RSNO / Morgan
Perth Concert Hall
If an artist at Glasgow’s Celtic Connections festival, which begins in ten days, was to precede Dougie MacLean’s Caledonia with Harry Lauder’s Keep Right on to the End of the Road it might attract remark, and a suspicion that some wry political comment was intended.
It is probably safe to say that there was no irony intended in that juxtaposition in Perth, however, as – even more improbably – the coupling was sandwiched between the Blue Danube Waltz and the Radetzky March as part of the RSNO’s Viennese Gala. Did this bold programming succeed? No, not really.
This year may hear a lot of music by Johan Strauss II – the star member of the Austrian composing dynasty – as 2025 is the bicentenary of his birth. He was the main composer here too, the first half opening with the familiar Overture to Die Fledermaus and the second with the much less well known opening music for his last operetta Die Gottin der Vernunft, which was a real treat, graced with lovely solo playing from orchestra leader Lena Zeliszewska.
With the RSNO’s Assistant Conductor Derrick Morgan on the podium, the fact that this tour-opener at home coincides with the orchestra touring simultaneously in China left a surprisingly recognisable band with the first violins and cellos made up entirely of familiar faces and the staff oboes in their place. There were fresh faces in the winds and brass, but principals from the BBC SSO and Orchestra of Scottish Opera as well, so the music was in safe hands.
Doubling as presenter and guest soloist was tenor Jamie MacDougall, with words of introduction for the music and four songs of his own. Two of those were those contrasting Scots favourites, the Lauder a shameless plug for MacDougall’s one-man show, which will be part of the Perth Festival in May.
If they seemed out of place, so too did MacDougall’s other choices, interesting though they were in themselves. Both were by German film composers of the 1930s, Werner Richard Heymann’s Irgendwo auf der Welt and Hans Mayer’s Ein Lied geht um die Welt, and of a style that had little in common with either Strauss or the Scotsmen.
Nor, it has to be said, did Morgan and the RSNO bring enough much-needed swing to those scores, but then the polkas and waltzes of Strauss could also have done with a little more dancefloor sass.
Other music by Lehar and Offenbach sat much better with the Strauss, and Danish composer Hans Christian Lumbye’s fun Champagne Galop gave Simon Lowdon’s percussion section some fun in the toybox, but the concert as a whole lacked celebratory fizz.
Keith Bruce
The RSNO’s Viennese Gala 2025 tours to Langholm, Inverness and Greenock on January 8, 9 & 10.
Picture: Jamie MacDougall