas und Melisande. What a glorious, fascinating work this is – almost overwhelmingly complex and dense in its construction, emotionally gruelling and yet intensely uplifting. Under conductor Antonio Pappano’s feverish direction, the players penetrated to the very soul of the piece with an understanding and maturity at once redemptive and deeply moving.
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