St Magnus Festival
Norwegian Radio Orchestra
Pickaquoy Centre, Kirkwall
Duo Van Vliet and Joseph Shiner
St Magnus Cathedral, Kirkwall
Hazel Rowland
THE NORWEGIAN Radio Orchestra is not a frequent visitor to the UK, but after their final performance at the St Magnus International Festival, listeners will be hoping they become so. Opening with excerpts from Peer Gynt by their compatriot Grieg was always going to be a winner. Yet their conductor Miguel Harth-Bedoya also ensured this well-known piece was magnificent rather than corny, especially during the famous first movement, Morning Mood. Of course, he was well supported by his musicians: Jake Mendis-Fridkis produced utter sweetness during his opening solo, matched by Trygve Aarvik’s response on the oboe.
Pianist Steven Osborne joined for Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G. Despite the impressive speed the first movement demands, Osborne played with effortless smoothness. His ease however meant the movement lost some of its thrill, but he offset this in the second movement, where his simple opening solo was utterly captivating. Keeping with the festival’s contemporary focus, the orchestra then gave the British premier of Victor Agudelo’s La Madre de Agua (Mother Water). This quirky piece was brash rather than subtle, with long passages of a relentless tune becoming rather wearisome. It supposedly depicts a Colombian aquatic divinity, though how exactly was not obvious.
Sibelius’s Symphony No.5 gave the orchestra opportunity to show-off. We were treated to the beautiful round sound of the horns, while in the final movement the strings expertly moved from lightness to melancholy. The orchestra’s enjoyment was palpable – one could detect several smiles as players awaited their entrance. Meanwhile, Harth-Bedoya excelled at navigating the twists and turns of Sibelius’s second movement, and in the last movement he boldly held the tense pauses between its final chords. With a such a performance, it was easily forgotten we were sitting in a rather less dreamy setting: a sports hall in Kirkwall’s local leisure centre.
A different experience came in the late-night concert in St Magnus Cathedral afterwards. Joined by the clarinettist Joseph Shiner, Duo Van Vliet – an unusual pairing of accordion and viola – presented a mixture of arrangements and contemporary works. The arrangements of songs by Dowland and Purcell were less convincing, with violist Ian Anderson failing to capture the emotional depth of these songs in a performance of limited expressive breadth. This may have been due to some deficiency in the arrangement: the balance between the instruments was often not right, with the accordion regularly overpowering the viola, preventing Anderson from playing quietly, as he risked not being heard.
Contemporary works by Simas Sapiega, Andrew Thomas, Freya Waley-Cohen and Toshio Hosokawa fared better, having been written specifically for these instruments. Asking the audience to listen to four contemporary works in a row after 10pm was a big ask, however, even if there were some moments of interest, such as the curious effect of a breathy accordion during Thomas’s The Sound of the Waves, which really sounded like the ocean. Shiner was nevertheless a captivating performer and enthralling in his off-stage performance of Messiaen’s Abîme des oiseaux. The gradual crescendo across long-held notes worked a treat, as Shiner’s unforced sound curled its way around the cathedral’s large space.
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