Music
BBC SSO/Dausgaard
Usher Hall, Edinburgh
Keith Bruce
five stars
THE MUSIC played may have covered a very specific era of French composition, but there were echoes of nearly half a century of Scottish music-making to be heard from the stage of the Usher Hall on Sunday afternoon.
The soloist for Maurice Ravel’s Piano Concerto for the Left Hand was the composer’s fellow Basque, Bilboa-born veteran Joaquin Achucarro, 86 on the first day of this month and last heard in the company of this orchestra at the Usher Hall on March 8, 1971. The conductor for that live broadcast on BBC Radio 3 was James Loughran, on the eve of his departure from Scotland to succeed Sir John Barbirolli at the Halle in Manchester. He would return three years later, for the debut concert of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, and by chance the SCO provided both the leader of the basses, Nikita Naumov, and the cor anglais of Rosie Staniforth, whose solo playing was essential throughout the afternoon, from the opening bars of Nuages, the first of Debussy’s Nocturnes.
With 17 young women from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland providing the wordless vocals for the closing Sirenes, this was the first evidence of the emphasis conductor Thomas Dausgaard would put on dynamic control throughout a range of Debussy’s orchestral music. The ballroom abandon of the central Fetes section was the most freewheeling release by way of contrast.
After the interval, principal flute Charlotte Ashton opened the Prelude a l’apres-midi d’un faune in breath-catching sotto voce fashion, and that control was also evident in the restraint of the second violins later, in a reading that was all about swell and space. As with the Nocturnes, Dausgaard made clear distinction between the three sections of La Mer where the performance seemed designed to emphasise the separate voices of harps, solo trumpet, piccolo and percussion as ingredients of the ensemble sound.
Ravel’s concerto lays out its lower register materials at the start, with contra-bassoon, bass clarinet and Naumov’s string basses, before the piano steals all the attention with the jazzy chords of the faster material. As the work unfolded, the conductor was obviously attentive to his experienced soloist in matters of tempo, particularly in the build-up to the dramatic finale.
ends
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 hereComments are closed on this article