City Halls, Glasgow
It’s extraordinary what Vaughan Williams achieved with his 1950 Concerto Grosso, a work for strings conceived on several levels of player competency, from adept professionals to beginners on open strings, that somehow sounds as if no compromises have been made in achieving the ultimately wholesome, intense musical result.
It’s also remarkable that this particular assemblage of mixed-ability musicians – seasoned members of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra outnumbered by youngsters from the City of Edinburgh Council Instrumental Music Service, Glasgow CREATE and St Mary’s Music School – produced a performance that never once fell below the level of consummate artistry. “These are the future,” declared conductor Andrew Manze from his rostrum. Let’s hope our political masters were listening and provide them with one.
Then there was Manze himself, newly appointed as principal guest conductor of the SCO, and already, in his second week, proving how generous a figure he is on top of his energising musical prowess and affable communication skills.
Clearly his influence over the SCO Academy players – they and their tutors had worked together over the past two weekends rehearsing this music – was both penetrating and inspiring. From the very opening of the Concerto Grosso, a baked blanket of instantly identifiable Vaughan Williams, the quality of sound and alertness of response was magical and captivating. Beyond that curtain-raising Intrada came an edgy Burlesca Ostinato, a central Sarabande loaded with ruminating calm, a fleeting Scherzo, and a final March and Reprise whose jaunty opening bars could so easily have passed as the pawky soundtrack to an Ealing comedy.
The rest of the programme remained with Vaughan Williams but without the youngsters, now seated as observers in the choir balcony. First up was, as Classic FM would have it, everyone’s favourite VW, The Lark Ascending. Even for doubters, this was an enlightening and refreshing performance, thanks to the innate musicality of violin soloist, SCO leader Stephanie Gonley. There was nothing pressurised in her languid vision of the work, just a natural response to its poetic essence. Manze obliged accordingly, colouring its luscious orchestral textures in pastel shades, but not without reference to unexpected detail. I can’t recall ever noticing the triangle’s pertinent presence before.
In the Fifth Symphony, its flowing persona at odds with its composition during World War II, Manze’s attention to detail was again a compelling feature. Against an overriding effortlessness, driven also by the modal fluidity of Vaughan Williams’ writing, the Prelude was intensified by Manze emphasising its harmonic juxtapositions, and the Scherzo bristled with spiralling, at times ephemeral, impatience. In the Romanza, with its heart-tugging cor anglais solo, time stood magically still, before the final contentment of the Passacaglia finale and the quiet fulfilment of its closing bars.
Manze is an inspired addition to an already powerful SCO artistic team. Only good can come of it, surely.
Ken Walton
(Photo: Christopher Bowen)
This performance was recorded for the BBC’s Radio 3 in Concert Series, due for broadcast on 11 June.