For its first decent run of dates in Europe with principal conductor Robin Ticciati the SCO has a soloist, Portuguese pianist Maria Joao Pires, and a programme (Wagner, Mozart and Beethoven) that is almost guaranteed to give orchestra and conductor important exposure.
In Brussels, certainly, the audience came, filling the sizeable horseshoe hall of the (usually abbreviated) Palais des Beaux-Arts with an enthusiastic crowd of, noticeably, all ages. Which would be as nothing if the performance was not of note, but this is a team at the top of its game. Wagner's Siegfried Idyll and Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony were perfect partners here in an exploration of rigourous, sophisticated Romanticism. From the opening of the Wagner, the ensemble playing in the strings was superb, with the quartet of cellos, for example, absolutely as one instrument, while Alec Frank-Gemmill's solo horn shone in Ticciati's measured and flowing treatment.
That precision, applied to a bold account of Beethoven's Sixth Symphony, was nothing less than a revelation. Employing some radical bowings, this was indeed profoundly pastoral, crisply played birdcalls and all, but never lazily lush. With almost Haydn-esque rhythms at times, the storm scene brought guest leader Markus Daunert out of his seat in what was a visceral experience, overused thought that adjective is. The complexity of the metre – to employ an appropriate poetic term – at the start of the final movement was also wonderfully realised. This is a Sixth not to miss when it has three Scottish performances next week.
All of which left Mozart's Piano Concerto no 17 of 1784 as an unlikely third best. The composer is meat and drink to these players, but Pires, who had been ill, was not on robust form, beautifully articulate but less than dynamic.
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