RSNO/Sondergard 

Usher Hall, Edinburgh 

Keith Bruce 

five stars 

NOT since Anna Meredith’s Torque was played by the BBC Philharmonic under James MacMillan in Huddersfield two decades ago has the premiere of a work by a young Scottish composer made such an immediate impression. 

Conductor Thomas Sondergard and the RSNO must certainly have had full confidence in Lisa Robertson’s am fior-eun, which evokes the flight and environment of eagles near her West Highland home, to programme it alongside Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto and the last symphony by Brahms. 

Robertson made her own impression at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival with a solo violin piece – she studied under RSNO leader Maya Iwabuchi, who introduced her here, before moving into composition – but her new work makes full dramatic use of the entire orchestra. 

An absolutely packed Usher Hall was held in rapt concentration by her eight minutes of superbly pictorial, mature writing, the swooping grace of the birds made as visible in the score as the landscape they inhabit. Written with the skills of individual players clearly in mind, and asking for some particularly eloquent playing from the strings, am fior-eun was the winner of the RSNO Composer’s Hub project that ran in the 2021-22 season and fantastic fruit of that initiative. 

Swiss pianist Francesco Piemontesi is still best known in Scotland for his concerts and recordings with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, but he and Sondergard have developed a fruitful relationship that operates on a different scale. Playing with his own distinctive combination of delicacy and power, Piemontesi ensured that not a note of his solo line was subsumed by a symphony orchestra giving its all. Through historically-informed practice we now almost expect to hear this repertoire, as well as earlier music, from smaller “authentic” forces, but this was full-fat Beethoven and quite magnificent. 

If soloist and conductor were making a statement, it was one that Sondergard continued in the Brahms. Again, recently admired cycles of Brahms symphonies have not been by symphony orchestras, but this performance made a compelling case that the dark hues of No 4 are only fully realised by a big outfit. Although the conductor’s calming left hand occasionally called for some restraint, he led a bold reading that was as precise as it was huge, and unafraid of some old-fashioned rubato. 

This weekend’s concerts were the last as first horn by the departing Chris Gough, and his contribution, in duo with Alison Murray, were highlights that will live long in the memory. 

ends