Tag Archives: Mendelssohn

RSNO / Søndergård

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Glasgow Royal Concert Hall

Between them, the Mendelssohn siblings lived the aggregate equivalent of one lengthy life span: Felix shuffling off this mortal coil at the age of 38, his big sister Fanny in the same year, 1847, aged 41. Felix, as a man of his time, clearly got the better deal when it came to exposure as a composer, yet it’s often claimed that Fanny, had she been gifted a more even societal hand, would have been recognised as equal, if not better, in creative terms. It’s a moot point, though enough evidence of her talent exists to at least sustain the question.

One of these pieces is the Overture in C, her first orchestral work written as a married mother and therefore attributed to Fanny Hensel. A work of exceptional craftsmanship, neatly sculpted, engagingly tuneful and touched by a Weber-like sense of the theatrical, it was an energising springboard to a programme that would later end with one of her brother’s theatrically-inspired masterpieces. 

Music director Thomas Søndergård’s firm belief in it emerged instantly, a tropical warmth emanating from the strings, enhanced by a sweet, often playful interplay among the woodwind and brass, and a rhythmic energy that was excitedly crisp, precise and punchy. Moments passed where echoes of her brother’s lyrical virility took hold, and there were lengthy paragraphs where Beethoven’s ghost was the reference point, but there was never any denying the genuinely cohesive worth of this artful overture.

Saturday’s programme was also a showpiece for the RSNO Youth Chorus, currently flourishing under its director Patrick Barrett. They produced an absolute gem in the form of British-born composer James Burton’s The Lost Words, settings of poems from Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris’ eponymous book mourning the loss in some dictionaries of certain childhood vocabulary: words like “Conker”, “Bluebell” and “Wren”. 

The vocal animation in Burton’s music, his sense of fun and pawky irony, is a perfect match for such young singers, who delivered its rhythmical jokes and stylistic variability – the whimsical word-play of Newt, the bluesy Bluebell, a wistful Willow and Disney-style Wren – with remarkably clear enunciation and accuracy. Though written five years ago, this was the first full performance of Burton’s orchestrated version, a luxuriously expanded illumination of songs that are so intrinsically characterful.

Returning to the Mendelssohn family, the concert ended with Felix’s atmospheric incidental music to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, featuring Scots actor Christine Steel as the lucid, unshowy narrator, the duetting charms of Carine Tinney (soprano) and Rosamond Thomas (mezzo-soprano) and once again the spritely voices of the Youth Chorus. 

Søndergård, like a veritable circus ringmaster, exerted immaculate control of his forces, the performance unfolding with impeccable timing, seamless tempi and generous sprinklings of musical fairy dust. Mendelssohn’s genius – his exquisitely detailed instrumental palette and the pertinent charm of the vocal writing – cast its exquisite spell.

Ken Walton 

RSNO / Widmann

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RSNO Centre, Glasgow

He’s a conductor, a composer and a virtuoso clarinettist, so Jörg Widmann came as the complete package to an RSNO digital programme that combined Mozart’s much-loved Clarinet Concerto, Mendelssohn’s robust Reformation Symphony and Widmann’s own capricious Fantasie for solo clarinet.

It also meant that Widmann’s charismatic personality fed through every morsel of this filmed concert, not least that side of him – obvious from his affable pre-performance chat – that is undogmatic, free-spirited and spontaneously musical. If that meant pushing the letter of the score to some extremes in the Mozart and Mendelssohn, eschewing absolute adherence to tempi in favour of greater expressive freedom, it was done with such self-belief that it invariably triumphed.

What that required, in the Mozart, was an RSNO capable of engineering its own coordinated support, as Widmann’s direction was largely gestural and minimal. For the most part, the response was intuitive and beautifully symbiotic, the band instantly reactive to the teasing elasticity which he exercised in many of the work’s unforgettable themes.

Nor was it surprising to witness the smiling Mozartian brio of Widmann’s precision playing, warmed by the gritty tonal personality of his instrument, echoed in an orchestral ensemble fully signed up to his articulate, clear-minded vision. Where ensemble glitches occurred they were minor, the uppermost strings occasionally appearing thin and scurrying, but these were incidental in a thoroughly engaging, thought-provoking performance.

Widmann had the stage to himself in his own Fantasie, a madcap virtuoso concert piece conceived as a one-man musical reimagining of Commedia dell’Arte. Multiple “characters” interact with surreal, often cartoon-like wit, the manic agility of the clarinet writing – even a manufactured 4-part chord – central to its savage cut and thrust. A mesmerising performance.

Nothing quite brings you back down to earth like a Mendelssohn symphony, especially the “Reformation”, written in 1830 to celebrate the tercentenary of the Lutheran Augsburg Confession, complete with the gravitational “mighty fortress” presence of Martin Luther’s chorale tune ”Ein feste Burg” as the mainstay of its final movement.

As with the Mozart, but now solely conducting the orchestra, Widmann’s approach was hungry and personal. That same resistance to rigidity opened up intriguing expressive possibilities: slow, punctuating breaths that gave added weight to new phrases; a persuasive energy that fuelled the unstinting momentum; shudders in tempo that sailed close to the wind in the Andante, but never so much as to knock it off course; and solid, brazen tuttis that ripened fully in the final moments.
www.rsno.org.uk
Ken Walton

Image: Jörg Widmann

SCO/ Mozart & Mendelssohn

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Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh

It may come under the banner of chamber music, but a coupling of Mozart’s probing G minor String Quintet K516 and Mendelssohn’s youthfully exuberant Octet represents something altogether more massive in physical stature and emotional heft. So it’s hardly surprising that this latest programme in the SCO’s digital Chamber Music Series proved not only one of the lengthiest, but also the most exhaustive and exhilarating to date. 

In the first of these, Mozart takes us through the wringer with music that strives to reconcile troublesome thoughts, that expresses its journey through a fragmentary healing process and a final shift to the major key that is as much about transformative release as triumphant consummation.
 
And this performance, led compellingly and demonstratively by lead violinist Maria Wloszczowska, knew exactly where it was taking us and how it would get there. The sighing phrases of the opening Allegro, articulated with raw vibrato-less poignancy, tugged gnawingly at the heartstrings. With the Menuetto came a deeper agitation before the muted Adagio, no less troubled, but offering rays of hope as it edged towards the transformative discourse of the closing Allegro.

If the meaty ensemble mix in the Mozart was a thrill in itself, it was soon to expand to the eightsome forces of the Mendelssohn. Written – as second violinist Gordon Bragg reminded us in his programme introduction – when Mendelssohn was but a lad, it’s a work of uncanny maturity fired by the spontaneous ferocity of youth, an incendiary combination articulated with tantalising vitality in this performance.

Knowing gestures, friendly smiles and all-out teamwork were the outward signs of a corporate internalised instinct. Where dazzling, detailed interplay made much of work’s dizzying intricacies – just occasionally edging over the safety limit – there was ample symphonic fullness when the moment demanded. It’s a work we hear time and time again, but just sometimes, like this, you sit up and take fresh notice.  
Ken Walton