Music
Scottish Chamber Orchestra
City Halls, Glasgow
Keith Bruce
*****
I CANNOT claim to have noticed it when the young Russian stepped in for Robin Ticciati last season and the SCO musicians decided they had found Ticciati’s successor as principal conductor, but Maxim Emelyanychev is startlingly ambidextrous. While rarely losing his indication of the beat, it is constantly switching between his right and left hands as he similarly uses both to cue entrances and musical expression. Not only are his arms carving huge arcs in the air around him, but he is often dancing at the same time – small wonder he elected to direct Haydn’s The Seasons without either a podium or baton: either may have proved dangerous.
Emelyanychev is not contracted to take up his position until next year, but this early opportunity to see him in action again – a substitute this time for indisposed Canadian conductor Bernard Labadie – gave the SCO and its chorus a very special addition to this season. As he had done last time out, Emelyanychev immediately drew tremendous energy from the orchestra in the Spring Overture, so much so that the entry of the three soloists and then, even more so, the choir, seemed like a calming influence.
Gregory Batsleer has the SCO Chorus operating as a lean efficient machine, capable of vigour to match the string players at the end of that opening movement, and of a volume that defies its compact size (fewer than 30 women and less than two dozen men), as well a singing of great delicacy. There was luxury casting for the soloists too - bass-baritone Neal Davies, tenor Andrew Staples and soprano Lucy Crowe - all of whom were on top form, with Staples particularly outstanding throughout – his Summer Cavatina “Dem Druck erlieget die Natur”, will live in the memory for some time.
Essentially though, The Seasons is an ensemble work, and everything gelled perfectly here under Emelyanychev, a slightly woolly start to the late Winter Chorus “Knurre, schnurre, knurre!” notwithstanding. He looked a little like he’d run a 10K at the end, and little wonder.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here