Music
Scottish Ensemble
Merchants House, Glasgow
Keith Bruce
five stars
THERE was a queue down the stairs for seats at Wednesday lunchtime's recital by a quintet from Jonathan Morton's Scottish Ensemble, and little wonder. For all that the group is dedicated to "reinventing the string orchestra", here just five of the players were on a short journey through what might be seen as core repertoire, but in fact an opportunity to hear some unfamiliar melodies by Mozart and Brahms. Yet the only obstacle to their performance is the addition of a second viola (Andrew Berridge) to a string quartet (Morton, Cheryl Crockett, Catherine Marwood and Alison Lawrance).
If Mozart's G Minor quintet is an elegy for his father Leopold, in failing health during its composition, it is far from miserable. Marwood often took the lead voice from Morton, with all the chord colour combinations of a quintet explored in the first movement and a crucial difference in tone between her viola and that of Berridge, whose sound was darker and nearer that of the cello. In a work where rests are often as crucial as the notes, the central movements boast lovely tunes and the finale is Mozart at his most playful and lively.
There are fragments of Brahms' unwritten fifth symphony in the big bold opening of his Opus 111 in G Major, composed a century later and which he intended as his swansong, although in fact he composed loads of keyboard music, some songs and his masterpieces for clarinet afterwards. More complex in its interweaving lines,, the leader had to wait until the Minuet for his big tune, which sits between a gorgeous Adagio and a last movement that ends on a very jolly dancing note.
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