Tag Archives: Catherine Larsen-Maguire

NYOS / Larsen-Maguire

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Glasgow Royal Concert Hall.

It’s heartening to think, with all the disruption to musical education and performance that happened during and beyond Covid, that our National Youth Orchestra can tackle one of classical music’s most mountainous challenges. The proof was tangible last weekend, with performances in Edinburgh and the newly-refurbished Glasgow Royal Concert Hall by the NYOS Symphony Orchestra of Mahler’s magnificent Symphony No 7.

Under the English-born conductor, Catherine Larsen-Maguire, there were so many moments when you could have sworn the massed musicians on stage were hard-worn professionals. For this is a symphony that demands every facet of seasoned musicianship: unbending stamina, steely conviction, technical virtuosity and, most of all, an assertive understanding of Mahler’s wild emotional thoughts.

For the most part, that’s what this Glasgow audience witnessed. Larsen-Maguire, a conductor used to working with such prodigious youth, struck an inspiring balance between strict disciplining of her forces and allowing enough latitude in solo or small ensemble passages that call for more intuitive self-expression. 

Key among the latter were the soaring violin solos of leader Chun-Yi Gang, the punchy dynamism of the orchestra’s timpanist, a trumpet section that scaled dizzy heights, and horn playing that was gloriously ripe and radiant. As for the fullness of the entire ensemble, Larsen-Maguire extracted an ever-changing array of colour, from the symphony’s sombre opening mood, through the nocturnal rumination of the two Nachtmusik movements and wilder demonic Scherzo, to the resplendent awakening of the Finale.

There was very little in this performance that did not project with emotive self-belief and impressive resilience, except perhaps the final movement, where concentration dipped but reasserted itself for a biting finish.

Exciting challenges also presented themselves, though of a different nature, in Lotta Wennäkoski’s guitar concerto Susurrus, which preceded the Mahler and featured the pre-eminent guitarist Sean Shibe. It’s a work that challenges the norm in both guitar and orchestral techniques. A clue lies in the title, which means rustling or rasping, resulting in a sound world packed with exotic colourings, ethereal effects and very little in the way of a tune.

As such, it is beguiling, Shibe at one point even extracting an eeriness from his instrument with a plastic ruler and the orchestra responding with abstract like-mindedness. That said, Wennäkoski adds fire to her music in the form of motorised rhythms, glistening textures and a surprisingly curt ending that nips a late emergence of extrovert showmanship in the bud. These NYOS players took to its alluring unorthodoxy like fish to water.

Ken Walton

(Picture: Ryan Buchanan)

Amicus Orchestra / Larsen-Maguire

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RSNO Centre, Glasgow

After appearing as a member of the New Antonine Brass at Drygate in Glasgow four days earlier (see VoxCarnyx review), Scottish Opera Orchestra horn Lauren Reeve-Rawlings was also soloist-to-the-rescue for Sunday’s concert by the Amicus Orchestra after RSNO Principal Christopher Gough tested positive for Covid.

For a non-professional outfit like this one – some musicians now in non-playing roles in Scottish music, many players acquainted through involvement in the National Youth Orchestra of Scotland in their younger days – last-minute changes of repertoire are not an option, so Reeve-Rawlings stepping up to play a comparative rarity like Richard Strauss’s Horn Concerto No 1 really did save the day.

There is plenty conversation between the soloist and sections of the orchestra in the work, and conductor Catherine Larsen-Maguire ensured that their last-minute introduction to one another was never an issue. Articulate and fluid, Reeve-Rawlings brought a poised and relaxed approach to her role.

The involvement of the conductor with this orchestra in recent years has audibly raised its game. That was obvious both in the programme, culminating in Mahler’s Fourth Symphony, and the choice of venue. The sparkling acoustic of this “new” auditorium offers no hiding places – everyone has to be at the top of their game.

The quality of the listening on stage was clear as the programme unfolded. At the beginning of Beethoven’s Egmont Overture there was some wayward intonation in the lower strings, but that had vanished by the slow movement of the Mahler, when it might have been more of a problem.

Quality performances in the wind section were apparent in the Beethoven and across the whole concert, and the orchestra’s first horn James Goodenough richly deserved his solo bow for his playing in the symphony.

Soprano Catriona Hewitson, a Scottish Opera Emerging Artist soon to be seen as Tytania in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, was giving her debut performance of Das himmlische Leben in the work’s final movement, but smart money would bet on it being the first of many. Of all the composer’s use of the songs of the Das Knaben Wunderhorn collection, this is probably the audience favourite, and it was easy to hear how it will surely become a calling-card for the Edinburgh singer.

If Mahler is a bold choice for an amateur orchestra, the transparency of the composer’s intentions also make it a fruitful one for a relationship that is clearly working as well as that of Larsen-Maguire with Amicus. This was a concert of which they can all be justly proud.

Keith Bruce

Portrait of Catriona Hewitson by Julie Howden